India’s Founding Fascist Philosopher – Gowalkar

EVERY CULT OR ORGANISATION typically carries forward the legacy of its founder, and it is rare for those who build upon that legacy to exercise the same influence—let alone exceed it. But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, has never been a typical organisation, and, in this regard too, it stands out. It was founded in 1925 by Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, but it bears the far more emphatic stamp of his successor, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar. While Hedgewar is referred to as Doctorji within the RSS, Golwalkar is known as Guruji.

Golwalkar took over as the RSS’s sarsanghchalak, or chief, after Hedgewar’s death, in 1940, and held the post till his own death, in 1973. When he assumed charge, the RSS—also known as the Sangh—was still establishing itself, and did not have a major presence outside Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region. Under him, the organisation passed through great turbulence: it played an incendiary role in the Partition violence, and was banned after the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi. But under Golwalkar’s leadership, the RSS also set down its written constitution and began to expand beyond its shakhas, or local branches, and into front organisations such as the Jan Sangh in politics, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad among students, the Vishva Hindu Parishad in religion, and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh among industrial workers.

By the time Golwalkar died, the RSS had extended across the entire country, and its network of allied organisations—the Sangh Parivar—had penetrated almost every aspect of Indian society. His ideological influence did not end with his death: Bunch of Thoughts, a text that distils the vast spread of Golwalkar’s writings and speeches, remains the Sangh’s bible to date.

“Hindus, don’t waste your energy fighting the British. Save your energy to fight our internal enemies that are Muslims, Christians, and Communists.”^[40][41]

– MS Gowalkar

Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar (19 February 1906 – 5 June 1973) better known as Guruji was the second Sarsanghchalak (or, “Chief”[1]) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

RSS is the inspiration of the current ruling BJP government of India led by prime minister Narendra Modi.

He has been widely noted to be the most prominent ideologue of Hindutva. He was known for his intellectual commentary on Indian politics and religion. Golwalkar is considered one of the most influential and prominent figures among Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He was not the first person to put forward the concept of a cultural nation called “Hindu Rashtra” which is believed to have evolved into the concept of the “Akhand Bharat Theory”, united nations for Bharatiyas. Golwalkar was one of the early Hindu nationalist thinkers in India.[2] [3] Golwalkar authored the book We, or Our Nationhood Defined.[4][5][6] Bunch of Thoughts is a compilation of his speeches.[7]

CHAPTER I 

To start with: The life of Nations is not to be counted in years. What days are in the life of man,  years or even centuries may be in that of Nations. Especially so is the case of the Nation of Hindusthan. Whereas with the exception of China, all the chief Nations of the world today can trace  the history of their civilized life (I should say semi barbaric life) and go back at best a couple of  thousand years, we cannot say when, at what particular point of time, we in Hindusthan discarded the state of nature and started an  ordered, civilized, national existence. It seems as if  we never were uncivilized. The Vedas, the most  ancient literature extant today, embodies ideas too  noble except for a highly organised and cultured people to express. Indeed for all their vaunted superiority of intellectual investigation, the Western Scholars have not still seen even the hem of the garment of the glorious Goddess of  knowledge, whom our ancient Sages saw in all her  splendid totality and assimilated into their own  being. And when the Vedas came into existence, 

we are at liberty only to conjecture in vain. Leaving  these times of the dim past, into the mysteries of  which History dare not venture, let us come to  what is known as the Epic age. Let us ignore even  the vast stretch of time that must have elapsed  between these two ages. And of the two great  Epics, Ramayan and Mahabharat, which give their  name to this period, let us consider only the later  one, Mahabharat1  

. What is the time of this Epic?

1 It is interesting to note the colossal ignorance of Historians of the  West, about ancient History. Every child in, Hindusthan knows that  Ramayan is the work of the father of Sanskrit poetry, Valmiki» and the  first piece of literature in Sanskrit. Mahabharat is a much later work.  Every child also knows that the story of the Ramayan is about a  personality much more ancient than the heroes of the Mahabharat.  From internal evidence also it can be shown that whereas the Ramayan  is referred to in the Mahabharat, no mention of even the dynasties of  Bharat and others of the latter epic is traceable in Valmiki’s work. The  language of the two works also gives ample proofs of Mahabharat  being a much later work. But obsessed with the idea, that Aryans came  to Hindusthan from somewhere near the Caspian Sea or the Arctic  region or some such place, and invaded this land in bands of  marauder?, that later they settled down first in the Punjab and  gradually, spread eastward along the Ganga, forming kingdoms, at  various places, at Ayodhya among them, the Historian feels it an  anachronism, that the kingdom of Ayodhya in the Ramayan should be  older than the more western Pandava Empire at Hastinapur. And he,  with pedantic ignorance* teaches us that the story of the Mahabharat js  

When was the great battle fought?” When was the  immortal gem in the diadem of this great Epic, the  Shrimad Bhagawadgita, set in words? Orientalist  Scholars have ascertained that the Geeta must be  about 1,500 to 2,000 years prior to Buddha’s birth.  And Buddha lived about 600 B. C. Evidently the  Mahabharat is at least 4,500 to 5,000 years old. If  we take into consideration the fact that the  Mahabharat depicts a highly organised, elaborate,  civilized society, at the zenith of its power and  glory, and try to find out how long the race must  have taken to attain that stage, we shall certainly  have to go back another several thousand years into the unknown past. For such a complex  civilisation could not have been the product of a  day. When after about 2,000 years of progress,  conquest of nature and the humanising influence  of Christ, the West, even today, has scarcely  washed off the paint of her barbarous forefathers,  the older. Unfortunately such misconceptions are stuffed into the brains  of our young ones through text books appointed by various  Universities in the country. It is high time that we studied, understood  and wrote our history ourselves and discarded such designed or un designed distortions.

we must say that we must have lived and  progressed many times that period before we  could attain that superb social structure, sung in  that immortal song. Undoubtedly, therefore, we – Hindus- have been in undisputed and undisturbed  possession of this land for over 8 or even 10  thousand years before the land was invaded by  any foreign race. 

Thus apart from any consideration of the Hindu  i.e. Aryan race being indigenous or otherwise, of  one thing we are certain, that the very first page of  history records our existence as a progressive and  highly civilized nation – the only nation in the then  world, in this land, which, therefore, came to be  known as Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus. 

And after all what authority is there to prove  our immigrant nature? The shady testimony of Western scholars? Well, it must not be ignored that the superiority complex of the ‘White Man’ blurs  their vision. 

Can they acknowledge the greater antiquity and  superiority of a nation, now held in thrall by one of their peoples? They have neither such generosity  nor love of truth. Till yesterday they wandered  wild in the wildernesses, their nude bodies weirdly tattooed and painted. They must need show,  therefore, that all peoples of the world were at that  time in the same or worse state. And they set about  proving, when the superior intellectual and  spiritual fruits of Hindu Culture could not be  denied, that, in origin, there was but one Aryan  race somewhere, which migrated and peopled  Europe, Persia and Hindusthan, but that the  European stock went on progressing whilst the  Hindu branch mixed with the aborigines, lost its  purity and became degenerate. Again there is  another consideration. By showing that the Hindus  are mere upstarts and squatters on the land (as  they themselves are in America, Australia and  other places!) they can set up their own claim. For  then neither the Hindus nor the Europeans are  indigenous and as to who should possess this land,  becomes merely a matter of superior might, mere  priority of trespass giving no better right to any  race to rule undisturbed on any part of the globe. 

We are merely dreaming and imputing motives,  one may say. But, then, how is the strange fact of  European tea-planters and merchants, who make a  show of having settled in this land (for their own  gain and at their own choice of course), being  classed on a par with the Hindus and given  minority rights in the present constitution (1935) to  be explained? If the Europeans really  acknowledged the Hindus to be children of the soil  and the Europeans in this land mere squatters and  despoilers thereof, could they have perpetrated  such a palpable absurdity? No, the European,  particularly the Englishman, will never cease  duping us into believing that we have no more  right to this land than he has. 

But it may be said Lok. Tilak propounded the  Arctic origin of the Aryans. Quite so. We may  agree with him that originally the Aryans i. e. the  Hindus lived in the region of the North Pole. But,  he was not aware that, in ancient times, the North  Pole and with it the Arctic Zone was not where it is  today. We have heard in a lecture on  Paleontological Botany, delivered during the convocation of the Benares Hindu University (Feb.  1932), by Dr. Birbal Sahni, Professor of Botany,  Lucknow University, the reputed professor give  the results arrived at by a certain European  Paleontologist and confirmed by Dr. Sahni himself.  The result, in a nutshell, is, that the North Pole is  not stationary and quite long ago it was in that part  of the world, which, we find, is called Bihar and  Orissa at the present; that then it moved northeast  and then by a sometimes westerly, sometimes  northward movement, it came to its present  position. If this be so, did we leave the Arctic Zone  and come to Hindusthan or were we all along here  and the Arctic Zone left us and moved away  northwards in its zigzag march? We do not hesitate  in affirming that had this fact been discovered  during the life-time of Lok. Tilak, he would  unhesitatingly have propounded the proposition  that The Arctic Home in the Vedas ‘ was verily in  Hindusthan itself and that it was not the Hindus  who migrated to that land but the Arctic Zone  which emigrated and left the Hindus in Hindusthan.

Enough of this. Man’s knowledge (?) of those  times is merely conjectural. He puts forth  hypotheses, which are merely of tentative value.  Hypothesis is not truth. Out of the heap of  hypotheses we reject all and positively maintain  that we Hindus came into this land from nowhere,  but are indigenous children of the soil always,  from times immemorial and are natural masters of  the country. Here we compiled our inimitable  Vedas, reasoned out our Philosophy of the  Absolute – the last word on the subject, built our  sciences and arts and crafts. Here we progressed in  cultivation, industries and trade, flourished and  prospered – a great nation of a great race – propounded the one religion, which is no make belief but religion in essence, and built up a culture  of such sublime nobility that foreign travellers to  the land were dumbfounded to see it, a culture  which made every individual a noble specimen of  humanity, truth and generosity, under the divine  influence of which, not one of the hundreds of  millions of the people, ever told a lie or stole or  indulged in any moral aberration; and all this long 

before the west had learnt to eat roast meat – instead of raw! And we were one Nation – “Over  all the land from sea to sea one kingdom!” is the  trumpet cry of the ancient Vedas! 

After the time of the Mahabharat, we have  another gap of many centuries, which the  accredited history has not been able to fill. But we  can surmise that the nation lived its usual life  without any serious occurrence. Then came  Buddha and the great Emperors of the Gupta  Dynasty, Asoka, Harshavardhan, Vikramaditya,  Pulakeshi. ¦and others of whose rule of pRace,  power and plenty, we obtain incontrovertible  evidence. The invasion of the “world-conqueror”  Alexander was a mere scratch. In fact he cannot be  said to have invaded the country at all, so hasty  was his retreat. However, with the passage of time,  a sense of security spread its benumbing influence  over the whole Nation, and the great corruptor,  Time, laid his hand heavily on the people.  Carelessness waxed and the one Nation fell into  small principalities. Consciousness of the one  Hindu Nationhood became musty and the race

 

became vulnerable to attacks from out side.  Buddhistic influence—a misunderstanding of the  teachings of the Great Master-—-had the baneful  effect of effacing from the minds of the masses  their tenacious adherence to their faith. Over 

individualization in the field of religion followed  and the consequence was that the individual  became more prominent than the society, the  Nation. For those, whom the spirit of true religion  did not touch intensely, this was another name for  self-seeking, even at the cost of the welfare of the  whole. And yet the race-spirit did not wholly die  out. The Race Spirit is too tenacious to be dead so  easily. And when the first real invasions of  murdering hordes of Mussalman free-booters  occurred, they indeed found the nation divided  against itself and incapable of stemming the tide of  devastation they brought in their wake. But not for  long. Here and there, principalities, of staunch  Hindu Spirit, put up a tough fight and carried on  an unceasing war with the invaders. The great  Empire of Vijayanagar, the illustrious Rana Pratap  of Chitor fought the enemy to the last drop of their 

 

blood. Then came the glorious period of Hindu  revival under the Great Shivaji and the whole  illustrious line of Hindu warriors, who overthrew  the Moslem domination right up to the Sindhu  River, and shattered the throne of the “Great  Moghul”, the emblem of Muslim Victory. About  the same time, in the Punjab, was being welded  that band of unconquerable Hindu heroes, the  Sikhs, headed by their immortal Gurus. These two  Hindu forces would have come together to be  welded into one, but that Guru Govind Singhji  came a bit too late into Maharashtra for the  purpose and found the province engrossed in a life  and death struggle with Aurangzib. Unfortunately  for our Nation, Chhatrapati Shivaji was dead about 25 years ago, his son treacherously captured and  murdered by Aurangzib, and the whole territory in  a conflagration. And Guru Govind Singhji could  not fulfill his mission of joining the two streams  together into an invincible torrent, before he laid  down his mortal frame at Nanded (now in the  Nizam’s Dominions). Yet they had practically  achieved their purpose: the power of the invaders 

 

was entirely broken and the Hindu Nation was  emerging victorious from this 800 years’ war. But  before the fruits of the great victory were gathered,  before the Nation had even breathing space, to  gather strength, to organize the ‘ State ‘, a new foe,  from an altogether unexpected quarter, stealthily,  treacherously entered the land and with the help of  the Mussalmans, and such traitorous scions of the  pedigree of a Jaichand Rathod, a Sumersingh, a  Chandrarao Morey, as still existed, maneuvered and started taking possession of the land.  Exhausted as it was with its long war, the Hindu  Nation still put up a gallant fight, now victorious,  now beaten, till at last its strength was greatly  sapped and the whole land usurped by the new  invaders. These foreigners began to consolidate  their power and have thus far been able to  maintain themselves. But the Nation, the Hindu  Nation, was not conquered. It did not succumb  suppliant at the feet of the enemy. No, on the  contrary it raised itself, weak as it was once again,  in 1857, to beat off the foe. This so-called mutiny  may be said thus far to be the last great nation-

 

wide attempt to end the long war. The attempt  failed but even in their defeat a whole galaxy of  noble Hindu patriots stands out – glorious objects  of the Nation’s worship. 

Was at least now the conquest of Hindusthan  complete? Was the Hindu Nation subjugated’? Let History speak. Here come before our eyes the  figures of Wasudeo Balwant, Annasahab  Patwardhan, the whole race of martyrs in Bengal,  in the Punjab, the U. P., Maharashtra, Madras,  throughout the length and breadth of the country,  who, since .1906 till today, have been grimly  fighting for their Mother-the Hindu Race and  Nation, too many and too sacred to name. And  with other weapons the staunch fighters Lok. Tilak,  Lala Lajapat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal and a host of  others and the day’s notaries – M. Gandhi and  others, too recent to be named, all Hindu workers,  rightly conceiving the National future or not, but  all sincerely and sternly fighting the foe. Surely the  Hindu Nation is not conquered. It is fighting on.  Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first  landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present  moment the Hindu Nation has been gallantly  fighting on to shake off the despoilers. It is the  fortune of war, the tide turns now to this side, now  to that, but the war goes on and has not been  decided yet. Nor is there any fear of its being  decided to our detriment. The Race Spirit has been  awakening. The lion was not dead, only sleeping.  He is rousing himself up again and the world has  to see the might of the regenerated Hindu Nation  strike down the enemy’s hosts with its mighty arm.  “The star has risen and is steadily climbing up the  firmament. At no distant date the world shall see it  and tremble with fear or dance with delight. It all  depends upon the nature of those it shall shine  upon. 

Thus do we understand the History of  Hindusthan. In a nut-shell, we may state that in  this land of ours we have lived for God knows how  long, a great Nation of the grandest culture, that  though, for the last thousand years or less, the land  has been infested with murderous bands of  despoilers in various parts, the nation has not been conquered, far less subjugated, that through all 

 

these years it has engaged in a. terrible struggle to  free the land of this pest and the great struggle is still relentlessly raging with varying success to both sides. In short our history is the story of our flourishing Hindu National life for thousands of years and then of a long unflinching war continuing for the last ten centuries, which has not yet come to a decisive close. And when we understand our history, thus rightly, we find ourselves, not the degenerate, downtrodden, uncivilised slaves that we are taught to believe we are today, but a nation, a free nation of illustrious  heroes fighting the forces of destruction for the last  

thousand years and determined to carry on the  struggle to the bitter end with ever-increasing zeal and unflagging national ardour. And Race Spirit calls. National consciousness blazes forth and we Hindus rally to the Hindu Standard, the Bhagawa Dhwaja, set our teeth in grim determination to wipe out the opposing forces. 

To counteract this conquering spirit, to  extinguish the correct Hindu National  consciousness, our Histories teach us that we never 

 

were a nation, but a medley of warring chieftains,  that our real history begins with the Moghul rulers,  that the rise of the Hindu power in Maharashtra  and the Punjab were mere rebellions of plundering  chiefs, that the 1857 conflagration was a mutiny  and the sacrifices of the modern martyrs, the  deserving punishment meted out to traitors; and  that pRace reigned in the land for the first time  since the consolidation of British power. Not  satisfied with this, for it was certain that sooner or  later the cat would surely come out of the bag and  reveal the utter falsity of such a designedly  distorted narrative, another effort was made to put  the race on a wrong track, and unfortunately this  attempt seems to have borne the bitter fruit. The  idea was spread that for the first time the people were going to live a National life, the Nation in the  land naturally was composed of all those who  happened to reside therein and that all these  people were to unite on a common “National”  platform and win back “freedom” by “Constitutional means.” Wrong notions of democracy strengthened the view and we began to

class ourselves with our old invaders and foes  under the outlandish name – Indian and tried to win them over to join hands with us in our  struggle. The result of this poison is too well known. We have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing our foes to be our friends and with our own hands are under-mining true Nationality. That is the real danger of the day, our self forgetfulness, our believing our old and bitter  enemies to be our friends. As a matter of fact we  have in Hindusthan a triangular fight, we, Hindus,  at war at once with the Moslems on the one hand and Britain on the other. The Moslems are not misled. They take themselves to be the conquering invaders and grasp for power. In our self deception, we go on seceding more and more, in hopes of ”Nationalising” the foreigners and succeed merely in increasing their all-devouring appetite. The consequence, for us, is that we go more and more astray and lose sight of our  cherished goal of National regeneration. Indeed we  begin to fear that calling ourselves Hindus even, is  denationalizing. Thanks to Sir William 

 

Wedderburn, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr. Hume and others of the type, we have almost completely lost sight of our true Hindu Nationhood, in our wild goose chase after the phantasm of founding a  

“really” democratic “State” in the country. Their  aims are being realised. The Congress, they  founded as a safety valve to seething nationalism,  as a toy which would lull the awakening giant into  slumber, an instrument to destroy National  consciousness, has been, as far as they are  concerned, a success. Our own “denationalization”  under the name of Nationality is Hearing its  consummation. We have almost forgotten our  Nationhood.

 

CHAPTER II 

What is the notion of Democratic states about  “Nation”? Is it the same haphazard bundle of friend  and foe, master and thief, as we in Hindusthan  understand it to mean? Or do the political thinkers  of the democratic West think otherwise? 

We believe that our notions today about the  Nation concept are erroneous. They are not in  conformity with those of the Western Political  Scientists, we think we are imitating. It is but  proper, therefore, at this stage, to understand what  the Western Scholars state as the Universal Nation  idea and correct ourselves. With this end in view,  we shall now proceed with stating and analysing the World’s accepted Nation concept. 

The word “Nation” denotes a compound idea. It  consists of certain distinct notions fused indissolubly into a whole, which stands so long as  its components exist in unison. The various  political philosophers have expressed in different  words but always conveying the same sense.  Modern dictionaries, too, give the same meaning. 

 

Fowler defines the word “Nation” to mean “A  people or Pace distinguished by community of  descent, language, history or political institutions.”  The definitions given by the various Political  Scientists are more comprehensive and more to the  point. We will quote a few, though a large number  of authors can easily be cited, and examine them to  find out what, in essence, they in common subscribe to. 

According to Prof. Hole-Combe “It (Nationality)  is a corporate sentiment, a kind of fellow – feeling or mutual sympathy relating to a definite home country. It springs from a common heritage of  memories, whether of great achievements and  glory, or of disaster and suffering. “With Burgess Nation means” a population having a common language and literature, common customs and  common consciousness of rights and wrongs, inhabiting a territory of a geographical unity.” Bluntsley, the famous German writer on politics,  defines Nation thus – ” It is a union of masses of men of different occupations and social states, in a  hereditary society of common spirit; feeling and

 

race bound together especially by a language and customs in a common civilization which gives  them a sense of unity and distinction from all foreigners, quite apart from the bond of the state.” Getel is very clear in his expression of the concept  when in his “Introduction to Political Science” he  says that “Nationality is to denote a population  having common bonds of race, language, religion, tradition and history. These influences create the consciousness of unity that binds individuals into a  nationality. “Gumplovic is brief but most  significant in defining “Nation” as a “community of  civilization.” Our own writer on politics Mr. Kale  says in his “Indian Administration” “A nation is a  community, members of which are bound to one  another by racial, ethnological, religious and linguistic ties.” 

It is needless to multiply quotations. Let us see  what we obtain as the gist of the idea. That “a  definite home country” – “a territory of a  geographical unity” is essential for a nation is  evident, though everyone may not have explicitly  expressed its absolute necessity, in so many words. 

The next point which comes up as of the essence of  the concept is Race – a hereditary Society.”  “Religious ties” “Common civilization” expressed  also as “Common heritage of memories” “Common  bond of tradition and history” and lastly “linguistic  unity” are the three other factors most prominently  present in the Nation concept, as understood by  the learned political thinkers of the world. In fine,  the idea contained in the word Nation is a  compound of five distinct factors fused into one  indissoluble whole the famous five “Unities” – Geographical (country), Racial (Race), Religious  (Religion), cultural (Culture) and linguistic  (language). We will take each severally and  examine its place in the concept. 

COUNTRY: That for any race to live the life of a  Nation it is essential that it should have a territory  of its own, delimited as possible by natural  geographical boundaries, is an unquestionable  truth. Indeed such a piece of land is the physical  basis of any National life. A Nation without its  country is unthinkable. It is only when a race  inhabits a definite territory as its own possession

 

and develops therein, that growing forth into its  peculiar culture and the resultant nationhood.  History records abundant proofs of races,  acquiring a country, shaping themselves, into  Nations in course of time. It may be said that even  the U. S. A., in which a number of European  peoples settled and amalgamated themselves into a  homogeneous whole, have achieved independent  nationhood as a result merely of a separate  country; otherwise, there is nothing to distinguish  the parent stocks from their American offspring. At  the same time it is an illustration in point to show  how an independent life in a separate country  produces varying interests and in time, stamps the  mother race with a distinct new culture, giving rise  to a new Nation. History also records notable  examples of ancient nations being deprived of  nationality as a consequence of their losing their  motherland. Take for example the Jews. The Jews  were a prosperous nation. But times changed. The  nation was conquered and subjected to a tyrannous  rule under the Romans. A number of Jews, finding  it difficult to live in those conditions maintaining 

 

their old religion and culture, left then-country  Palestine, and came to Hindusthan—the purest  stock of the children of Israel—and to this day they  are inhabiting the country of the Hindus (the Bene 

Israels of Bombay Presidency). Later, the engines  of destruction loose under the name of Islam,  completely destroyed their power and the Jews, in  order to save what was most dear to them,—their  religion and culture, fled from the country and  scattered, all the world over naturalising  themselves in various parts of the globe. Thus  scattered they still live and with them live their  religion, culture and language. They are still the  same old Jews. With them nothing has changed  except that they are exiles from their country and have no place to call their own; and they are all 

without exception, a rich and advanced people. But they are a people in name and are not a nation, as  the whole world knows. The recent attempt at rehabilitating Palestine with its ancient population  of the Jews is nothing more than an effort to  reconstruct the broken edifice and revitalize the practically dead Hebrew National life. Another 

 

example is of the Parsis. The same old tale of  Islamic invasion, with its attendant massacres,  devastation, destruction, loot and arson, violation  of all sacred places desecration of religion and  culture, and forced conversion to the faith of the 

ready executioner, and everything else that ever went hand in hand with the spread of Islam, was  repeated in all its hideousness in Iran. A number of  staunch Parsis decided to trust the harsh elements  of Nature rather than the unparalleled cruelty of  Islam, took with them their sacred fire and set sail  for anywhere away from Iran and from the 

murderers, who enthroned themselves in that fair  land. They happened to land in Hindusthan—the land of the generous Hindus, who extended to  them a hand of fraternal love and gave them  succour and protection. And in this new country  they have lived and prospered and are today a  wealthy class with their religion and culture intact.  But the Parsis are not a Nation. No one can say that 

the Iranian Nation of the Parsis is extant today. Why? Because they lost their own country, because they have no geographical unit of a territory to call

their own, wherein to live in undisputed possession and develop, according to their own  natural tendencies, their culture and their  Nationhood. But let these two notable examples suffice, for no one can seriously dispute the fact  that for a people to be and to live as a Nation, a  hereditary territory, a definite home country,  relating to which it has certain indissoluble bonds  of community, is essential. 

RACE: It is superfluous to emphasis the  importance of Racial Unity in the Nation idea. A  Race is a “hereditary Society having common  customs, common language, common memories of  glory or disaster; in short, it is a population with a  common origin under one culture. Such a race is by  far the important ingredient of a Nation. Even if  there be people of a foreign origin, they must have  become assimilated into the body of the mother  race and inextricably fused into it. They should  have become one with the original national race,  not only in its economic and political life, but also  in its religion, culture and language, for otherwise  such foreign races may be considered, under 

certain circumstances, at best members of a  common state for political purposes; but they can  never form part and parcel of the National body. If  the mother race is destroyed either by destruction 

of the persons composing it or by loss of the  principle of its existence, its religion and culture,  the nation itself comes to an end. We will not seek  to prove this axiomatic truth, that the Race is the  body of the Nation, and that with its fall, the  Nation ceases to exist. 

RELIGION AND CULTURE:Where religion  forms the very life-breath of a people, where it  governs every action of the individual as well as of  the Society as a whole, where in short, it forms the  only incentive to all action, worldly and spiritual, it  is difficult to distinguish these two factors clearly.  They become one, as it were. Culture being the  cumulative effect of age-long customs, traditions,  historical and other conditions and most  particularly of religious beliefs and their attendant  philosophy, (where there is such a philosophy) on  the Social mind, creating the peculiar Race spirit  (which it is difficult to explain,) it is plainly a result 

mainly of that religion and philosophy, which  controls the social life and shapes it, generation  after generation, planting on the Race  consciousness, its own particular stamp. But  ordinarily, where religion is a mere matter of form, 

or worse still, a toy for luxury to play with, it is culture which is the important factor, and can be easily distinguished from Religion. For example in Europe, except Turkey and modern Russia, the  

whole continent professes Christianity, but this  religion, not having permeated into the life of the people, remains practically an ornament, without  moulding the minds of the people. As such, each  Nation while being Christian in common with the others, has developed its own peculiar culture, an  evolution of the Race spirit of its pre-Christian ancestors. And every Nation is proud of this  distinctive feature and guards it most zealously. For, where religion does not form a distinguishing factor, culture together with the other necessary constituents of the Nation idea, becomes the  important point in the making up of individual  Nationality. On the other hand in Hindusthan,

Religion is an all-absorbing entity. Based as it is on  the unshakable foundations of a sound philosophy  of life, (as indeed Religion ought to be), it has  become eternally woven into the life of the Race, 

and forms, as it were, its very Soul. With us, every  action in life, individual, social or political, is a  command of Religion. We make war or pRace,  engage in arts and crafts, amass wealth and give it  away, indeed we are born and we die – all in  accord with religious injunctions. Naturally, 

therefore, we are what our great Religion has made  us. Our Race-spirit is a child of our Religion and so  with us Culture is but a product of our all comprehensive Religion, a part of its body and not  distinguishable from it. 

But whether the two, Religion and Culture, can be shown in distinction or not, whether the one forms an appendage of the other or vice versa,  every unit which we call a Nation, does profess  and maintain a National Religion and Culture,  these being necessary to complete the Nation idea.

At the present, however, there is a general  tendency to affirm that Religion is an individual  question and should have no place in public and  political life. This tendency is based upon a  misconception of Religion, and has its origin in  those, who have, as a people, no religion worth the  name. And yet it will not be unprofitable to  consider this problem at this stage. If Religion  concerns itself merely with matters other-worldly  if there be another world, so the sceptic will say,  then surely it should have no place in affairs of this  world. Then only will it surely be a question to be  solved by each in his own individual way, in the  privacy of his life. In Europe, in practically the  whole of the world except Hindusthan, Religion  means no more than a few opinions, dogmatically  forced down the throats of one and all, without any  consideration for individual aptitudes or the fact  that the teachings therein do not accord with  modern knowledge. It is just the only way for all— a square hole for balls of all shapes and sizes to fit  in. And at its best it is an attempt to establish a  relationship between the individual and God, for 

the spiritual benefit of the former. With this view  of Religion, even at its best, it is natural to affirm  that it should have no place in Politics. But then,  this is but a fractional part of Religion. Religion, in  its essence is that which by regulating society- in  all its functions, makes room for all individual  idiosyncrasies, and provides suitable ways and  means for all sorts of mental frames to adopt, and  evolve, and which at the same time raises the  whole society as such, from the material, through  the moral to the spiritual plane. As many minds, so many ways that is the spiritual rule of true 

Religion. On the worldly or material plane, too, it affords opportunities for the development of each to the fullest stature of his manhood, not for a  moment, however, desisting from pointing out and leading on the way to the attainment of the highest spiritual life and Bliss Infinite. Such Religion—and nothing else deserves that name—cannot be ignored in individual or public life. It must have a place in proportion to its vast importance in politics as well. To give it a go— bye or even to assign it an insignificant place, would mean

degeneration on all hands. Indeed politics itself  becomes, in the case of such a Religion, a small  factor, to be considered and followed solely as one of the commands of Religion and in accord with  such commands. We in Hindusthan have been living such a Religion. For us individual, social and political prosperity is the first stage to be attained towards achievement of real life in its fullness. We cannot give up religion in our National life, as it  would mean our stopping short on the lowest rung of the ladder, when we have the whole way clear before us, as it would mean that we have turned faithless to our Race-Spirit, to the ideal and mission for which we have lived for ages, in spite of greater calamities than what sufficed to annihilate Babylon and Misar and Iran and a number of the ancient  civilizations. 

Apart from this, and taking that Europe has a  religion, (those who have raised this cry of no religion being all Europeans) it is small wonder  that they should have said so. Europe has been the  scene of much bloodshed in the name of Religion.  Although they tire all Christian Nations, from an 

ill-placed pride in a particular form of worship in the minds of the ruling classes, they shed much  innocent blood and acquired such notoriety, that  for the general, pRace it was considered profitable  to assume a more tolerant attitude towards the  various sects and religious persuasions, and leave  the individual to choose whichever he liked,  provided only, he did not, in following his beliefs,  becomes a nuisance to his neighbours. To ban  religion altogether from all public and political life  is but one step forward and a natural one. 

There is yet another and much more important  consideration. Sects, forms of worship, are only  parts of a religion, followed by a group of persons  or by individuals; they are not so many Religions.  Europe, therefore, has but one Religion all over.  Naturally, Religion does not form there a  distinguishing of Nationality. And so in the  conflict of Nations religious zeal does not form an  incentive 1o any act of war or pRace. Under such  conditions National differences arise solely out of  the country, race, culture and possibly the  language being different. Such is the state of affairs 

obtaining in Europe since long. And most of the  modern thinkers on Political Science being  Europeans and having before them the problem of  the Christian countries only, they found the  religion factor superfluous in their political life.  Hence the proposition that religion has no place in  politics. 

And yet, as we shall soon see, religion, though  thus cried down, has been still zealously  maintained as an essential ingredient, expressly or  implicitly in the Nationhood of most of the 

European Nations themselves. 

So also with Culture. If there be but one culture  throughout and one religion, country and race,  with the difference of language, if such difference  exists will be sufficient to constitute distinct  Nationalities. Not that under such conditions the  two shall not be factors in the nation idea, only  they will not be manifest, for then they shall have  no need to be so. This fact should be borne in  mind, as it will have to be referred to again, when  we will study our own old conception of “Rashtra.”

There is one more question. The modern  Socialistic doctrine denies religion altogether. We  reserve this-question for a later page. In passing we  shall only state that Socialism, in whatever form, is  the “theory of the State” and takes no account of  Nationality and at present is beyond our scope. We  will, therefore, for the time being let it be. 

LANGUAGE: Every Race, living in its own  country evolves a language of its own, reflecting its  culture, it& religion, its history and traditions.  Supplanting it with another is dangerous. It is an  expression of the Race spirit, a manifestation of the  National web of life. Every word, every turn of  expression depicts the Nation’s life. It is all so  intertwined into the very being of the race that the  two cannot be severed without fatal results. Take  away from a nation its ancient language—its  whole-literature goes with it—and the Nation as  such ceases-to be. It is not for nothing that the  English long tried, even by the force of arms, to  force down their language-on the Irish and to  suppress their mother tongue. It is also not for  nothing that not only the Irish fought hard and 

preserved their sacred language but the little  Welshmen also in these modern times of glorious  political life as a part of Great Britain, are striving  hard to stem the tide supplanting their tongue with  the ‘foreign’ language, not without success. For  these all know that loss of their ancient language  would for ever kill out their dear national  sentiment, and with it wipe out any possibility of  their building up independent healthy national life.  One of the best evidences of an enslaved people is  their adoption of the language and customs of their  conquerors. Language, therefore, being  inextricably woven in the all round life of a race is  an ingredient of great importance in its nationality.  Without it the nation concept is incomplete. 

Ordinarily in every nation, these three, religion,  culture and language form a compound factor. In  the modern nations it is only latterly that they can  be seen in their separateness. We shall, therefore,  illustrate the importance of these factors in unison.  Take the example of Afghanistan. It was once  Gandhar, a province of the Hindu Nation. It  changed its form of faith by embracing Buddhism 

and gradually had tire hold of religion upon it  progressively weakened, till at last, with the  advent of the Muslims, it fell an easy prey to the  invaders and was deprived of its religion and with  it, its Hindu culture and language. The country is  there, the ancient race, too, is there, but it no longer  is the same old nation that it used to be. Gandhar is  no more. Similarity with Baluchistan. Palestine  became Arab, a large number of Hebrews changed  faith and culture and language and the Hebrew  nation in Palestine died a natural death. Where is  the Parsi Nation today? Their land is there, still  inhabited by the descendants of the old Parsis, but  is there the Parsi Nation in their home country,  Iran? It has ceased to be with the destruction in its  country, of the three essentials. Religion, Culture  and to a less extent, language. But Let us not  multiply examples. These few, though merely  indicative, suffice for our present purpose.

CHAPTER III 

Thus far we have examined the views of the  chief pre-war political writers and drawn upon old  history to support the conclusion arrived at, that  the Nation Concept comprises the five constituent  ideas—country, race, religion, culture and 

language—as the necessary and indispensable  ingredients, in the existence of which five in a  homogeneous whole, the Nation exists and in the  destruction of any one of which the Nation itself  experiences extinction. Now we have to look into  the post war period and see if the same old rule  still holds good or has been given up and  substituted by some new one, or has been even  modified. 

The war left most of the principal European  Nations unaffected so far as their constitutions  went. Germany changed from a monarchist state to  a Republican one, but its national life did not alter  with the change in the form of Government. So 

also with Russia. But a number of small states were created out of the* remains of the old nations of 

Roumania and the other contiguous nations,  together with the territories despoiled from the vanquished nations. These new states were thus composed of the original national race with an  incorporation in its body politic of a people racially, culturally and linguistically different. It  was, therefore,, necessary to frame certain standard rules in order to establish pRaceful government in  these states. The League of Nations supervised over all these changes and reorganizations and formulated the now famous “Minority Treaties” whereby the rights of the national and foreign races could be equitably adjusted and due  protection granted to the minorities in such states. If indeed, the world were of opinion that  Nationality was only another name for political unity and Race, Religion, Culture and Language had nothing to do with polities, there would have  been no trouble, for then there could be no class of people to demand special privileges and  protection. But the League of Nations, Composed of the best political brains of practically all the Nations of the world, thinks otherwise and does

not seem to countenance the view endorsed by raw  political agitators. The very definition of the word ‘Minority’ as a “class of people incorporated in the body of a Nation,” “citizens who differ from the majority of the population in Race, Religion and  Language are called minorities” is clear on the  point that every Nation has necessarily its own National Race, Religion and Language (culture  needs no special mention for with the mention of the three Race, Religion and Language, culture also is implicitly there.) To discuss the problem of  minorities is, though very useful for a proper understanding of our problem today, not within  the scope of this booklet. We will only state in one  small sentence that for such a foreign race to claim  preferential treatment at the hands of the Nation, it  should not be an upstart, a new, voluntary  settlement, and it should not be below 20% of the  total population of the state. 

To return to our subject, the post-war states men, though not speaking of Religion, Culture and  Language as essential constituents of the Nation  concept, have tacitly acknowledged that they are 

so, and have even gone the length of emphasising  the necessary nature of the Race factor. As for the  Geographical unity, since every state with which  they had to deal, did not live in the air, but  inhabited a properly delimited territory possessed  by the National Race, from the very beginning of  its national life, there arose no reason to express  country as an essential for National life. This,  however, was made express, when in order to  confer their lost Nationality upon the exiled Jews,  the British with the help of the League of Nations,  began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country,  Palestine, with its long lost children. The Jews had  maintained their race, religion, culture and  language: all they wanted was their natural  territory to complete their Nationality. The  reconstruction of the Hebrew Nation in Palestine is  just an affirmation of the fact that Country, Race,  Religion, Culture and Language must exist  unavoidably together to form a full Nation idea.  Thus it is evident that the war and its resultant  adjustments have not affected the old conception  and that as of yore, the world, the western world

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