In her new book, Brinda Karat looks at the relationship between Hindutva, women, and hate speech

Savarkar’s slogan of the “militarisation” of the “Hindu race” is reflected in the promotion of masculinity as a core feature of Hindutva, the creation of the macho man, the eternal warrior, whose very existence is dependent on aggression against the identified foe; whose every action must be imbued with the spirit of avenging “historical wrongs”; for whom every non-Hindu must be viewed as a potential enemy of the nation until the non-Hindu redeems himself by accepting the crimes of his forefathers and atones for them by subordinating himself to whatever punishment is meted out to him. Conversely, the belief is fostered that no Hindu can ever be a “terrorist” but must always be thought of as a man with the highest of virtues, especially if he is a Brahmin.

Savarkar, in the essay quoted above (Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History), makes a scathing critique of Buddhism because it preached ahimsa and universal brotherhood. He wrote of “the necessity of creating a bitter sense of wrong, invoking a power of undying resistance especially in India that had under the opiates of Universalism and nonviolence lost the faculty even of resisting sin and crime and aggression”. He spoke of the need of “political and...

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