NRI patriots' obsession - one state, one culture, one nation

Considering it is impossible for Christians or Muslims to remain insulated from Hindu influence, why do you think the RSS insists the religious minorities describe themselves as Hindu?

The RSS is basically a western, colonial implant in India. The RSS categories are all European, beginning from Savarkar’s Hindutva, which is a perfectly European concept of the theory of state. That concept is one state, one culture, one nationality and nationalism – and the state the Hindutvavadis have in mind is a modern Westphalian European state.

To understand Savarkar’s worldview, people should read his futuristic novel, Kalapani, which is a rather silly description of an ideal Hindutva-based state – totally monolithic, terribly boring national community. In this community, according to Savarkar’s imagination, everybody speaks the same language, everybody is marrying inter-caste, so on and so forth. Fortunately, he doesn’t include the Christians and Muslims in this community and they should be grateful to him for that. I’d die of boredom living in a state like that.

Earlier, most Indians would have agreed with me. But it now seems there is a small group of young people, particularly NRIs in India, who, because they feel guilty about ditching India, have become very articulate in this matter. They shout themselves hoarse about the beauties of one state, one culture, one nation.

confuzzled dude wrote:

Considering it is impossible for Christians or Muslims to remain insulated from Hindu influence, why do you think the RSS insists the religious minorities describe themselves as Hindu?

The RSS is basically a western, colonial implant in India. The RSS categories are all European, beginning from Savarkar’s Hindutva, which is a perfectly European concept of the theory of state. That concept is one state, one culture, one nationality and nationalism – and the state the Hindutvavadis have in mind is a modern Westphalian European state.

To understand Savarkar’s worldview, people should read his futuristic novel, Kalapani, which is a rather silly description of an ideal Hindutva-based state – totally monolithic, terribly boring national community. In this community, according to Savarkar’s imagination, everybody speaks the same language, everybody is marrying inter-caste, so on and so forth. Fortunately, he doesn’t include the Christians and Muslims in this community and they should be grateful to him for that. I’d die of boredom living in a state like that.

Earlier, most Indians would have agreed with me. But it now seems there is a small group of young people, particularly NRIs in India, who, because they feel guilty about ditching India, have become very articulate in this matter. They shout themselves hoarse about the beauties of one state, one culture, one nation.

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