142 "Presenting" the Past
The militaristic adult Ram carrying bow and arrows, as opposed to the
nonviolent baby Ram, inspires the present crusade. The young and male
karsevaks of today not only worship Ram but also have a particular under-
standing of Indian history. Having been brainwashed by the rhetoric of
the "heroic heritage" of the past and the "pathetic situation" of the pres-
ent, the Hindu youth are made to feel ashamed of their "impotence" and
"weakness." They are presented with a clear enemy and a visible symbol
to destroy to establish their strength and glory and regain their pride and
hegemony. History and Hindutva are an integral whole. The preamble of
the constitution of the RSS establishes that the organization was created,
among other things, "to make them [Hindus] realise the greatness of their
past" and "to bring about an all-round regeneration of the Hindu Samaj."
Savarkar himself has clarified: "Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not
only the spiritual or religious history of our people as it is sometimes
taken to be by being confused with the other conjugate term Hinduism,
but a history in full."^105
NOTES- Atal Behari Vajpayee, "The BJP's Onward March/' Frontline, 9-22 August
- Joseph Alter, "Somatic Nationalism: Indian Wrestling and Militant Hindu-
ism/' Modern Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (July 1994), p. 583. - Gopal Godse, Gandhiji's Murder and After, trans. S.T. Godbole (Delhi: Surya
Prakashan, 1989), p. 522. - Godse, Gandhiji's Murder and After, p. 526.
- V.D. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan,
1984), pp. 78,10. - Harriet Hartman, "Can a Hindu Utopia Be a Muslim Utopia? Examples
from 12th Century India and Beyond," International Journal of Comparative Sociology
29 , nos. 1-2 (January-April 1988), pp. 112-13. - Brian K. Smith, "Classifying Animals and Humans in Ancient India," Man
26, no. 3 (September 1991), pp. 528, 538-44. - C.J. Fuller mentions these phases in his "Hinduism and Hierarchy," Man
26, no. 3 (September 1991), p. 550. - Pamela G. Price, "Ideology and Ethnicity under British Imperial Rule:
'Brahmans', Lawyers, and Kin-Caste Rules in Madras Presidency," Modern Asian
Studies 23, no. 1 (1989), p. 163. - V.P. Singh, India Today, 31 October 1992.
- J. Radha Krishna, Brahmans of India (Allahabad, India: Chugh Publications,
1987), p. 195. - K.S. Ramaswami Sastri, The Future of the Brahmin (Madras, India: Central
Co-operative Printing Works, 1935), pp. 3,10, 2. - Frits Staal, "Indian Bodies," in Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, ed.
Thomas P. Kasulis et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp.
70-71, 90.