- Source: Essentials of Hindutva
Essentials of Hindutva is an ideological epigraph written by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. The book was published in 1923 while Savarkar was still in jail. It was retitled Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? (with the second phrase as a subtitle) when reprinted in 1928. Savarkar's epigraph forms part of the canon of works published during British rule that later influenced post-independence contemporary Hindu nationalism.
Themes
Savarkar used the term "Hindutva" (Sanskrit -tva, neuter abstract suffix) to describe "Hinduness" or the "quality of being a Hindu". Savarkar regarded Hinduism as an ethnic, cultural and political identity. Hindus, according to Savarkar, are those who consider India to be the land in which their ancestors lived (pitrubhumi) , as well as the land they consider to be pure or virtuous (punyabhumi) : "one for whom India is both Fatherland and Holyland".
Sarvakar includes all Indian religions in the term "Hinduism" and outlines his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (Undivided India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent.
"We Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilization - our Hindu culture" Fifth Edition 1969 p91 (Internet Archive PDF p108)
Savarkar wrote the book in prison, having been sentenced for the assassination of a British official in India Office in London.
References
Bibliography
Basu, Manisha (2017), The Rhetoric of Hindu India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781107149878
Chaturvedi, Vinayak (2022), Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Politics of History, SUNY Press, ISBN 9781438488783
External links
Essentials of Hindutva, First Edition, 1923, publisher: V. V. Kalkar, Nagapur. Via archive.org
Hindutva (Who Is A Hindu?), Fifth Edition, Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969. Via archive.org
Essentials of Hindutva, Unknown edition, digital text via savarkar.org