Establishing A Hindu State Will Be The Only Fitting Tribute To Veer Savarkar; Here’s What It May Look Like

It is harder to find a more talented and multi-faceted personality than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in the annals of 20th century India. He had great leadership skills which helped him build and nurture many institutions throughout his life. He was one of the nation’s most famous and early radical anti-colonial revolutionaries who was awarded 50 years sentence in the most dreaded prison for his disloyalty towards the British.

Savarkar gave the country the political philosophy of Hindutva which is a runaway electoral success today. On top of all this, he managed to dabble in fine poetry. His documentation of the 1857 war was far better than that of most historians, so much so that it elicited praise from even his ideological rivals like Jawaharlal Nehru. His views on caste, industrialisation, modernity, cinema--you name it--were far ahead of the times he was a prisoner of.

From childhood to the day he breathed his last, Savarkar’s life was full of suffering, setbacks and personal failures. But he braved it all with equanimity like a true karmayogi.

Yesterday, as India bowed down to this great patriot on his birth anniversary to pay tributes, many complained that Savarkar hasn’t been bestowed with the honour of Bharat Ratna.

But this honour is too small to do any justice to the man that he was. The only fitting tribute for Savarkar in the 21st century would be an establishment of a Hindu state. Though, that’s not the only reason why a Hindu state is needed.

Much ink has been spilled decrying the idea of Hindu rashtra. But louder the protest, stronger this idea becomes. Of course, forging a united nation which is Hindu in character through and through, is a work in progress. India is a better Hindu nation today than it was yesterday. And this has happened despite all the vicious attacks, physical as well as verbal or psychological, by all sorts of Hinduphobic forces, domestic or foreign.

India is a Hindu rashtra albeit not an ideal one, yet. Its enemies are in no mood to give up their aggression and if the past few decades are any indicator, the current Indian state greatly lacks the ideological clarity, willpower or strength to repel the inimical forces, let alone be a constructive force to help India become a more perfect Hindu nation.

That’s why the Hindu State is needed.

Now, whenever someone talks of a Hindu state, the obvious and natural question that is asked is what would be the constitution of such a state, how will it look like, what will be its nature, what’s the model we are going to follow and so on and so forth.

In my opinion, coming up with a charter for a Hindu state is not the biggest problem.

First and foremost, the problem is to popularise the idea of a Hindu state. The constitution or charter or manifesto for it will follow. For hundreds of years when Jews would sing L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim (Next year in Jerusalem), they didn’t care about the constitution of a future Jewish state. That idea of returning to Israel was enough. (Ditto for the idea of Pakistan if one needs an example closer to home).

Nonetheless, all these questions about the nature of Hindu state are valid and must be answered. Anyway, coming up with a manifesto is not as hard a thing to do as many critics or cynics assume it to be.

First, any constitution of a Hindu state would categorically state that India is historical, cultural and thus natural homeland of Hindus, the followers of Sanatana Dharma. This principal will be the guiding light of the constitution of the State and become a fountainhead from which some of the most important laws will emerge.

The Hindu state will thus have a duty towards people of indigenous faiths living outside India. Any person, who feels threatened in his country of residence/nationality due to his or her Hindu (Sikh, Buddhist, Jain) identity will have the first claim on refuge to India.

Second, since it is the Hindu society which has preserved, protected and propagated Sanatana Dharma and acted as a vehicle carrying it through countless struggles and seemingly insurmountable challenges over millennia, it will be the duty of the state to not only keep the demographic advantage of Hindu society intact but make concerted attempts to go from strength to strength.

It must be the state’s duty to constantly devise policies towards that goal. The priority should be to proactively work in changing demography in Kashmir by constructing Hindu settlements in the valley followed by resettling Pandits in their native land. Reversing demographic invasion of Jammu and border states like Assam and West Bengal should equally be on top of the agenda.

India is primarily a Hindu nation. The Hindu state will strive to protect this identity of nation and will do everything in its power to not allow it to change, lest its culture, heritage, the very civilisation as we know it cease to exist.

Third, it would be duty of the state to protect, preserve and promote the historical, cultural and religious heritage of the people belonging to faiths indigenous to this land (Including Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs).

Towards that goal, the state will make it mandatory to teach Ramayana and Mahabharata (which will be the State’s two official epics) in all schools without exception (people of non-Hindu faiths would be free to not study them).

Moreover, Sanskrit language, in which preponderance of our sacred texts are written, will enjoy a special status along with other ancient Indian local languages. These will be compulsorily taught and shall eventually become the medium of instruction.

This is of utmost importance. There is nothing secular about languages as is commonly believed. They are intimately connected to the faith, traditions and culture of the people who have developed them. If we want to preserve and pass on these to future generations, teaching in Indian languages is a must.

We have to understand that Indian and Hindu culture are synonymous with each other. Hence, students must be rooted and well versed in their country’s culture. Deracination is not a virtue. In fact, no education institution should receive any funds from the state which doesn’t impart India’s heritage to children as part of their formal schooling.

Additionally, the State shall reward, monetarily or otherwise, those education institutions which solely focus on imparting Indic education.

Fourth, the Hindu society will not tolerate the intolerant. We have to understand the nature of two international majority religions - Islam and Christianity - which pose the biggest threat of changing the very nature of Indian society. They are similar in the sense that both use asymmetry in laws to increase their numbers (in case of the former) and their power or hold in society (in case of Christianity).

So, any asymmetries in laws will be done away with. Polygamy will be outlawed and population control will be incentivised.

To fight predatory global players from hurting the interests of people of indigenous faiths, the Indian state should not only ban all foreign funding to troublesome organisations, it could also nationalise all Church and Waqf properties.

The Hindu state will not interfere in the management of Hindu temples which will be in the hands of the devotees. It won’t have the right to appropriate any amount from Temple wealth to spend on any secular activity under any circumstance.

Hindu society has surrendered the right to educate its students to so-called minorities by punishing the institutions run by Hindus via onerous regulations while exempting those of the “others”. Such discrimination will not be allowed.

Fifth, the Hindu state won’t be all pervasive trying to regulate each and every aspect of life of individuals with uniform laws from the national capital. (For example, Uniform Civil Code is not the Hindu way of doing things).

The Hindu state’s regulatory structure must look like a pyramid with most power over people’s lives devolved to the lowest governing body. And as it moves up, it will have less and less control. Bhopal or Bengaluru will have more power over the people of the state than Delhi. Vidisha or Hampi will have more power than Bhopal or Bengaluru and so on.

The point is different communities living in different parts of the country have evolved to create this immense cultural wealth and this ‘one size fits all’ approach is destructive.

A robust social system has been the backbone of Indian civilisation, not the political system. That’s why empires and court languages kept changing but society at large could survive despite foreign invaders ruling vast swathes of land.

But this all powerful Nehruvian state with bloated centralised bureaucracy and its monocultural approach intervening in all aspects of life of common people cannot not damage the great wealth of Hindu civilisation.

Basically, the future constitution of a Hindu State is fairly easy to come up with. All we have to do is zero in on a few principles, drawing from our past experiences, and frame laws and regulations based on those said principles. I have stated a few in this article (which are repetition of the same that I wrote in my earlier articles).

But as I said earlier, this is the easier part. Convincing the Hindu rashtra of the need for a Hindu rajya for its own good is the tougher job that nationalists should focus and work on.