Hindutva was “neither Right nor Left” and its essence was the embrace of different ideas, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ‘Sarkaryawah’ or general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said on Friday.
He was speaking during a discussion on the recent book by former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary and RSS executive member Ram Madhav, The Hindutva Paradigm: Integral Humanism and the Quest for a Non-Western Worldview.
“I don’t belong either to the Right or Left….Hindutva, it is neither Left nor Right,” Mr. Hosabale said.
In response to an earlier speaker, former diplomat Pavan K. Varma, saying that there was a need for “shaastraarth” or discussion today, Mr. Hosabale said he was ready to organise such a debate.
“There is no full stop in Indian tradition. Calling this West or East, the Left or the Right, all these things are suitable for our present day political discourse…I am from RSS. We have never said in our discourses inside the RSS, in any training camps, that we are Right-ist. Many ideas, they are almost like Lefitist ideas, and many definitely the so-called Right-ist (sic),” Mr. Hosabale said.
He added that the lines between East and West, Left and Right, and capitalist and communist had blurred. He said the “integral humanist thought” of Deendayal Upadhyaya that Mr. Madhav’s book discussed would provide the way forward. “Churning” was a part of Indian tradition, he said.
“Today, the world is embracing each other’s ideas and a new man is emerging, this is the essence of Hindutva. You have to take the best of everything from every corner and mould it to suit your surroundings, your environment,” he said.
Earlier in the event, Mr. Madhav kicked off the discussion by saying the book was “not anti-West” but rather espousing the need for a non-Western worldview.
Mr. Varma said Upadhyaya had “original thought” and his ideas were based on the “acceptance” that India was as much of a young republic as a civilisation.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Anil R. Dave also spoke at the event and termed the book as “one to be chewed and swallowed”. Editor of Open magazine S. Prasannarajan also spoke.
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