Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism

An excellent guide into the individual thought of . . . the most important Hindu nationalist ideologues' Biblio A clear and concise exploration of the writings of Dayanand Saraswati, Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Savarkar . . . Sharma cogently traces the virulence of present-day Hindutva politics to the feverish exhortations of the four figures who constructed Hinduism as the mother superior of all other, lesser religions' Outlook Jyotirmaya Sharma's book, perhaps for the first time, presents a detailed descriptive and historical account of both the idea of Hindutva and its historical developments. It fills an enormous gap, thus facilitating a better understanding of the term Hindutva' Seminar Hindutva is short and written for the lay person, free of the academic exhibitionism that mars so many books on philosophy, yet a product of deep reading and research. It is an important book too because it examines the roots of Hindutva and so enables the reader to question that philosophy's legitimacy' India Today An excavation of the intellectual genealogy of Hindutva is long overdue. What makes Sharma's book especially notable is that he is no Marxist secularist, but a Hindu steeped in his own cultural and religious tradition . . . He also has a gift for communicating complex ideas in lucid prose' Telegraph A timely and significant work, which would be read with profit to reckon how and why Indian nationalism is currently giving way to Hindu nationalism' Hindu [Jyotirmaya Sharma] makes a valuable, well-considered contribution to the discussion on the anti-thesis of secularism' Frontline