History and Rise of Hindutva | Dr. Tanika Sarkar

With the demolition of the Babri Masjid (1992) the Hindutva propaganda preached namely by the BJP and the RSS became clear and prominent in both Political and social scenarios of India, followed by the Gujarat Riots, Godhra train burning, genocide, mass rape, (infamously Bilkis Bano gang rape and subsequent murder of her family members). With the rise of BJP and it's propaganda at the national and state level, it is ironic how Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav or the celebration of Independence was celebrated on the release of the 11 accused of Bilkis Bano rape case. The several attempts of the Government to spread Hindu nationalist sentiments in the form of NRC, CAA and curtailing education of Muslim and minority women in the name of Hijab, scrapping of Minority scholarship etc is prevalent in the society. The series of Hindutva extremism continues to gain more prominence. The recent incidents of Jahangirpuri and the Haldwani evictions (Uttarakhand) happens to be the proof of the aforementioned propaganda. Now the question of thought arises in the fact how did or from where did the ideology of Hindutva arise? If we dig deeper into the studies of Rajnaryan Basu - Nabagopal Mitra's Hindu Jaati Tatwa. Dayananda Sarswati's Arya samaj to Tilak's Hindu nationalism. Bankimchandra's Anandamath , Vande Mataram to Vivekananda-Ramkrishna , Sarvarkar's publication on 'Hindutva', all served as the root of Hindutva. Dr. Tanika Sarkar speaks at Presidency University on the "History and Rise of Hindutva" and how strongly the propagandist of Hindutva has managed to spread their ideologies of Hindu Nationalist sentiment -"You are an Indian if and only if your faith is born in the soil of India". Further, the self-evident ideology spread by the Hindutva propaganda is that Hinduism is the only ideal religion and a non-hindu should be seen and treated only with hatred!