Golwalkar was ecstatic in his praise for Nazi Germany

Golwalkar’s book Dumping it alone by RSS won’t help by Amulya Ganguli

Golwalkar was ecstatic in his praise for Nazi Germany’s pre-World War II acquisition of Austria and Czechoslovakia, putting it down to “German pride in their Fatherland for a definite home country, for which the race has certain traditional attachments”. The Nazis were also willing to “risk … a fresh world conflagration in order to establish one, unparallelled, undisputed German empire over all this hereditary territory”. And, in addition, “to keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by its purging the country of the semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here … a good lesson for use in Hindusthan to learn and profit by”.

The lesson which Golwalkar apparently had in mind related to India’s own “hereditary territory” of Akhand Bharat. As he said, “the country (India) is still there, the ancient race, too, is there, but it is no longer the same old nation that it used to be. Gandhar (today’s Kandahar) is no more. Similarly with Baluchistan”. Golwalkar then drew a parallel for the Hindus with the fate of Jews and Parsis. “Palestine became Arab … and the Hebrew nation in Palestine died a natural death. (We … was written before the creation of Israel). Where is the Parsi nation today ? Their land is there, still inhabited by the descendants of the old Parsis, but is there the Parsi nation in their home country, Iran ?” Golwalkar’s warning is obvious. Hindus will suffer the same fate if they do not see the imminent dangers.

What, then, is his advice? After his appreciation of Nazi Germany comes his chilling prescription: “From this … experience of shrewd old nations, the non-Hindu people in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of the Hindu nation, i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ingratitude towards this land and its age-old traditions, must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead; in one word, they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights.”

There are other passages, too, which the RSS may be finding somewhat embarrassing. One of these is a thinly-veiled criticism of Buddhism. “Consciousness of the one Hindu Nationhood became rusty”, wrote Golwalkar, “and the race became vulnerable to attacks from without. Buddhistic influence — a misunderstanding of the teachings of the Great Master — had the painful effect of effacing from the minds of the masses their tenacious adherence to their faith … the individual became more prominent than the country, the Nation”... (To read the full article written by Amulya Ganguli, please visit this page on The Tribune). AmritWorld’s Online Diary