Much of the flawed understanding of Hindutva comes from a 1930 book on the subject written by Veer Savarkar. Although Savarkar was a man of soaring patriotism who made an undeniable contribution to India’s freedom struggle, he lowered himself in the estimation of history by making several questionable references to Muslims and Christians. But the Jana Sangh distanced itself from the Savarkarite interpretation of Hindutva. There is a revealing conversation between Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953), who founded the Jana Sangh in 1951, and Savarkar, which is narrated by Dhanajay Keer, the famous biographer of both Savarkar and Ambedkar. On August 26, 1952, Dr Mookerjee saw Savarkar at his house in Mumbai and requested him to bless the Jana Sangh. Savarkar wanted the philosophy and programme of the Jana Sangh to be the same as that of the Hindu Mahasabha. “He warned Dr Mookerjee that the tragedy of the Congress would overcome the Jana Sangh also, for Muslims would remain Muslims first and Indians never. When Dr Mookerjee said that the Muslims and Hindus lived in harmony in Bengal, Savarkar replied that it was strange that Dr Mookerjee should cling to the idea in the light of the massacres and ghastly tragedies and colossal sufferings of the Hindus in Calcutta and in Eastern Pakistan.”

Even today, many are advising the BJP not to forsake Hindutva as doing so would be tantamount to the party becoming a carbon copy of the Congress. Strange how history repeats itself. Nevertheless, for the sake of its own future growth, it is high time the BJP unequivocally aligned its ideological compass in the direction set by Dr Mookerjee and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. There is also a crying need for it to incorporate within its ideology the important learnings from India’s socio-political developments since the demise of these two stalwarts.

... contd.