a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

and language.’ 67 Hindutva advocates consider Savarkar’s monograph Hindutva:
Who Is a Hindu, which was first published in 1923, as their text. However, the
publishers of the later editions claim that ‘Savarkar’s book is for all time’ as the
principles outlined ‘in this book will guide Hindus … for centuries to come.’ 68 As
Ronald Neufeldt comments, this book has not only outlined the ‘ideology of
Hindutva but also the program of the Hindutva forces of today.’ 69 His discussion
of the essential qualification of a Hindu reveals the Hindutva intrigue to alienate
Muslims and Christians from the mainstream Indian society. According to him, ‘a
Hindu is that to him the land that extends from Sindhu to Sindhu is the Fatherland
(Pitribhu), the Motherland (Matribhu), the land of his patriarchs and forefathers.’
Savarkar made it more clear and specific when he said:
That is why in the case of some of our Mohammedan [Muslim] or Christian
countrymen who had originally been forcibly converted to a non-Hindu religion
and who consequently have inherited along with Hindus, a common Fatherland
and a greater part of the wealth of a common culture- language, law, customs,
folklore and history- are not and can not [sic] be recognized as Hindus. For
though Hindustan to them is Fatherland as to any other Hindu yet it is not to them
a Holyland too. Their holyland is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology
and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently their
names and their outlook smack of a foreign origin. 70
67 Michael, ‘Hindu Nationalism,’ 482.
68 Savarkar, Hindutva, x.
69 Neufeldt, ‘Hindutva and the Rhetoric,’ 157.
70 Savarkar, Hindutva, 113. For more details, see pp.110-113.
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