Hindu Rashtra Darshan V D Savarkar Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona H INDU R ASHTRA D ARSHAN Hindu Rashtra Darshan 1 Presidential Address - Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha .... 3 1.1 19th Session - at Karnavati - 1937 ........................................................ 3 1.2 20th Session Nagpur - 1938................................................................. 15 1.3 21st Session Calcutta-1939 ................................................................. 37 1.4 22nd Session Madura – 1940............................................................... 66 1.5 23rd Session Bhagalpur—1941 ........................................................... 93 1.6 24th Session Cawnpore - 1942.......................................................... 105 Appendix.................................................................................... 128 Statement on Resignation........................................................................... 128 Long Live The Hindu Mahasabha! ‘Long Live Hindudom !!’.................. 129 Telegraphic message dated 1-8-1944 sent by Veer Savarkar .................... 130 Page 2 of 130 H INDU R ASHTRA D ARSHAN 1 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - AKHIL BHARATIYA HINDU MAHASABHA 1.1 19th Session - at Karnavati - 1937 (* Karnavati = Ahmedabad) Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you most cordially for the trust you have placed in me in calling upon me to preside on this 19th Session of the Hindu Mahasabha, I don't take it so much as an honour bestowed upon me by my nation for service rendered in the past as a command to dedicate whatever strength us still left in me to the Sacred Cause of defending Hindudom and Hindustan- our common Motherland and our common Holyland, and pressing on the fight for our National Freedom. So far as the Hindus are concerned there can be no distinction nor conflict in the least between our Communal and National duties, as the best interests of the Hindudom are simply identified with best interests of Hindustan as a whole. Hindudom cannot advance or fulfil its lifemission unless and until our Motherland is set free and consolidated into an Indian State in which all our countrymen to whatever religion or sect or race they belong are treated with perfect equality and none allowed to dominate others or is deprived of his just and equal rights of free citizenship as long as everyone discharges the common obligations and duties which one owes to the Indian Nation as a whole. The truer a Hindu is to himself as a Hindu he must inevitably grow a truer National as well. I shall substantiate this point later on as I proceed. With this conviction and from this point of view, I shall deal in this my presidential address with some fundamental aspects of the Hindu Sanghatan Movement as expounded by this Mahasabha or as I understand them and leave detailed and passing questions, to be deliberated upon and decided, to the representatives assembled in this Session. Homage to the Independent Hindu Kingdom of Nepal But before proceeding further I feel it my bounden duty to send forth on behalf of all Hindus our loyal and loving greetings to His Majesty the King of Nepal, His Highness Shree Yuddhsamasher Ranajee-the Prime Minister of Nepal and all of our co-religionists and countrymen there who have even in the darkest hour of our history, been successful in holding out as Hindu Power and in keeping a flag of Hindu Independence flying unsullied on the summits of the Himalayas. The Kingdom of Nepal stands out today as the only Hindu Kingdom in the world whose independence os recognised by England, France, Italy and other great powers. Amongst some twentyfive crores of our Hindus in this generation, His Majesty the King of Nepal is the first and foremost and the only Hindu today who can enter in the assemblage of King, Emperors and Presidents of all the independent nations in the world, with head erect and unbent, as an equal amongst equals. In spite of the passing political aspect of the question, Nepal is bound to Hindudom as a whole by the dearest ties of a common race and religion and language and culture, inheriting with us this our common Motherland and our common Holyland. Our life is one. Whatever contributes to the strength of Hindudom as a whole, must strengthen Nepal and whatever progress the latter records is bound to elevate the first. Hence all Page 3 of 130 H INDU R ASHTRA D ARSHAN Sanghatanist Hindus long to see that the only Independent Hindu Kingdom is rapidly brought to an up-to-date efficiency, political social, and above all military and aerial so as to enable Her to hold out Her own in the National struggle for existence that is going on all around us and march on and fulfil the great and glorious destiny that awaits Her ahead. Message of Sympathy to the Hindus in the Greater Hindusthan Nor can this session of the Hindu Mahasabha forget to send forth its message of sympathy and loving remembrances to those of our co-religionists and countrymen abroad who have been building a greater Hindusthan without the noise of drums and trumpets in Africa, America, Mauritiusand such other parts of the world and also to those who as in the island of Bali are still holding out as remnants of the ancient world Empire of our Hindu Race. Their fortune too are inextricably bound up with the freedom and strength and greatness of Bharatavarsha which is the 'Pitrubhoo' and 'Punyabhoo'-the Fatherland and the Holyland of Hindudom as a whole. Hindusthan must ever remain one and indivisible Nor can the Hindu Mahasabha afford to be forgetful of the Hindus who reside in the so-called 'French India' and 'Portuguese India' in India ! The very words sound preposterous and insulting to us. Apart from the artificial and enforced political divisions of today we are indissolubly bound together by the enduring ties of blood and religion and country. We must declare, as an ideal at any rate, that Hindusthan of tomorrow must be one and indivisible not only a united but a unitarian nation, from Kashmir to Rameshwar, from Sindh to Assam. I hope that not only the Mahasabha but even the Congress and such other national bodies in Hindusthan will not fight shy of claiming.Gomantak, Pondicherry, and such other parts of Hindusthan as parts as inalienable and integral of our Nation as is Maharashtra or Bengal or Punjab. The definition of the wor d 'Hindu' As a whole superstructure of the mission and the function of the Hindu Mahasabha rests on the correct definition of the word 'Hindu,' we must first of all make it clear what 'Hindutva' really means. Once the scope and the meaning of the world is defined and understood, a number of misgivings in our own camp are easily removed, a number of misunderstandings and objections raised against us from the camp of our opponents are met and silenced. Fortunately for us, after a lot of wandering in wilderness, a definition of the word Hindu which is not only historically and logically as sound as is possible in the cases of such comprehensive terms, but is also eminently workable is already hit upon when 'Hindutva' was defined as :- ।। आिसंधूिसंधूपयता यःय भारतभूिमका ।। ।। पत ृ भूःपुयभूयैैव स वै हंदरितःमु तःृ ।। 'Everyone who regards and claims this Bharatbhoomi from, the Indus to the Seas as his Fatherland and Holyland is a Hindu. Here I must point out that it is rather loose to say that any person professing any religion of Indian origin is a Hindu. Because that is only one aspect of Hindutva. The second and equally essential constituent of the concept of Hindutva cannot be ignored if we want to save the definition from getting overlapping and unreal. It is not enough that a person should profess any religion of Indian origin, i.e., Hindusthan as his Page 4 of 130 H INDU R ASHTRA D ARSHAN पुयभू his Holyland, but he must also recognise it as his पत ृ भू too, his Fatherland as well. As this is no place for going into the whole discussion of the pros and cons of the question, all I can do here is to refer to my book 'Hindutva' in which I have set forth all arguments and expounded the proposition at great length. I shall content myself at present by stating that Hindudom is bound and marked out as a people and a nation by themselves not by the only tie of a common Holyland in which their religion took birth but by the ties of a common culture, a common language, a common history and essentially of a common fatherland as well. It is these two constituents taken together that constitute our Hindutva and distinguish us form any other people in the world. That is why the Japanese and the Chinese, for example, do not and cannot regard themselves as fully identified with the Hindus. Both of them regard our Hindusthan as their Holyland, the land which was the cradle of their religion, but they do not and cannot look upon Hindusthan as their fatherland too. They are our co-religionists; but are not and cannot be our countrymen too. We Hindus are not only co-religionists, but even countrymen of each other. The Japanese and the Chinese have a different ancestry, language, culture, history and country of their own, which are not so integrally bound up with us as to constitute a common national life. In a religious assembly of the Hindus, in any Hindu Dharma-Mahasabha they can join with us as our brothers-in-faith having a common Holyland. But they will not and cannot take a common part or have a common interest in a Hindu Mahasabha which unites Hindus together and represent their national life. A definition must in the main respond to reality. Just as by the first constituent of Hindutva, the possession if a common Holyland-the Indian Mahommedans, Jews, Christians, Parsees, etc.