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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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HINDU NATIONALISM : THE FIRST PHASE |
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| Inevitably,
the emasculation of the traditional leadership had to pave the way
for the rise to prominence of the new intelligentsia which had
gradually grown in numbers and confidence since its small beginning
in the early nineteenth century. As it happened, and not just by
some accident, this intelligentsia was predominantly Hindu in all
three presidencies - Bengal, Madras and Bombay. As it also happened,
this intelligentsia was ready, by virtue of the impact of Western
political ideas, to take to the hitherto unfamiliar concept of
nationalism even if with emphasis on the territorial aspect. The
Indian National Congress established in 1885 was to be the vehicle
of this class, to use this Marxist category for want of a better
one. It is from here that the history of Hindu nationalism has to be
traced and not from the dates of the establishment of the Hindu
Mahasabha and the RSS.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee synthesized the Western secular concept of nationalism with the tradition and needs of Hindus even if he was thinking in terms of Bengal and not India when he wrote his famous novel Anandmath which contained the patriotic poem Bande Mataram (hail to the Mother) that became the national anthem during the struggle for freedom. The very fact that this was replaced by Rabindranath Tagore's Jana Gana Mana after independence, as a concession to Muslim susceptibilities, highlights the nature of the freedom movement. Bankim Chatterjee gave us what Sri Aurobindo has described as the religion of patriotism. Bankim described his own viewpoint and not differently from Sri Aurobindo's. He wrote: "taking into consideration the condition of man, patriotism should be regarded as the highest religion". 14 This was the master idea of Bankim's writing. But this was not a mere intellectual idea. He embodied it in the Mother Goddess.
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| About Hindu Nationalism: The First Phase |
