Hindu politics
Encyclopedia
Hindu politics refers to the political movements professing to draw inspiration from Hinduism
. Hindu nationalism
is the numerically most significant among the current political movements claiming to be inspired by Hinduism.
. Hindus were trying to incorporate things from the West,but while some were trying to make a clean break from their past, others tried to preserve their heritage in an adopted form. Swami Dayananda Saraswati
, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda were the earliest to formulate a political vision and a social reform program for India
on the basis of Hinduism. Later, Aurobindo, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
and Golwalkar formed much of the political direction of the Hindus in India.
, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka
. Hindu symbols are frequently used in political campaigns of Indian politicians
. For example, the Ram Janmabhoomi
issue in Ayodhya was brought up as a national issue by the Bharatiya Janata Party
before the Babri Mosque demolition
in 1992.
and the current Shiv Sena
. Parties alleged to be Hindu nationalist (although the parties themselves deny it) include: Jana Sangha and Bharatiya Janata Party
. Parties have even formed in countries such as Bangladesh (e.g. Banga Sena) and in Mauritius (Independent Forward Bloc) supporting the oppressed Hindus in these countries and giving importance to Hindu traditions.
, Pakistan
, Sri Lanka
and Fiji
. Minority Hindus in these countries have been denied human rights
in many cases. Dhirendranath Datta
was a Bengali
Hindu member of the renamed Pakistan National Congress who supported the creation of Bangladesh
and was later assassinated by the Pakistan Army
. Krishan Bheel
, a Hindu member of the National Assembly of Pakistan
, came into news recently for manhandling Qari Gul Rehman.
, Ram Swarup
, Arun Shourie
, Koenraad Elst
among others.
Panchjanya and Hindu Sabha Varta are the main Hindi weekly based on Hindu Interest and culture. Shri Tarun Vijay, Shri Ashok Tyagi and Shri Devendra Swarup are the reputed journlists for Hindu and national issues.
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
. Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
is the numerically most significant among the current political movements claiming to be inspired by Hinduism.
Revivalism
Hindu revivalism started with a reassertion of Hinduism in British India,mainly in its largest province, BengalBengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
. Hindus were trying to incorporate things from the West,but while some were trying to make a clean break from their past, others tried to preserve their heritage in an adopted form. Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati was an important Hindu religious scholar, reformer, and founder of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. He was the first to give the call for Swarajya – "India for Indians" – in 1876, later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak...
, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda were the earliest to formulate a political vision and a social reform program for India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
on the basis of Hinduism. Later, Aurobindo, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Vināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar was an Indian freedom fighter, revolutionary and politician. He was the proponent of liberty as the ultimate ideal. Savarkar was a poet, writer and playwright...
and Golwalkar formed much of the political direction of the Hindus in India.
Hinduism in political discourse
Hinduism is an important source of political discourse in India. Hindu minorities have played significant roles in BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Hindu symbols are frequently used in political campaigns of Indian politicians
Politics of India
The politics of India takes place within the framework of a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of India is head of state and the Prime Minister of India is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the President and is independent of the legislature...
. For example, the Ram Janmabhoomi
Ram Janmabhoomi
Ram Janmabhoomi is the "Birthplace of Lord Rama."Lord Rama is a major God in Hindu theology and the Hindu religion where He is described as an Avatar of Lord Vishnu in Hinduism. The exact location of Lord Rama's birth as stated in holy Ramayan as being in the city of Ayoudhya in Uttar Pardesh...
issue in Ayodhya was brought up as a national issue by the Bharatiya Janata Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
before the Babri Mosque demolition
Babri Mosque
The Babri Mosque , was a mosque in Ayodhya, a city in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh, on Ramkot Hill . It was destroyed in 1992 when a political rally developed into a riot involving 150,000 people, despite a commitment to the Indian Supreme Court by the rally organisers that the mosque...
in 1992.
Ideologies
- Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is the philosophy that the whole cosmos is a single family
- Rama Rajya is an ancient Indian concept of an ideal society which according to Gandhi is the "sovereignty of the people based on pure moral authority". "One of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure”. It became widely espoused in the Indian Independence Movement.
- Hindu nationalismHindu nationalismHindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
is the political philosophyPolitical philosophyPolitical philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
of cultural nationalismNationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. The followers claim to be inspired by Vivekananda, Aurobindo and other modern Hindu Gurus. - HindutvaHindutvaHindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
("Hinduism-Follower") is the political ideology first expressed by Vinayak Damodar SavarkarVinayak Damodar SavarkarVināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar was an Indian freedom fighter, revolutionary and politician. He was the proponent of liberty as the ultimate ideal. Savarkar was a poet, writer and playwright...
who defined a Hindu in terms of nationalism, rather than religion. - Integral humanismIntegral humanismIntegral humanism is the political philosophy practised by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the former Bharatiya Jana Sangh of India. It was first propounded by Deendayal Upadhyayain a brief volume entitled Integral Humanism in 1965, attempting to find a "third path" rejecting both communism and...
, the official ideology of the Bharatiya Janata PartyBharatiya Janata PartyThe Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
(BJP)
Parties
Parties claiming to be inspired by Hinduism include the erstwhile Hindu Mahasabha, Ram Rajya ParishadRam Rajya Parishad
Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad , was a traditionalist Hindu party in India. It was founded by Swami Karpatri in 1948. The Ram Rajya Parishad won three Lok Sabha seats in the 1952 elections and two in the 1962 elections. In 1952, 1957 and 1962, it won several dozen Vidhan Sabha seats, all in...
and the current Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena , is a political party in India founded on 19 June 1966 by Balasaheb Thackeray. It is currently headed by Thackeray's son, Uddhav Thackeray...
. Parties alleged to be Hindu nationalist (although the parties themselves deny it) include: Jana Sangha and Bharatiya Janata Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
. Parties have even formed in countries such as Bangladesh (e.g. Banga Sena) and in Mauritius (Independent Forward Bloc) supporting the oppressed Hindus in these countries and giving importance to Hindu traditions.
Minority politics
Hindus form minorities in countries like BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
. Minority Hindus in these countries have been denied human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in many cases. Dhirendranath Datta
Dhirendranath Datta
Dhirendranath Datta was a Bengali lawyer by profession who was also active in the politics of undivided Bengal in pre-partition India, and later in East Pakistan...
was a Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
Hindu member of the renamed Pakistan National Congress who supported the creation of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
and was later assassinated by the Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...
. Krishan Bheel
Krishan Bheel
Krishan Bheel is a Pakistani politician. He is one of the few Hindu politicians in Pakistan. and belongs to Pakistan Muslim League .-Early life:...
, a Hindu member of the National Assembly of Pakistan
National Assembly of Pakistan
The National Assembly of Pakistan is the lower house of the bicameral Majlis-e-Shura, which also compromises the President of Pakistan and Senate . The National Assembly and the Senate both convene at Parliament House in Islamabad...
, came into news recently for manhandling Qari Gul Rehman.
Independent authors
In recent years, a few authors have taken up the cause of Hinduism as a political force. Some of these commentators on the Hindu political scene include Sita Ram GoelSita Ram Goel
Sita Ram Goel , writer and publisher in late twentieth century. He had Marxist leanings during the 1940s, but later became an outspoken anti-communist that also spoke negatively about Islam and Christianity...
, Ram Swarup
Ram Swarup
Ram Swarup , , born Ram Swarup Agarwal, was an independent Hindu thinker and prolific author. His works took a critical stance against Christianity, Islam and Communism. His work has influenced other Indian writers.- Life :He graduated in Economics at Delhi University in 1941...
, Arun Shourie
Arun Shourie
Arun Shourie is an Indian journalist, author, intellectual and politician. He has been an economist with the World Bank , a consultant to the Planning Commission, India, editor of the Indian Express and Times of India and a minister in the government of India . He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay...
, Koenraad Elst
Koenraad Elst
Koenraad Elst is a Belgian writer and orientalist .He was an editor of the New Right Flemish nationalist journal Teksten, Kommentaren en Studies from 1992 to 1995, focusing on criticism of Islam, various other conservative and Flemish separatist publications such as Nucleus, t Pallieterke,...
among others.
Panchjanya and Hindu Sabha Varta are the main Hindi weekly based on Hindu Interest and culture. Shri Tarun Vijay, Shri Ashok Tyagi and Shri Devendra Swarup are the reputed journlists for Hindu and national issues.