Arvind Kala: What is Hindutva?

Please look at the headline again. What is Hindutva? Indeed, what on earth is it? I'm a Hindu Brahmin, I come from the cradle of Hinduism, Uttarakhand, where the Holy Ganga is born, we spoke Hindi in my parents' family, I've lived in a Hindu North India all my life, and 90 % of my friends are Hindus. Yet I have no idea what Hindutva is. Nor does anybody else. Including the shrill Hindutva shouters who've come out of the woodwork.

How come we never heard this word Hindutva before Narendra Modi came to power? Now vast Hindu swathes numbering in tens of millions are congratulating themselves that they are Hindu. As if it's an achievement - being a Hindu. What I say is: You are a Hindu because your parents were Hindu

Your name would be Burunga Gomo if your parents were Ugandan. So what's the big deal?

For my foolish Hindu brothers luxuriating in their new-found Hinduness, here's a bit of sobering reality. If you ask an average American what a Hindu is, he'll say it's some herb you put in a salad.

This is how inconsequential we are. We don't exist for the developed world. Even though we are HUGE in number. We are 1.1 billion in this world of seven billion humans. Meaning every seventh person on this earth is a Hindu. So we should ask ourselves why we are such nobodys.

Instead of doing this, we Hindus are seized by an inexplicable Hindu resurgence which keeps saying Shabash to itself. It's a swelling self-pride with nowhere to go. Like a young couple dressed up for a fancy cocktail party except that nobody's invited them. I'm puzzled by this Hindu self-congratulation that has swept India. And I feel like saying: For Heaven's sake, stop it!

Instead of gazing wide-eyed at a mirror, just pause and compare ourselves with the world's most brilliant people, the Jews. Their number is miniscule. Jews comprise only 0.2 % of the world's population. They number 16 million, we Hindus number a billion plus. Meaning our world has 70 Hindus for one Jew. Yet Jews have won 15 times more Nobel prizes than us: some 180 Nobels to our 12. Yet they don't crow about their outstanding brilliance. But we Hindus boast how marvellous we are though malnutrition stunts nearly 40 % of India's under-5 kids.

Leaving this aside, let's move to Hindutva, which is an annoying word for our good old Hinduism.

Races and religions have defining characteristics. Britain is defined by class. The US is defined by race. Japan is defined by self-honour. Our Hindu India is defined by caste. Which comes with a notion of pollution that is embedded in our Hindu DNA.

Three P's dominate our ancient Vedic texts: Purity, Power, and Pollution. The Brahmins symbolise purity, Kshatriyas represent power, and Dalits symbolise pollution. Not just that, clubbed with the three castes are three animals. Brahmins are clubbed with the cow, the Kshatriya's clubbed with the horse, and the Dalit is clubbed with the dog. All this aside, how does caste play out in India today? I'll give two-three glimpses of what I've been eye-witness to.

I go to my ancestral Sumari village in Pauri district of Uttarakhand some 400 kilometres north of Delhi. My village contains some 200 people, all Brahmins. Our village has some Dalit families too, but they live below at the edge of the village. Unless a Dalit is called, he never enters the Brahmin part of the village. And a Brahmin doesn't step into the Dalit side.

Our village is fed by a fresh-water spring that never dries up. The village receives this spring water in a shallow stone-and-cement pond ten feet by six feet. A Dalit cannot come to this pond to fill up water. When I say he cannot, what I mean is he does not, he will not, that's how it's always been, that's how it continues to be. By the way, our village Dalits get that very same spring-water. But they get it some 200 feet below from a separate water-channel flowing out of the spring.

The Dalit has no problem with this arrangement. That's how it's always been. Steeped in Hindu tradition, our village stages the Ramlila every Dussehra. Two years ago two-three Dalit boys came to see the Ramlila and they were gently told to go away. “Please go and stage your own Ramlila,” the Brahmins told them. They went away. 

Now let's leap westwards to another Himalayan village in Himachal Pradesh. I'm talking of Manali some 6,000 feet above sea-level where I spend a few months every year. Manali village nestles close to a mountain torrent called the Manalsu which flows into the river Beas. Manali is like my Uttarakhand village in one respect. Its also a one-caste village. With the difference that while my village has only Brahmins, Manali village has only Thakurs. Or Kshatriyas. With Dalits living separately at a village edge.

Some 40 years ago a Manali Thakur boy fell in love with a Dalit girl and married her. And he became a Harijan overnight for all practical purposes. He moved into the Dalit settlement because he couldn't bring a Dalit wife to the Thakur part of the village where he was born and grew up. Forget the village Thakurs, his own family disowned him straightaway, his father, mother, brother, sister, they stopped acknowledging his existence. He was erased from their mind.

I have seen 3–4 exact same stories repeated in Manali village over the decades. Thakur boy marrying a Dalit girl or Thakur girl marrying Dalit boy. Every time the same thing happens. The Dalit bride or bridegroom marrying a Thakur doesn't become a Thakur. But the Thakur bride or bridegroom marrying a Dalit becomes a Dalit. Meaning the higher caste person moves into the lower caste. The lower-caste person doesn't move up into the higher caste.

In short, a Thakur cannot bring home a Dalit spouse. But a Dalit can bring a Thakur spouse. This is a tribute the lesser caste still pays to the higher caste. They accept the higher caste. The higher caste doesn't accept the lower caste. All this happens with zero fuss. It's not that the Thakurs fume against the renegade Thakur marrying a Dalit.

All that happens is that the renegade Thakur ceases to exist for his Thakur parents, his Thakur siblings, Thakur cousins, and the entire Thakur village clan. He's never invited to a Thakur wedding, Thakur funeral, or a Thakur village feast. He stops entering a Thakur home, a Thakur doesn't step into his home. Even if he's willing to come alone without his Dalit spouse.

Look at the irony of this Thakur's changed caste status. He was a full-blooded Thakur. Then he meta-morphosed into a Dalit the moment he married. There's a lesson for our Hindutva shouters here. Stop screaming that Christians are converting innocent Hindus to Christianity. Or that Muslim boys marrying Hindu girls are conducting a love jihad. In Manali I witness a caste jihad that is woven into the very fabric of Hinduism.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-Hindutva-3/answer/Arvind-Kala-2?ch=99&share=7157ca45&srid=ArCL

see also
Couple Set on Fire for Inter-Caste Marriage in Maharashtra, Woman Dies
Converting Hindus to Hindutva - Interview with D.R. Goyal (1929-2013) writer and historian
Minister Who Got The Loudest Cheers Has A Murky Past