Indian Saffronism in the Pretext of Hindutva: A threat to Indian Secular Posture

History has witnessed from the past 1440 years of illegitimate barbarianism of Hindus; either it’s from Prophet’s Era or so called in the modern world of secular Hindus. Hindus are against the Islamic ethos right from the day of its inception. In contemporary era of 21st century; Muslims are not safeguarded throughout the world, in fact they do not feel safe in the world’s biggest democratic state i.e. India, which has unfortunately came under the rule of elites who worship Saffronism and consider it as an ideology.

To portray a vivid concept of Saffronism, it is essential to bog down the details and background of Hindutva because it is held accountable for the actions of existing radical barbarian parivar (family) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The term Hindutva has been derived from two footings i.e. Hindu and Tattva which means Hindu Principles. There are few proponents of Hindutva who constructed this menace back in 1923 leading amongst which was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) who promoted the ideology of seeking hegemony of Hindus and the Hindu way of life.

The followers of Hindutva instigated the hatred, violence through their extremist propaganda in order to suppress the Muslim and Christian sentiments to attain Hindu dominance. According to Hindutva teachings, to be an Indian means to be a Hindu. It is self-evident that there is no place for another religion or minority to live an independent life. Another extremist minded proponent of Hindutva Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1890-1940)revived the vicious concept of Hindutva under the name of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925. Making it short for better indulgent, they were promulgating the slogan called one nation, one culture, one race, one religion which is Hinduism.This group contains subgroups like RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak), BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and few other smaller regional groups are the core believers and followers of Hindutva ideology. RSS arose as a side growth of the Mahasabha (Indian assembly) but developed its own individuality later.

Hindutva emerged as an exclusivist racial concept which ascends the notion that only religious communities of India who have originated from Indian soil are the only part of India. Setting aside the ideological impression of secular India, Hindutva and its followers have waged strong hostility against the minorities existing in Indian state. Another important cliché of the birth of Hindutva ideology was to establish hegemony of Hindus and their legacy in India. All the groups associated with Hindutva ideology sought to establish and impose hegemony in the region on the basis of religion and race and the same policy is being used by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Modi regime.

Religion and democracy have been seen together since independence in India. During the course of history, Hindu majoritarianism has been perceived under the ruling government in India. Hindutva politics has influenced the course of India’s economy, foreign policy and dynamics towards its neighboring countries. Hindu nationalism moreover, has been playing a significant role in India’s democracy under the political leadership of BJP. Hindutva has been used as a creed to get political control over the nation. The vivid face of Hindutva politics were seen during the Gujarat riots in 2002 which ended up massacring hundreds of Muslims when Modi was serving as chief minister.

Though it was a social organization and many political parties had been influenced by this, especially Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because RSS was influenced through politics and it is the biggest Hindu based organization so far, After getting the support of BJP, Sangh organization started to flourish hence became a threat for minorities as well as it also pose threat to their secular posture as mentioned earlier. Arrays of questions are raised when we digout the activities of rabid organization (RSS) and a political party (BJP). a) How Hindutva led Indian politics has affected the policy formation of India towards Pakistan? b) What would be the future prospects of Hindutva led Indian politics? The last but not least, one of the most important questions is how India has been compromising secularism on the basis of Hindutva?

India claims itself a secular state but it has been almost7months (213days), when India revoked Article 370 & 35A of its constitution and brought Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir under its jurisdiction. Kashmir has been under curfew, communication, media blackout and atrocities against minorities is the daily routine business of Indian forces in Kashmir under the BJP leadership which negates the definition of being a secular state and contradicts with the behavior of a secular state. Secularism is not emboldened upon the religion and that it has nothing to do with law making; religious institutions are accounted separately from the state. Secular states do not discriminate or judge people on the basis of religion or religious beliefs. Modi under the BJP leadership has gone against every tenet of secularization.India is facing dire consequences from the BJP’s Hindutva based policies in the political, economic and diplomatic sphere. President Donald J. Trump’s visit to India under such perilous circumstances vividly depicts that, for USit is fine that Muslims are being lynched; they will die proving their loyalty to India. The question of protection and preservation of human rights are only for the west and the white supremacists.

Indian radical political elites are implementing offensive tactics for their desired interests and aims. Making it simpler, Modi’s employment of fascism and offensive realism in its policies shows his zeal towards dominance and hegemony in South Asia. In John Mearsheimer’s offensive realism, states behave aggressively and chances of conflicts are higher because states want power which is an intrinsic property of human nature to be strong, dominant, and gain power. States ultimately face security dilemmas or security-insecurity paradox respectively. Making the argument brief by mentioning the example of India and Pakistan, suffice to say that international community has witnessed every aggressive stance taken by India. The belligerent neighbor created security problems for the whole region, at the time of Pulwama incident, both the states were at the brink of nuclear war, so these are the repercussions of being offensive.

India has faced failure in employing booby traps for Pakistan either in form of hard or soft power or in the form of proxies of spies (Kulbushan Jadhav). India never had the intentions to cooperate with any state in the region. They tried to dwell Pakistan in threat from northwest i.e. Afghanistan and to east in order to destabilize economy of Pakistan after a huge success in war on terror. Why India is investing billions of dollars in Afghanistan, it is evident that they are trying to construct the Mandala circle, a profound theory and strategy of Chanakya Kautilya. But unfortunately they failed to make it happen because Afghanistan pays tribute to Pakistan for successful truce between Afghan Taliban and United States. Afghan truce could never be materialized without the tireless efforts of Pakistan’s military and political leadership.

Jamshaid Rehman
Jamshaid Rehman
Researcher from National defence University.