Hinduism & Hindutva: Are they different?

These terms are a strategy to divide the Hindus. Hinduism is supposed to be something goody goody and subtly useless goo and Hindutva is "brahmanical Nazi fascism". Classified by who? A force that has killed more than the Nazis could ever have and rules through terror, killings, undemocratic, authoritarian rule and suppression of human rights whenever and wherever it comes to power.

Manipulated by such forces the colonised, anglicised and almost converted brainwashed Hindu tries to brandish his secular anti Hindu credentials and lambasts his own religion. A religion and philosophy that contains all the knowledge and wisdom that sustained civilization for ages till the Spanish and Portugese bandits and pirates took over the planet.

Are Hinduism and Hindutva different? At least not since the Sikhs came into being and the Naga sect was formed. The Sikhs have been destroyed with drugs and pesticides and the Nagas retreated into the Himalayas. Today other forces have sprung up.

Religion is violent by definition and has always ruled by influencing the rulers and powerful sections of society. The so called peaceful religions like Jainism and Buddhism too follow this rule. An acerbic Jain and a battle worthy Buddhist monk would put a hardened army veteran to shame. Basic civilizations like tribal cults are extremely violent. No arguments there. Your height is likely to be reduced by a few inches if you take up cudgels against a tribal deity. If that does not happen the tribe is not worth its name.

Somehow violence is an integral part of peaceful existence on the planet. By forming moral and ethical rules and replacing battles with debates the Hindus tried to extend the peace and shorten the violence. But Mahabharata did take place and skirmishes never went away. The Hindu is as violent as any other. Nature itself, upon which Hinduism is based, is both peaceful and extremely violent.

Hinduism points out the battle is always on; in the external world as well as the internal. Life giving organized forces are termed good or devatas, the life destroying chaotic forces are termed evil or asuras. They are always fighting each other. Wins and losses are a part of the game and both are temporary phases.

For peace you must be ready to wage an endless war. That is the reality of the world. There is no pretence of goodness in any religion or political philosophy. The Arjuna is always with his bow delivering arrows regardless of friend or foe. The Krishna rules within and exhorts and manipulates the unwilling soul. Kurukshetra exists in every atom. Only warriors survive. Choose your side. Choose well and leave the outcomes to the blueprint that has been decided at the moment of creation.

Take up your bow and fight O mighty Arjuna.

Comment:

Earlier the term for religion was dharma. Not even sanatan dharma, it came later to define itself as different from offshoots. Dharma too was not about religion per se but about duty. That duty was secular and spiritual. Indians are not migrants. They are the remanants of past civilizations that existed when the geography was different. Our scriptures talk of Jambudwipa or the undivided land - the one mass continent. You can imagine how old that was. And it describes various races prevalent then. There were different human forms that interacted and even inter married. The core civilization was spread from Russia to Indonesia. The other civilizations in Europe and America too are mentioned. They talk of pre Himalaya days and of Lemuria - the land mass that spread from Maldives to Australia. So in a way we are the fragment of a widespread old civilization. Natural calamities and cataclysmic upheavals separated us. Hindutva began with Shankara. He set up the Naga community as the militant wing of Hinduism. It can also relate to Rama who was the warrior king incarnated to protect the sages. Hindutva has a basis. After other religions emerged the practitioners of the basic religion were always under attack. Any victimized group will look for ways to organize in self defence. Thus there is absolutely no difference between the two terms.