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So what did #Savarkar write? “We Hindus must have a country of our own,” wrote Savarkar. “Truly Hindus are and cannot but be the mainstay of our Indian State.” He insisted that anyone living in India is, de facto, a Hindu — that is, that being Indian meant being Hindu.
#Savarkar wrote, “If you call it an Indian Nation it is merely an English synonym for the Hindu nation to us Hindus, Hindusthan and India mean one and the same thing. We are Indians because we are Hindus and vice versa.”
Additionally, #Savarkar identified being Hindu as the essence of true patriotism. Speaking of Hindus, he stated, “Indian Patriotism to them was but a synonym of Hindu Patriotism.” He claimed non-Hindus have no place: “India must be a Hindu land, reserved for the Hindus."
#Savarkar made no apologies for the communalism of his ideology. He embraced and celebrated it, declaring, “We are communalists par excellence and glory in being the most devoted Hindu communalists which to us means being the truest and the most equitable Indian Nationalists!”
In #Savarkar's goal to achieve an homogenous, monocultural, & communal polity, he declared, “Our politics henceforth will be purely Hindu politics fashioned and tested in Hindu terms only, in such wise as will help the consolidation, freedom, and life-growth of our Hindu Nation.”
#Savarkar insisted Hindus should vote only 4 Hindus, but not 4 a “race traitor." He wrote, “Make it quite clear that you as Hindus are not going to vote for any such seasonal Hindu but only for a Hindu who is born, and bred, and means to continue to be true to his Hindu race.”
#Savarkar urged citizens to “vote only for a confirmed and merited Hindu Nationalist.” It was, he argued, every Hindu’s “easy duty for his race” to “vote for a Hindu Nationalist.” To do otherwise, he warned, was “to commit a cultural and political and racial suicide.”
#Savarkar believed any other communities which call for equal rights within the same territory are a threat to his concept of independent India. Thus, as Savarkar put pen to paper, he took aim, first and foremost, against the Indian subcontinent’s largest religious minority.
“The Mohammedans are likely to prove dangerous to our Hindu Nation,” #Savarkar wrote. He argued they are incapable of being loyal or patriotic citizens, saying, “The Moslems remained Moslems first, Moslems last, and Indians never.” Suggesting neither Muslims nor Christians... 1/2
2/2 ....integrated into Indian society because “their love is divided,” #Savarkar wrote, “They must, to a man, set their Holy-land above their Fatherland in their love and allegiance.” He said both were foreigners, writing, “Their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin.”
Regarding Muslim population, #Savarkar advised how the so-called “Hindu Race” should treat them. “So far as the Moslem minority is concerned, I have already dealt with it at length,” he wrote. “In short, we must watch it in all its actions with the greatest distrust possible.”
Proposing a “final solution” for alleged “Muslim problem,” #Savarkar contrasted them with Germany’s Jewish community, arguing, “Indian Muslims are on the whole more inclined to identify themselves and their interest with Muslims outside India than Hindus who live next door... 1/2
2/2 ... like the Jews in Germany.” Finally, having built up Islam in India as a sinister threat, #Savarkar warned, “If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslims… will have to play the part of German-Jews.”
#Savarkar’s ideology of Hindutva didn’t just bear a passing resemblance to the supremacist Aryanism propagated by the Nazis. Identifying India as an “Aryan nation,” he drew direct parallels between his proposed Hindu nation and the Nazi regime.
In March 1939, days before the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia and months before they sparked the Second World War by invading Poland, #Savarkar praised Hitler’s embrace of Aryanism, declaring, “Germany’s solemn idea of the revival of the Aryan culture.... 1/3
2/3 "... the glorification of the Swastika, her patronage of Vedic learning, and the ardent championship of the tradition of Indo-Germanic civilization are welcomed by the religious and sensible Hindus of India with a jubilant hope…." [quoting #Savarkar]
3/3 "... I think that Germany’s crusade against the enemies of Aryan culture will bring all the Aryan nations of the world to their senses and awaken the Indian Hindus for the restoration of their lost glory.” So wrote #Savarkar, who coined the term “Hindutva” in 1923.
