Can Hindutva be held a measure of Indianness?

Section 123 (3-A) defines “corrupt practice” as promotion of, or attempt to promote, feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of the citizens of India on grounds of religion, race, caste, community, or language, by a candidate or his agent. The original Hindutva judgement, dealt with Bal Thackeray's speech saying some terrible things about how the country only belonged to Hindus. Justice Verma was on the bench at the time and found Mr. Thackeray to have committed a corrupt practise, but made some obiter statements conflating Hindutva with Indianness. I worked with him and have incredible respect for him. He did change his mind later on, and though this doesn't have judicial weight, off the bench he said publicly that his judgement needed to be re-examined. Judgements like these take time to fix. A good example would be the alterations to the sexual harassment laws, which were made only recently, all the way from 1997. The idea of Hindutva seeks to impose uniformity on Indians. It is important to think about whether this is what we are trying to achieve. Even if we wished, in my view is we cannot morph into a Hindu nation without a constitutional overhaul. The basic structure of the constitution is imbued with secularism and equal treatment. 

 —Karuna Nundy, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Indian culture is a delicately woven fabric of all religions, in which, Hinduism is one. Since Hindutva is primarily derived from Hinduism, it cannot be said to be similar to Indianness. Moreover, Indianness is not monolithic in nature, so it cannot be equated solely with Hinduism. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had used the term ‘Bharateeyata’, which he said was a conglomeration of Hindutva and Indianness, but it did not find any resonance. Over the years, the way in which the term ‘Hindutva’ has been overused by political parties, it has lost its essence and now it is looked at from a Hindu and a non-Hindu point of view. This has made it almost impossible to equate it with Indianness. 

—Nikhil Dixit, Journalist and author

“I was born to a Hindu Brahmin father and an Shia Muslim mother. I was groomed during my formative years by Italian priests in a convent school. When I think about my childhood, the modak of Ganpati Utsav, the chants of Muharram as well as Ave Maria from convent school colour my consciousness. Saying that any one aspect of my life was more important than others would be to mutilate my experience. I think this diversity is what makes me uniquely Indian. When you reduce the story of billions of people into one verdict you are automatically disregarding that mother nature has granted us great diversity, from which we draw unity. The fabric of Indianness accepts the diversity of people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. When you freeze human thought you create temples and churches. Life, and being Indian, is an ongoing stream. You can’t put a full stop to it.

—Mahesh Bhatt, Filmmaker & socio-political observer