Sita Ram Goel’s Hindutva Manifesto

An Ancient Page from 

the Atharva Veda Samhita

These lines from historian and philosopher Sita Ram Goel read like a manifesto of Hindutva: 

“Hindu society by and large has become a poor society as a result of centuries of exploitation by Islamic and British imperialism. Unlike the Muslims and Christians in India, Hindu society has no patrons and financiers abroad and has to depend entirely on its own resources from inside its only homeland. The class which came to power on the strength of sacrifices made by Hindu society has turned its back on its benefactor, and continues to cultivate the sworn enemies of Hindu society in the name of Democracy and Secularism. Hindu society also suffers from a lack of leadership which can free it from the stranglehold of power-hungry politicians who divide it into smaller and smaller segments pitted against each other. Hindu-baiting has become a profitable profession for all sorts of pen-pushers. As a cumulative effect, Hindu society has lost its self- confidence, and has been thrown on the defensive by a variety of bullies and blackmailers. Such a society is in no shape to face the inroads of Islamic imperialism which remains as vicious today as it was in the years before Partition. 

“The first task before Hindu society is to recover its self-confidence. That can happen only if Hindu society reawakens to its inimitable heritage — spiritual, cultural, and scientific — and stops treating totalitarian ideologies like Islam as anything other than falsehoods fattened by force and fraud. The rest will follow. A self-confident Hindu society will make a start by attaining the pride of place in its present-day homeland. It will assert itself as the nation rather than be treated condescendingly as one of several communities, or even as the majority community. Next, it will recover those parts of its ancestral homeland which have been lost to its enemies, as also those of its children who have been alienated from it in the past. Finally, it will hold its head high as the inheritor of a vast spiritual and cultural vision. A self-confident Hindu society alone can make its characteristic contributions to the present-day human society which is caught in the throes of an unprecedented spiritual and moral crisis.”