Editing Hindutva (section)

===Similarities with fascism and Nazism===
{{See also|Hindu nationalism}}
{{Fascism sidebar |expanded=variants}}

<section begin="fascism" />The Hindutva ideology of organisations such as RSS have long been compared to [[fascism]] or [[Nazism]]. An editorial published on 4 February 1948, for example, in the ''[[National Herald]]'', the mouthpiece of the [[Indian National Congress]] party, stated that "it [RSS] seems to embody Hinduism in a Nazi form" with the recommendation that it must be ended.<ref name="Graham2007">{{cite book|author=Bruce Desmond Graham|title=Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-05374-7|pages=11–12|access-date=10 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222440/https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, in 1956, another Congress party leader compared Jana Sangh to the Nazis in Germany.<ref>{{cite book|author=Bruce Desmond Graham|title=Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-05374-7|page=66 with footnotes|access-date=10 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222440/https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|The Hindutva organisations were not exclusively criticised in the 1940s by the Indian political leaders. The Muslim League was also criticised for "its creed of Islamic exclusiveness, its cult of communal hatred" and called a replica of the German Nazis.<ref>{{cite book|author=Bruce Desmond Graham|title=Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-05374-7|pages=1–2|access-date=10 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222440/https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>}} After the 1940s and 1950s, a number of scholars have labelled or compared Hindutva to fascism.<ref name=":3">[a] {{Cite journal|last=Sarkar|first=Sumit|date=1 January 1993|title=The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar|jstor=4399339|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|volume=28|issue=5|pages=163–167}}<br />[b] {{cite journal | last=Ahmad | first=Aijaz | title=Fascism and National Culture: Reading Gramsci in the Days of Hindutva | journal=Social Scientist | volume=21 | issue=3/4 | year=1993 | pages=32–68 | doi=10.2307/3517630 | jstor=3517630 }}</ref><ref name=":4">[a] {{Cite journal|last=Desai|first=Radhika|date=5 June 2015|title=Hindutva and Fascism|url=http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/53/review-article/hindutva-and-fascism.html|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|series=Research in Political Economy|volume=51|issue=53|doi=10.1108/S0161-7230201530A|isbn=978-1-78560-295-5|access-date=8 May 2017|archive-date=18 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170718164125/http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/53/review-article/hindutva-and-fascism.html|url-status=live}}<br />[b] {{cite journal | last=Reddy | first=Deepa S. | title=Hindutva: Formative Assertions | journal=Religion Compass | publisher=Wiley | volume=5 | issue=8 | year=2011 | doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00290.x | pages=439–451}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last=Sen | first=Satadru | title=Fascism Without Fascists? A Comparative Look at Hindutva and Zionism | journal=South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies | volume=38 | issue=4 | date=2 October 2015 | doi=10.1080/00856401.2015.1077924 | pages=690–711| s2cid=147386523 }}</ref> Marzia Casolari has linked the association and the borrowing of pre-World War II European nationalist ideas by early leaders of Hindutva ideology.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last= Casolari|first= Marzia|year= 2000|title= Hindutva's Foreign Tie-Up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence|jstor=4408848 |journal= Economic and Political Weekly|volume=35|issue=4|pages=218–228}}</ref> According to the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations'', the term Hindutva has "fascist undertones".<ref name="BrownMcLean2018">{{citation|last1=Brown|first1=Garrett W|last2=McLean|first2=Iain|last3=McMillan|first3=Alistair|title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3FGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT381|date=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-254584-8|pages=381–|access-date=9 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007223648/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3FGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT381#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Many scholars have pointed out that early Hindutva ideologues were inspired by fascist movements in early 20th-century Italy and Germany.<ref>{{Cite web|last=South Asia Scholar Activist Collective|title=What is Hindutva?|url=https://www.hindutvaharassmentfieldmanual.org/defininghindutva|access-date=11 July 2021|website=Hindutva Harassment Field Manual|language=en-US|archive-date=10 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710045110/https://www.hindutvaharassmentfieldmanual.org/defininghindutva|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Leidig|first=Eviane|date=26 May 2020|title=Hindutva as a variant of right-wing extremism|journal=Patterns of Prejudice|volume=54|issue=3|pages=215–237|doi=10.1080/0031322X.2020.1759861|issn=0031-322X|hdl=10852/77740|s2cid=221839031|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Reddy|first=Deepa|date=2011|title=Capturing Hindutva: Rhetorics and Strategies|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00289.x|journal=Religion Compass|language=en|volume=5|issue=8|pages=427–438|doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00289.x|issn=1749-8171|access-date=11 July 2021|archive-date=11 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210711003616/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00289.x|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Jaffrelot|first=Christophe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mOXWgr53A5kC|title=Hindu Nationalism: A Reader|date=10 January 2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-2803-6|language=en|access-date=2 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007221357/https://books.google.com/books?id=mOXWgr53A5kC|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Indian Marxist economist and political commentator [[Prabhat Patnaik]] calls Hindutva "almost fascist in the classical sense". He states that the Hindutva movement is based on "class support, methods and programme".<ref name="j3517631">{{cite journal |title=Fascism of our times |jstor=3517631 |author=Prabhat Patnaik |journal=Social Scientist |volume=21 |issue=3/4|pages=69–77 |year=1993 |doi=10.2307/3517631}}</ref> According to Patnaik, Hindutva has the following fascist ingredients: "an attempt to create a unified homogeneous majority under the concept of "the Hindus"; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]] and [[masculinity]]".<ref name="j3517631"/>

According to some opinion writers, Hindutva shows ethno-nationalism and hyper-militarism similar to [[Revisionist Zionism]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Thread that binds Hindutva and Zionism |url=https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/thread-that-binds-hindutva-and-zionism |date=2 Dec 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231230151607/https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/thread-that-binds-hindutva-and-zionism |archive-date=30 December 2023 |website=nationalheraldindia.com |last=Shaarma |first=Shubham }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Unpacking the Hindutva Embrace of Israel |url=https://thewire.in/world/hindutva-israel-tweets-palestine-conflict |date=12 Oct 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231229211317/https://thewire.in/world/hindutva-israel-tweets-palestine-conflict |archive-date=29 December 2023 |website=wire.in |last=Choudhury |first=Angshuman}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Why India's Hindu nationalists worship Israel's nation-state model |url=https://theconversation.com/why-indias-hindu-nationalists-worship-israels-nation-state-model-111450 |date=14 Feb 2019 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230728063639/https://theconversation.com/why-indias-hindu-nationalists-worship-israels-nation-state-model-111450 |archive-date=28 July 2023 |website=theconversation.com |last=Bose |first=Sumantra }}</ref> and [[Kahanism]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The violent phobias that bind Hindutva and Zionism |url=https://www.972mag.com/india-israel-zionism-hundutva/ |date=9 Nov 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231230151517/https://www.972mag.com/india-israel-zionism-hundutva/ |archive-date=30 December 2023 |work=[[972mag]] |last=Hilton |first=Em}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |title=What Indian Ethnonationalists Learned From Israel Advocates |url=https://jewishcurrents.org/what-indian-ethnonationalists-learned-from-israel-advocates |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231230170530/https://jewishcurrents.org/what-indian-ethnonationalists-learned-from-israel-advocates |date=6 Jul 2023 |archive-date=30 December 2023 |website=jewishcurrents.org |last=Gopalan |first=Aparna }}</ref><section end="fascism" />{{Unreliable source?|reason=At least one of the sources links to [[Middle East Eye]] which has been criticized as a front for [[Hamas]]|date=June 2024}}

According to Jaffrelot, the early Hindutva proponents such as Golwalkar envisioned it as an extreme form of "ethnic nationalism", but the ideology differed from fascism and Nazism in three respects.<ref name="Jaffrelot1996p77"/> First, unlike fascism and Nazism, it did not closely associate Hindutva with its leader. Second, while fascism emphasised the primacy of the state, Hindutva considered the state to be a secondary. Third, while Nazism emphasised primacy of the race, the Hindutva ideology emphasised primacy of the society over race.<ref name="Jaffrelot1996p77">{{cite book|author= Christophe Jaffrelot|title= The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2buDDwdgIsC|year= 1996|publisher= Columbia University Press|isbn= 978-0-231-10335-0|page= 77|access-date= 12 June 2019|archive-date= 7 October 2024|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20241007223700/https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2buDDwdgIsC|url-status= live}}</ref>{{efn|For further elaboration on the primacy of state in fascism, see Walter Laqueur.<ref name="Laqueur1978">{{cite book|author= Zeev Sternhell | editor=Walter Laqueur|title=Fascism: A Reader's Guide: Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2s8OaLD7y_oC |year=1978|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-03642-0|pages=355–360}}</ref> For further elaboration on the primacy of race in Nazism, see [[Richard Bessel]].<ref name="BesselBessel1996">{{cite book|author=Adrian Lyttelton|editor=Richard Bessel|editor-link=Richard Bessel|title=Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Comparisons and Contrasts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aJvzjv12CkcC|year=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-47711-6|pages=12–14|access-date=12 June 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007223545/https://books.google.com/books?id=aJvzjv12CkcC|url-status=live}}</ref>}} According to Achin Vanaik, several authors have labelled Hindutva as fascist, but such a label requires "establishing a fascist minimum". Hindu nationalism, states Vanaik, is "a specific Indian manifestation of a generic phenomenon [of nationalism] but not one that belongs to the genus of fascism".<ref>{{cite journal|title = Situating Threat of Hindu Nationalism: Problems with Fascist Paradigm| author= Achin Vanaik| journal = Economic and Political Weekly| volume = 29| number= 28| year= 1994| pages= 1729–1748|jstor=4401457}}</ref>

According to [[Mark Juergensmeyer]], a number of writers in India and outside India have variously described Hindutva as "fundamentalist" and "India's flirtation with native fascism", while others disagree.<ref name="Juergensmeyer1996p129"/> The debate on Hindutva is a matter of perspective. The Indians debate it from the perspective of their own colonial past and their contemporary issues, while the Euro-American view considers it from the global issues, their own experiences with fundamentalism in light of classic liberal and relativist positions, states Juergensmeyer.<ref name="Juergensmeyer1996p129">{{cite journal | last=Juergensmeyer | first=Mark | title=The Debate over Hindutva | journal=Religion | volume=26 | issue=2 | year=1996 | doi=10.1006/reli.1996.0010 | pages=129–135}}</ref>

Sociologists Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta have described difficulties in identifying Hindutva with fascism or Nazism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, its "distinctively Indian" character, and "the RSS's disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in [[civil society]]". They describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism".<ref name="Bhatt & Mukta">{{cite journal |journal=Ethnic and Racial Studies |volume=23 |issue=3|pages=407–441 |date=May 2000 |author1=Chetan Bhatt |author2=Parita Mukta |title=Hindutva in the West: Mapping the Antinomies of Diaspora Nationalism |doi= 10.1080/014198700328935|s2cid=143287533}} Quote: "It is also argued that the distinctively Indian aspects of Hindu nationalism, and the RSS's disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society, suggests a strong distance from both German Nazism and Italian Fascism. Part of the problem in attempting to classify Golwalkar's or Savarkar's Hindu nationalism within the typology of 'generic fascism', Nazism, racism and ethnic or cultural nationalism is the unavailability of an appropriate theoretical orientation and vocabulary for varieties of revolutionary conservatism and far-right-wing ethnic and religious absolutist movements in 'Third World' countries".</ref> According to Thomas Hansen, Hindutva represents a "conservative revolution" in postcolonial India, and its proponents have been combining "paternalistic and xenophobic discourses" with "democratic and universalist discourses on rights and entitlements" based on "desires, anxieties and fractured subjectivities" in India.<ref name="Hansen1999p4">{{cite book|author=Thomas Blom Hansen|title=The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SAqn3OIGE54C|year=1999|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=1-4008-2305-6|pages=4–5|access-date=3 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007221903/https://books.google.com/books?id=SAqn3OIGE54C|url-status=live}}</ref>