Essentials of Hindutva

Essentials of Hindutva is a 1923 political pamphlet by Indian politician and ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. It was published while Savarkar was still in jail. It was retitled Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? when reprinted in 1928. Savarkar's pamphlet formulated the Hindu nationalist ideology of Hindutva.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was tried and convicted of sedition in 1910. In 1911, he was transported to Port Blair and incarcerated in Cellular Jail to serve a fifty-year sentence.[1] After submitting a series of clemency petitions, he was transferred to a prison in Ratnagiri, where he remained until his conditional release in 1924.[2] During his imprisonment in Ratnagiri, he wrote Essentials of Hindutva in 1922.[3][4] The pamphlet was smuggled out of his cell and published in 1923 by a lawyer from Nagpur, named Vishwanathrao Kelkar.[5] The pamphlet was written and published in English,[6] comprising just eighty-eight pages.[7] It was reprinted in 1928 under the title Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, with the second phrase serving as a subtitle.[8] Much of what he wrote reflected views he had already held.[7]

Essentials of Hindutva is organised into thirty-one chapters, arranged as follows:

• What is in a name?
• Hindutva is different from Hinduism
• What is a Hindu?
• Name older still
• Hindus, a nation
• Other names
• How Names Are Given
• International Life
• Fall of Buddhism
• Buddhism – a universal religion
• Then came reaction!
• Institutions in favour of Nationality
• Commingling of Races
• Back to the Vedas
• Sindhustan
• What is Arya
• Hindu & Hindusthan.
• Reverence to Buddha
• Hindus: all one and a nation
• Hindusthani Language
• Foreign Invaders
• Hindutva at work
• Stupid notions must go
• Essential implications of Hindutva
• Bond of common blood
• Common culture
• What is civilization?
• Common laws and rites
• Who is a Hindu?
• Hindus in Sindh
• Unique Natural Blessings to Hindusthan

Some of us were Aryans and some Anaryans; but Ayars and Nayars—we were all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us are Brahmins and some Namshudras or Panchams; but Brahmins or Chandals—we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us are Dakshanatyas and some Gouds; but Gouds or Saraswats—we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us were Vanars and some Kinners: but Vanars or Nars—we are all Hindus and own a common blood. Some of us are monists some pantheists; some theists and some atheists. But monotheists or atheists—we are all Hindus and own a common blood.[9]

In Essentials of Hindutva, Savarkar racialises Hindu identity.[10][11] He contrasts Hinduism, which he describes as merely a "spiritual or religious dogma or system",[12][8] with Hindutva, which, he writes, "embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of our Hindu race".[13] On one hand, his criteria for being considered a Hindu is inclusive across caste, creed, and faith;[14][15] any person for whom India is both pitrabhumi (transl. Fatherland) and punyabhumi (transl. Sacred land) qualifies as a natural and national inhabitant.[16][17] On the other hand, Savarkar also forms clear boundaries between those deemed Hindu and non-Hindu.[14] He advocates for the unity of the supposed Hindu race as well as the purification of the nation from those deemed outsiders, such as Muslims and Christians, who, according to Savarkar, have their sacred lands outside of India, in "Arabia or Palestine".[12]

Savarkar posited that a "conflict of life and death" had ensued ever since Mahmud of Ghazni of the Ghaznavid Empire crossed the Indus River into the Indian subcontinent in the 11th century CE. Drawing on the British Raj's colonial policy of 'divide and rule', his pamphlet sought to redirect the prevailing anti-British sentiment of the time into anti-Muslim mobilisation by portraying Hindus chiefly in opposition to Muslims.[18]

• 1923 edition at the Internet Archive
• 1969 edition at the Internet Archive