When Savarkar coined the idea of Hindutva, there was a singular objective. To make India a glorious nation.
Every single political leader today speaks of that glory.
Pseudo-hindutvavadis speak of this glory being in the past, and promote what one would consider a regressive society. Pseudo-secularists speak of this glory being possible only when the religious majority is as miserable as the religious minority. Their brothers-in-arms, the communists, want to achieve this glory by making the higher economic classes as miserable as the lower economic classes.
Perfect. Is anyone really thinking here?
How does one consider a society as being civilised, as being advanced? In my opinion, this happens when the current generation creates opportunities for the next generation to do better than itself, be it socially, economically, ethically, morally, or by any other benchmark. Unless progress is achieved on all these fronts, that society cannot be considered a civilised, advanced or progressive.
The basic idea of Hindutva is that there are certain things that are fundamentally right and wrong, from the point of view of the progress of Hindu (read Indian, and so henceforth) society at a given point in time. If that is conservatism, so be it. However, by no means can and should the dictionary meaning of the word conservative apply to Hindutva.
An excellent example is the consumption of beef. Vegetarianism is considered noble in Hindu circles, with people consuming only vegetarian food on certain days and during the month of Shravan, for an entire month. However, when there is a famine, does one's dharma to survive supercede one's dharma to observe vegetarianism? Does not consuming beef supercede one's duty to feed one's family?
There is an excellent remark that Krishna makes to Arjuna, something that Adi Shankaracharya also later explained in considerable detail, causing him to be labeled as 'a buddhist in disguise', alas.
Of what significance is the the reservoir of the Vedas, O Arjuna, when the floodgates of realisation open?
The realisation that Krishna talks about here is the much celebrated and much elusive sadasadvivekabuddhi, or as the advaitins like to call it, the niirakshirabuddhi - the knowledge to tell right from wrong, truth from falsehood, existence from illusion, milk from water.
Today we like to consider ourselves socially liberal. What exactly does this liberalism entail? The freedom to do what we want? Isn't the term for 'a state of society where everyone can do what they please' called anarchy? And while Jnaneshvara has asked that 'Let everyone beget what they desire' when he asks the Universal God for the 'boon of nectar', we are far far away from actually realising that, and may never do so in actuality. There is bound to be conflict when two people, or groups of people want things to be a certain way.
These conflicts cannot be resolved based on emotional grounds. They have to be resolved based on understanding the impact of these changes on the entire society, not only at the given point in time, but it's lasting effect on coming generations.
Precedents are difficult to overcome, so let the only precedent that is judiciously and assiduously followed be the employment of knowledge and intelligence towards the resolution of any and all conflicts, taking into consideration the overall impact such resolution may have on the entire society at that given time and in the times to come.
