Hindutva

Hindutva (literally translated: "Hinduness")Sanskrit -tva is a neuter abstract suffix, hence Hindu-ness in English. is a majoritarian https://scroll.in/article/916406/how-hindu-nationalists-built-on-the-roots-of-majoritarianism-in-india-and-normalised-public-violence https://anthropology.stanford.edu/publications/book/majoritarian-state-how-hindu-nationalism-changing-india political ideology and far-right fascist ethnonationalist movement. Basically, a melding of Hindu FundamentalismHindu Fundamentalism, Encyclopedia Britannica and Hindu Fascism“After the 1940s and 1950s, a number of scholars have labelled or compared Hindutva to fascism.” (from Wikipedia, check citations) and forms the basis of the Hindu nationalist movement in India as a political form of militant nationalism that aims to eliminate the secular foundation of India's constitutional democracyHinduism vs Hindutva debate ignores Hindu people, puts religion where it doesn’t exist by Yaajnaseni (11 January, 2020 1:29 pm IST) ThePrint and turn India into a Hindu State (“Hindu Rashtra”) also referred to as “Rama’s Realm” (“Ram Rajya”). (See full text)Hindutva the ideology the impact and the implications, Academic paper by Imsu Jinger (Free full text)
In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the ideology of Hindutva. The Sangh comprises organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), and others.
From its very inception in 1923, its promoters have often resorted to cherry-pickingCherry-picking only Hindu icons: BJP’s cultural nationalism threatens idea of pluralistic India, by G Pramod Kumar (May 18, 2015 18:45:06 IST) Firstpost events, evidence, and the meanings drawn from the interpretations of the facts to spread its message through historical revisionism;By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists aim to assert their dominance over India by Rupam Jain and Tom Lasseter (March 6, 2018, 11 a.m. GMT) ReutersIwanek, Krzysztof. (2015). The Textbook of Chanakya's Pupils. Vidya Bharati and Its Gauravsali Bharat Textbook in Uttarakhand. Archiv orientální. 83. 255-+. extra-constitutional violence, whether to mobilise mass agitations https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/1372 or to silence dissent through mob lynching; (Request full access and see citations) or encouraging doublethink to justify contradictory statements.The BJP's Response to Dalit Protests Only Emphasises Contradictions in Its Hindutva Ideology, (02/AUG/2016) The Wire India
The Hindu nationalist movement, though primarily concentrated in India, has global presence and a section of the Indian diaspora living in the Europe and North America fund Hindutva groups in those countries, as well as in India.
==What it is==
In popular writings on the subject, Hindutva has been variously described as “Hinduism on steroids,” as “Hinduism which resists", or as “an illegitimate child of Hinduism.”
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of Hindutva, an admirer of Mussolini's Italian fascism and Hitler's Nazism, on Nazism and fascism, states:
Savarkar also said that Hitler was not a human monster because he was a Nazi. "Nazism proved undeniably the saviour of Germany.""Rethinking Secularism in India in the Age of Triumphant Fascism" by Murzban Jal (2016) Critique 43(3–4):523–524. Furthermore, Savarkar criticised Jews for "failing to absorb into the German national fabric" (i.e., convert their religion) and compared them to Muslims in India (who should do the same)Vinayak Damodar Savarkar: He admired Hitler and other lesser-known facts about him: He widely read Indian and world history and wrote aggressively on the oppressive British rule in India, his admiration for fascism and his views on Judaists, Christians and Muslims by Adrija Roychowdhury (Updated: May 28, 2018 5:29:13 pm) The Indian Express. saying “A Nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in Germany? They being in minority were driven out from Germany.” “If we Hindus grow stronger, Muslim friends... will have to play the part of German Jews.” Even though he held such views, he still supported the establishment of the Judaic State of Israel, as it was not only in accordance to his theory of nationalism, but also as a "bulwark against Islamization," Basu S., Das S. (2005) Knowledge for Politics: Partisan Histories and Communal Mobilization in India and Pakistan. In: Partisan Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09150-5_7 which totally doesn’t exist in Israel.
Hindu nationalist groups in Bharat / India like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were inspired not by Hindu teachings, but by Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s fascists in Italy.
This explains how Hindutva's slogan of “One Nation! One Culture! One Religion! One Language!"Savarkar wanted one nation, one goal. Modi has fulfilled his dream with Kashmir move by Vikram Sampath (7 August, 2019 12:46 pm IST) The PrintHow The Idea Of ‘One Religion, One Language, And One Culture’ Is Damaging Indian Secularism by Ananya Barua in Politics (30th October, 2014) YKA (Youth Ki Awaaz ((in eng.) Voice of the youth))One nation, one language: Why is Amit Shah inviting trouble? by Editorial Board, Telegraph sounds uncannily similar to the Nazi slogan of “Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Fuehrer!”... Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Hindutvan Fundamentalism all came around the same time in the 1920s... Crowds marching under fascist and swastika banners, black, brown shirts and khaki shorts, saffron flags, black hats and tridents, with clenched fist salutes... and even acknowledging the Aryan, Nordic and Roman gods of racial solidarity, all seem eerily similar.
The three essentials of Hindutva ideology are common nation (rashtra in Hindi), common race (jati in Hindi) and common culture/civilisation (sanskriti in Hindi). So Hindutva is similar to ideologies like pan-Islamism and is antithetical to multiculturalism and secularism including instances of atheism. Several academics have described Hindutva as a far right ideology.Les Back and John Solomos (2000), Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, p.591, ISBN 9780415156714. "It is important to note the marriage between far-right-wing Hindutva ideology and western New Ageism in the works of writers like David Frawley (1994, 1995a, 1995b) who is both a key apologist for the Hindutva movement and the author of various New Age books on Vedic astrology, oracles and yoga."
The word “Hindutva” wasn’t even used in Ancient Hindu scriptures such as the four Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Puranas, nor in the Buddhist scriptures or anywhere else. The various traditions used their philosophical and spiritual practices — such as Vaishnavs, Shakta, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Advaita etc. — to identify themselves. But no one called themselves Hindus. Even credited to have revived "Hinduism", didn't have the word "Hindu" in his vernacular.
This was, until 1923 when it was first mentioned in V.D. Savarkar’s book, Hindutva, which “articulates criteria for Indian identity based on citizenship, common ancestry, common culture and regard for India as fatherland (pitrbhu) and sacred land (puṇyabhu).” For Savarkar, Jews, Christians and Muslims could never be true Indians or Hindu, despite the presence of all three religions in India for centuries. Savarkar in his book Essentials of Hindutva had also quoted "A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste but not his Hindutva." Athough the subject regarding intercaste marriages has different viewership across the broad spectrum of Hindutva following sect.
There are contradictory statements and views among people associated with the Bharatiya Nationalist movement regarding the question of irreligion and atheism. Y. Sudershan Rao, who was appointed the head of the (ICHR) after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed government in 2014, tries to explain the meaning of "Hindoo/Hindu/Indo-" arguing, "Hindoo, that is, 'Hindū / Hindu / Indo' in ancient times was a name of the People of , PAKISTAN.. Hindus could be and were Polytheist, Monotheist, Atheist, Pantheist, Egotheist, Astrologist and vice versa. As a historian, I look at it that way."Ramayan, Mahabharat historical sources, West dubs them myth: Y Sudershan Rao Economic Times This argument includes irreligious people as "Hindoo / Hindū / Hindu / Indo...", if 'Hindoo', that is, 'Hindū / Hindu / Indo' is an ethnic identity. On the other hand, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the largest Bharatiya nationalist organization in India, constructs the idea of an "ideal Hindu family." According to a leader of the organization, "We also want people to see to it that their households look like proper Hindu homes: a tulsi plant, images of Hindu gods, the etc. should ideally be physically there."RSS focuses on Hindu family values to unify community Hindustan Times This idea of an "ideal Hindu family" excludes atheists and other religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam contradicting the view that irreligion comes within Hindutva's fold.
==What it is not==
==="Hindutva unites Hindus"===
Hindu Fundamentalism is synonymous with casteism and untouchability, with many Hindutva leaders such as Golwalkar justifying it
and demanding the misogynist and casteist (the Ancient Hindu code of law) to replace the democratic Indian constitution.
Even though Savarkar, the creator of Hindutva, was against caste, for the purpose of unifying the Hindu community against the Muslims, ever since the installation of Hindutva parties such as BJP in the Indian states, rates of violence against Dalits (lowest caste)- including rapes of Dalit women- have been at an all time high.https://www.firstpost.com/india/atrocities-on-dalits-and-tribals-up-by-70-in-gujarat-between-2003-and-2018-conviction-rate-below-5-in-modis-first-3-yrs-as-pm-6551441.html
==="Hindutva unites Indians"===
Hindu Fascist groups have instigated mob violence throughout their history among minorities such as Christians and Muslims etc. who have stayed in India for several centuries along with Hinduism. Hindutva aims to eliminate the secular and democratic foundations of the country. The leaders of the ideology were once opposed to both the flag of India (and refuse to use it) and its constitution. RSS have started to hoist the national flag since 2002.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/tri-colour-hoisted-at-rss-hq-after-52-yrs/articleshow/1561733136.cms 
If Hindutva was really about uniting Indians and teaching them their own culture, then why does it have to relate it to religion? Why does the term Hindu have to be enforced on anyone living in the Indian subcontinent? What is the need to rebrand patriotism with the face of religion slapped to it?TalkPoint: Is Mohan Bhagwat right in saying that only united Hindus can save India? ThePrint (27 February, 2018 1:25 pm IST)
==="Hindutva stops Westernisation"===
Hindu nationalists spend a good amount of time criticising "Western concepts" like feminism, LGBTQ etc., however the criticism is just virtue signalling; the hate for such concepts does not come from nationalism, but rather, hatred for anything that contradicts Hindutva's backward ideology. Of course, subsidies and tax breaks and even labour law exceptions are given wholesale to foreign MNCs that come to India to exploit Indian lower caste workers who work in sweatshops, because they were not the Hindus Hindutva sought to protect.
==Hindutva in practice==
Hindutva advocates are accused of suppressing freedom of speech and by banning books, films, and other cultural media which they don't like,In the ‘land of storytelling’, Netflix and Amazon Prime reshape India’s creative landscape The Guardian rejecting the idea of and instigating mob violence.https://www.reddit.com/r/librandu/comments/kwrk5c/hypocrisy_lying_cheating_and_adharma_to_achieve/ In order to gather such a mob, they claim that “Hindoo khatre me hain” (Hindus are in danger) from Muslims and Christians to label their hateful ideology as “Hinduism’s Survival Guide To Abrahamic Imperialism.”No, really. As this unironically demonstrates ( is a far-right magazine with a history of spreading fake news).
===Genocide===
MS Golwalkar (1903-1973), the second leader of the RSS, praised Nazi Germany’s racial policies and insisted on their use on Indian Muslims as well- all 20 crore of them.See the RationalWiki article on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh § Golwalker.
In 2015, the vice-president of the Hindutva organization All India Hindu Assembly ( (ABHM) in Hindi), Sadhvi Deva Thakur, said that the population growth of Muslims and Christians in India need to be controlled by forcibly sterilizing them.Muslims, Christians should be forcibly sterilised: Sadhvi Deva Thakur, India TodayHindu Mahasabha Leader Sadhvi Deva Thakur Says Muslims, Christians Should Be Forcibly Sterilised, Huffington Post India
BJP and RSS leader Rajeshwar Singh, openly boasting of his government's intent to “ethnically cleanse 200 million Muslims and 28 million Christians,” in 2014, said: https://sabrangindia.in/article/muslims-and-christians-will-be-wiped-out-india-december-31-2021-bjp-leader-rajeshwar-singhhttps://www.boomlive.in/rss-leaders-controversial-remark-about-minorities-in-2014-revived/
===Eugenics===
In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur also urged Hindus to have more children to increase their population. BJP MP (member of parliament) Sakshi Maharaj said that every Hindu woman must have four children.Every Hindu woman must produce at least 4 kids: Sakshi Maharaj Times of IndiaIndia MP Sakshi Maharaj: Hindus must have more babies BBC
After this remark, another BJP politician suggested that Hindu women should have five children.After Sakshi Maharaj’s ‘4 kids’ remark, a BJP leader now asks Hindu women to bear five children Indian Express
Mohan Bhagat, the current head of the RSS, when addressing the “declining Hindu population,” stated:https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/which-law-says-population-of-hindus-should-not-rise-asks-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-2988836/
====Racism====
In May 2017, RSS’s health wingThe link between Arogya Bharati, that promises genius babies, and the RSS that OpIndia couldn’t find by Pratik Sinha (9th May, 2017 10:11 PM) AltNews Arogya Bharati announced their grand plan titled "Garbh Vigyan Sanskar" (lit. Science & Culture of the Womb) to make India great again, using Nazi eugenics and their concept of race. The plan includes giving prescription to those babies of the "intended parents" (ie. Hinduism fundamentalist parents, rich, backing the project) and brainwashing "purifying" (shuddhikaran) for 3 months. These "ubermenschen" über-babies (uttam santati) are purported to be smarter, taller, and fairer. If you are having WW2 and Nazism flashbacks already, don't worry, because RSS says that the origin of this science lay in the (a Hindu scripture), which is where the Germans stole it from. Varshney says the project was inspired by the advice a senior RSS officer received many years ago in Nazi Germany.
The project is conducted in two parts; before and after pregnancy. Jani, a veteran RSS swayamsevak, states: “The first part involves nadi shuddhi (purification of energy channels) and deh shuddhi (purification of body) for 90 days. During this period, we purify the male’s sperm and the female’s egg. The new egg and sperm thus developed will not have genetic defects,” After the baby is delivered, a proper diet of milk and ghee is administered. Furthermore, “If the mother chants shlokas and mantras, it helps in the mental growth of the baby… if she leads such a life, there will be no labour pain and the baby will gain up to 300g more weight.”
==Manipulating public education==
Hindu nationalists have heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their political agenda.Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History
They Peddle Myths and Call It History, New York TimesThe absolute state of Indian youth and education Reddit These efforts had first begun in 1999 when BJP governed India between 1999 and 2004. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, this usually takes the form of deleting chapters inconvenient to their narrative,NCERT is removing caste conflict chapters from class 9 History textbooks for HRD Ministry exercisehttps://www.thenewsminute.com/article/karnataka-govt-omits-part-class-6-textbook-after-brahmin-board-objects-143831 and adding their own pseudohistory mixing Hinduism myths and facts.
The main rhetoric followed by the ruling body of Hindutva advocacy, RSS, is to help people rediscover the greatness of ancient India and re-imagine a golden age before it was "contaminated" by "foreign" invasions (ie. all other religions except of course Hinduism). It is common for RSS slaves unpaid workers and supporters to describe ancient India as a "golden bird" where they invented every fucking thing in the universe but the "foreigners" stole it from them. That is why they need to recreate this prehistoric perfect age where the Hindus did everything right – where there were no Muslims or Christians or Sikhs or Parsis at the time who coexisted peacefully – and everything we ever invented was from the ancient "science" of Ayurveda.
The education wing of the RSS, is the largest private network of schools in India, running more than 24 thousand schools across India with more than 3.4 million students and 15 thousand teachers. Most of these are even affiliated to the the central national board for schools in India.https://vidyabharti.net/index.php/informal-education-units-11-353 Through the BJP party currently in power, this extremist right-wing organisation has taken the control over many of the country’s policies. Now, it has started using public education as a political tool for brainwashing.
===Shiksha Bachao Andolan===
Hindutva writer former general secretary of Vidya Bharati, founded an organization euphemistically named Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, Desh Kosh entry (Save Education Movement), believes religious education should be an integral part of school curriculum.India’s new school textbooks favor Hindu nationalist themes, making minorities uneasy Washington Post
Batra has written some school textbooks which are taught in the Indian state of and Uttarakhand, where the Hindu nationalist BJP forms government. On 30th June, 2014, his books were made part of the school curriculum by the Gujrat government in more than 42000 Primary and Secondary government schools in Gujarat.https://www.newslaundry.com/2014/07/28/to-students-with-love If one explores these in depth, what is written in his books are bound to give laughs as well as shock to any educated sane person. An example of blatant racism and horrible misinformation is given below:What the government of Gujarat is encouraging children to read is dismaying QuartzTop Indian educationalist accused of racism over portrayal of criminal 'negroes' The Telegraph
The above passage endorses classification of people based on skin color. It claims that Indian people are "just right" while people with lighter or darker skin color are the result of something going wrong. 
Another blatant example of racism from his book is where people with darker skin color are depicted as violent criminals:
This does not even come close to the pseudoscientific insanity that gets passed as education in Dinanath’s books. Especially entertaining examples include:
*Television was not invented by John Logie Baird in 1926 but rather by Indian rishis; Sanjay, using his “Divya Shakti” (holy power) could provide live telecast of the to the blind 
*The map of India includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma, because that is Akhand Bharat.
===Other schoolbooks===
Aside from Batra's books, the RSS also publishes other schoolbooks.
This is a page from Bodhmala 4, a textbook on cultural knowledge for class 4 students from Vidya Bharti.
The teachers’ guidebook of the same series also states:
These are some of the many “facts” expounded in the Bodhmala series – textbooks for Class 4-12 students and three guidebooks for teachers – published by the same Haryana-based Vidya Bharti Sanskriti Shiksha Sansthan.
Vidya Bharti publishes three books for teachers: Praveshika, Madhyama and Uttama.
Other interesting factz and tidbits include:From Hindu Ocean to Sindhu Sea: Here’s what RSS-backed schools are teaching children about history by Snigdhendu Bhattacharya (24 Aug, 2021) Newslaundry
*Boomerang is modelled on Krishna’s 
*China is a Sanskrit word, and it has "Aryan culture" (whatever that means).
*Colonel James Tod, an East India Company officer, traced the origins of the Chinese back to the son of Pururava mentioned in the Indian 
*India is the world’s oldest nation. For instance, page 8 of Bodhmala 8 says, "Manushya-matra ki janani adibhumi Bharat." meaning "All human beings originate from India." Of course, as almost everyone knows, modern Homo sapiens first originated and evolved from Africa.Chan, E.K.F., Timmermann, A., Baldi, B.F. et al. Human origins in a southern African palaeo-wetland and first migrations. Nature 575, 185–189 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1714-1
*They're not "Arabian Sea" or "Indian Ocean", they're really the "Sindhu Sea", and "Hindu Ocean"
===Writing their own textbooks===
RSS's grip over public education is not limited to the thousands of Vidya Bharati schools. Education ministers in other BJP ruled states, like in the case of Rajasthan’s education minister Vasudev Devnani, have created their own school textbooks by taking notes from Vidya Bharati.Inspired by the RSS, dictated by BJP minister: The inside story of Rajasthan’s textbook revisions After defeating the their opposition in Rajasthan, 2013, the BJP appointed a textbook writing committee selecting only members of the RSS.https://scroll.in/article/901001/bjps-major-achievement-in-rajasthan-rewriting-schools-textbooks-in-the-rss-worldview Some of the changes in Devnani's revised textbooks include... 
*The math books of every class will contain a chapter on "Vedic mathematics". 
*Emphasis on "new contexts and concerns at the state and national level," which takes examples of two (failed) BJP-led government policies, namely the ("Save The Girl Child, Educate The Girl Child Campaign") and the ("Clean India Mission"). 
*Enforcing the Hindu supremacist worldview by removing minorities from it entirely. In "Ajmeer ki Sair", a story of two boys sightseeing the city of for class 3 students, was revised to remove the Muslim characters and places with Muslim names to insert the names of past Hindu rulers "who defeated Bharat’s invaders... several times" and Hindu religious places. The name of the book was also changed to "Ajmeer ki Yatra".
*Any mentions of India's first prime minister and famous freedom fighter, was completely removed from the revised class 8 social science books. It does not mention who India’s first Prime Minister was.https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jawaharlal-nehru-erased-from-rajasthan-school-textbook-2789754/ This is because of Nehru was a Congress party member, who is the main opposition of the BJP.
*The revised Hindi textbook for class 5 has a chapter on Kaamdhenu, detailing the benefits humans can earn if they consider a cow as their mother.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Rajasthan-textbooks-have-cows-letter-to-kids/articleshow/52197081.cms The animal's portrait in the book has a pantheon of Hindu gods tattooed on its body.https://www.newslaundry.com/2016/05/10/letter-from-a-gau-mata-in-rajasthan-textbooks
*Lines between fiction from scriptures and nonfictional history is blurred as history texts contain sections about stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana as historical accounts. The revised history textbook for class 6 talks about how the spent their days in exile while ruled over the ancient kingdoms of India.
*Attempts to create national pride through nationalist pseudohistory. The revised class 7 history textbook states that won the against the exact opposite of what happened.
What makes this revisionism so severe in Rajasthan's case, is that teachers lack any other resources to teach children.https://scroll.in/article/901002/rajasthan-teachers-tried-and-failed-to-counter-textbooks-rewritten-to-serve-hindutva-propaganda For the majority of the Rajasthan students who study in government schools, these free textbooks are perhaps the only ones most of them will ever be exposed to.
===Making the Bhagavad Gita mandatory===
The a famous Hindu scripture, has been made mandatory for all students studying in government public schools in BJP-ruled states, such as Gujrat,https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/gujarat-bhagavad-gita-school-syllabus-classes-6-12-congress-aap-1926616-2022-03-17 where the Gita will be taught from 6th class “in such a way that students will develop an interest in it,” says Gujarat's Education Minister Jitu Vaghani, and in classes 9-12 they will be offered a deeper look into the book. After Gujrat's implementation, BJP-ruled Karnataka also plans to teach the scripture,https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/bhagavad-gita-schools-will-impart-values-karnataka-cm-says-decision-soon-162078 saying "If not Bhagavad Gita, what else will impart moral values?".https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/if-not-bhagavad-gita-what-else-will-impart-moral-values-karnataka-cm-7827037/ This is the same state that banned hijab to "keep religion out of schools".https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/02/16/as-karnataka-colleges-reopen-a-tough-choice-for-many-between-faith-education
==Pseudoscholarship==
===Pseudoscience===
The Sangh Parivar and Hindutva advocates in general also indulge in a lot of pseudoscientific claims. For example, it is not uncommon to find Hindutva proponents claiming that the discoveries of modern science are actually re-discoveries of what had been found ages ago by the ancient Hindu saints. Also, they tend to justify things like Ayurveda using pseudoscientific blabber.
Vedic Science is a concept used by Hindutva advocates to denote to the scientific tradition of ancient India.Quite similar to the Hare Krishnas use of the term "Vedic creationism" to give their brand of creationism some ancient Indian patina. Astrologer Gayatri Devi Vasudev writing for The Organiser, a publication of the Hindutva organization the RSS, claimed that the distinction of science and pseudoscience (or protoscience) is Eurocentric and inapplicable to Vedic Science:
Hindutva advocates even go as far to claim that religion and science is identical in India:
===Pseudohistory and pseudoarcheology===
Even before the advent of the Bharatiya Janata Party, there was a pseudoscientific historian named PN Oak, who made numerous ridiculous claims. Among them, was the allegation that the was a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva,Reality Check: Whose Taj Mahal is it anyway?, by Vikas Pandey (2 Nov 2017) BBC and that the Patriarch Abraham, was a Brahman (Abraham, Brahman). He also alleged that the Vatican originated as a Vedic priesthood (Vatican, Vatika), when it has been clearly documented that it was a successor to the Papal States, itself a successor to Western Imperium Romanum. (Just because a bunch of words are similar, that does NOT imply common origin. Hell, the fact that Japanese fisherman chant 'Yahweh', does NOT mean that they descended from the lost tribes of Israel).
In 2014, after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, it appointed Y. Sudershan Rao, a history professor associated with a RSS-affiliated organization, as the head of the (ICHR).Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history body India Today Rao believes that material evidence is not necessary to write the history of India. He said during an interview with the Outlook magazine,
However, this statement is fallacious and in good old RationalWiki fashion, we have dissected and responded to it:
Hindutva advocates propagate the pseudolinguistic Indigenous Aryans theory which asserts that the speakers of Indo-European languages are "indigenous" to the Indian subcontinent.
===Revisionism of science and technology===
Y. Sudershan Rao claimed that Indians used to fly aircraft, conduct stem cell research and use cosmic weapons 5000 years ago, and believes that the Indian epics the and the , which were written two millennia ago, are not fiction, but essentially history books.Similar to how some people read the Bible... He argues humans did not develop the art of fiction writing until a few centuries ago; hence, the events and things described in these epics must be real.Fears grow in India about Hindu 'Modi-fication' of education, Reuters
In the school textbook Tejomay Bharat written by Hindutva writer Dinanath Batra, it is claimed that television was invented in the age of Mahabharata ca. two millennia ago:
Batra's textbook also claimed that the automobile was first invented in ancient India:
In the Indian epic a character is described as having born to an unmarried woman. In 2014, while delivering a lecture in front of a group of doctors and other professionals, Narendra Modi, BJP politician and the 14th Prime Minister of India, said that Karna's birth outside his mother's womb is the proof of the existence of genetic science in ancient India:Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times The Guardian 
 is a well-known Hindu deity. His body is that of a human and his head is that of an elephant. In 2014, Modi suggested that this could be possible because an ancient Indian plastic surgeon transplanted elephant's head on the body of a human being.
If this kind of “we invented everything” narrative seems familiar, it’s probably because it’s literally the entire plot of George Orwell’s 1984...
==Hindutva movement worldwide==
The Hindutva movement is not an Indian-only phenomenon. It is present worldwide, in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries. A number of organizations, mostly in the form of non-profits, constitute the movement and a section of the Hindu Indian diaspora in different countries support these organizations. An average supporter of an Hindutva organization may not adhere to the extremist beliefs of these organizations, but they join or support these organizations out of a perceived sense of alienation in a country where Hindus constitute a religious minority.
In the United States, Hindu nationalists take the benefit of the liberal secular atmosphere of the pluralist American society Hindutva Bigotry in America and draw on multiculturalist discourse for their presence, while at the same time they fund cultural and political organizations in India that spread hatred and commit acts of violence against India's religious minorities. In Australia, Hindu nationalist organizations legitimise their activities through the rhetoric of liberal multiculturalism. At the same time, just like the American Hindutva organizations, they promote hatred against religious minorities in India.
==External links==
*
*Hindutva: Myths and Reality
*Hindu Fascism 101: What is Hindutva?
*Hindutva Harassment Field Manual
*Hindu nationalists are gaining power in India — and silencing enemies along the way, The Independent
*Hindu nationalists flex muscles in Narendra Modi’s India, Financial Times
*The Triumph of the Hindu Right Foreign Affairs
*Hitler’s Hindus: The Rise and Rise of India’s Nazi-loving Nationalists, Haaretz
*How did Hindus become Hindu and why Hindutva is not Hinduism
Propaganda in education:
*Delete and control - the Parivar's mantra, article about manipulation of school textbooks
*Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History, full text from journal
*The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States, full text from the Harvard Library of Scholarly Communication
*The Textbook of Chanakya's Pupils. Vidya Bharati and Its Gauravsali Bharat Textbook in Uttarakhand, full text.
*The Saffronization of Indian Textbooks
Online propaganda:
*Hate factory: Inside Kapil Mishra’s ‘Hindu Ecosystem’ (Long read) How Hindutva groups manipulate social media.
*Tek Fog: An App With BJP Footprints for Cyber Troops to Automate Hate, Manipulate Trends (Long read) How the BJP automates this manipulates manipulation through unsettling means.
*#EyeballPolitics Facebook Investigation (4-part investigative series) The BJP's relations with Facebook itself
Pseudo-scholarship:
*Peddler of myths, article examining manipulation of History
*Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and `Vedic science'
Worldwide:
*The foreign hand, article shows how Hindutva groups collect money in America and then send it back to extremist organizations in India
*In god's name, article explaining how the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America grew
*The Parivar in America, an article about Hindu nationalist activities in the United States
*Trans-atlantic thrust, another article about Hindu nationalist activities in North America
*Western Hindutva: Hindu nationalism in the United Kingdom and North America
*Hindutva Abroad, The California Textbook Controversy
==See also==
*Indian alt-right glossary
*National mysticism
*Nationalist pseudohistory
*Nationalism in history textbooks
*Dominionism
*Islamism
*969 Movement
*Christian Identity
*Fascism
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Anti-Christian bigotry
Category:Birtherism
Category:Fascism
Category:Fundamentalism
Category:Hinduism
Category:Hindu nationalism
Category:Islamophobia
Category:Indian politics
Category:Nationalist pseudohistory
Category:Pseudolinguistics
Category:Racism
Category:Religious terms
Category:Sexism
Category:Woo