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this juncture, a question may naturally crop up : If the modern
secular concept of nation and Hindu Rashtra both accord equal rights
to all its citizens, where does any difference lie at all between
the two? Why insist on the word Hindu Rashtra? The
difference is profound indeed as profound as between a living and a
non living body. In short, Hindu Rashtra is essentially cultural and
content, whereas the so called secular concept pertains to state
and is limited to the territorial and political aspects of the
Nation. State is just one of the instruments though a very vital one
created by the nation to serve its material needs. The nation
denotes the whole, while the state only a part. State
represents functions of the body part, while the culture represents
those of the mind and the intellect. It is to denote this whole
of our national entity that the word Hindu is used.
In fact, all those who pioneered,
including those in Congress too, the national renaissance in general
and the freedom movement in particular, had unreservedly used the
word Hindu wherever they referred to our nation. They also
never made any distinction between Hindu nation and Indian
nation. Right from Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo upto the famous
Lal-Bal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra
Pal) and Annie Besant, all of them had invoked the highest cultural
and spiritual Hindu values as the points of inspiration for the
freedom struggle.
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