Savarkar’s Conception of Hindutva

V.D. Savarkar understood Hindutva as the collective identity of Hindus as a people, not merely their religious beliefs. He defined Hindu belonging through attachment to India as both fatherland and holy land, supported by common ancestry and culture. This made Hindutva a cultural-national conception of nationhood rather than a synonym for Hindu religious practice.

Hindutva and Hinduism

In his 1923 work, initially published as Essentials of Hindutva, Savarkar distinguished Hindutva from Hinduism. Hinduism concerned religious doctrines and practices, whereas Hindutva encompassed the historical, cultural and social identity of the Hindu people.

• His conception did not require all Hindus to follow one scripture, deity or religious doctrine.
• Religion remained significant because sacred geography helped determine membership of the national community, even though Hindutva was broader than religious faith.

Territory, ancestry and culture

Savarkar organised Hindu identity around common nation, common race and common culture. These elements were intended to explain why Hindus constituted a historical people despite their internal differences.

• The territorial element required attachment to India as fatherland, meaning the ancestral homeland of the community.
• The racial element referred to shared descent and historical kinship; Savarkar acknowledged the mixing of populations rather than asserting an entirely unmixed ancestry.
• The cultural element comprised shared historical memories, literature, customs, festivals and civilisational traditions.
• Together, these bonds supplied the basis for a Hindu national community rather than a nation defined solely by residence within a territory.

Holy land and the boundaries of belonging

The decisive formulation joined pitribhumi, or fatherland, with punyabhumi, or holy land. India had to be both a person's ancestral homeland and the land associated with the origins and sacred traditions of their religion.

• This formulation included Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs within the broader Hindu national community because their religious traditions originated in India.
• Muslims and Christians could regard India as their fatherland, but Savarkar placed them outside this definition of Hindu belonging because their principal holy lands lay outside India.
• His conception therefore differed from purely territorial nationalism, under which shared residence and political membership could unite people regardless of religious origins.
• This was Savarkar's ideological criterion of national belonging, not the constitutional definition of Indian citizenship.