All in India are Hindus line of RSS : Equating Indians with Hindus ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 19 2017 -

Anybody living in India is a Hindu. This was Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the RSS.

Hindutva is different from Hinduism. Again from the RSS chief, while addressing a public function at Tripura on December 17.

With Tripura set to go to polls early next year, the address of the RSS chief may be seen in view of the upcoming Assembly election at Tripura, which for long has been a stronghold of the Left party and this is interesting.

The Sangai Express is not well acquainted with the ideology of the RSS or its line on Hindutva or Hinduism, but if anybody living in India is a Hindu, then does it mean that being an Indian means one is also a Hindu ?

Is being a Hindu equal to being an Indian ?

This is what is interesting and it would be in the fitness of things for all to closely study this proclamation of the RSS chief.

In stating that Hindutva is different from Hinduism, was the RSS chief saying that Hindutva is a movement while Hinduism is a religion ?

Or is Hindutva a form of governance, a system of administration that seeks to address the social, political and economic life style of the people ?

Whatever the case may be, this is certainly an interesting observation and while Mohan Bhagwat may have spelt out the understanding of Hindutva, Hinduism and who a person living in India is in other parts of the country, perhaps this is the first time that he has done this in the North Eastern part of the country.

It is also interesting to note that the observation of the RSS chief was spelt out in the public domain when Assembly election is knocking at the doors of Tripura and everyone knows the close umbilical cord between the RSS and the BJP.

To unite all is the meaning of Hindutva, was another line maintained by the RSS chief and while the idea of India as a Nation definitely rests on the unity of the people, the question of bigger import is how the RSS hopes to promote this unity.

And it will not need a genius to work out that to the RSS the basis of unity will be Hindutva.

If this is also the line of the BJP, then surely the result of the Assembly election will go a long way in showing how far the people are taken in by this line of thought.

Equating India with Hindu and nothing illustrated this better than his observation that the ‘Muslims in India are also Hindus.’

Indian Muslims, this is something which everyone knows, but Hindu Muslims and herein lies essense of the call, One Religion, One Nation, or is it something else ?

The question mark is important for nowhere in his speech did Mohan Bhagwat use the word religion, though he did briefly refer to the term, ‘Sanatan Dharma.’

Interesting interpretation to who is an Indian or what makes someone an Indian and this is all that more so, when one takes into consideration the fact that unlike other religion, there is no founder of Hinduism.

So was the RSS chief propagating the idea that Hinduism is a way of life and all Indians follow a certain way of life that makes them Hindus ?

Interesting observation from the man who heads the RSS.