Hindutva to be our greatest cultural export: ABVP leader

NEW DELHI: Hindutva will be India’s greatest cultural export, the chief instruments of which will be the Sangh and its Swayamsevaks says a new book by Sunil Ambekar, the organising secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s students’ wing, the ABVP.

While the critics of the Sangh, the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have parsed it for fostering Hindutva, a hardline ideological standpoint that is used for creating schism between the majority and the minority communities in the country, Ambekar in his book, ‘The RSS Roadmap for the 21st Century,’ has defined Hindutva as a “bold visions for truth and oneness.”

“RSS considers Hindutva to be the natural destination of the world. It will be India’s greatest cultural export to the world, just as the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics which travel to South East Asia in the age of antiquity and shaped the culture there, and just as Buddhism was geared to years later,” the book says.

To be released by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on October 1; the book has dealt with several issues that the Sangh is often questioned about; for instance its stance on women; its opinion about caste based reservation; homosexuality and Indianisation of education.

In a chapter on the Rise of Santan Hindutva, the author says the principles of Hindutva predate the word and its applications and defines it as a way of life. It also lists the reconstruction of Ram temple, cow protection and the abrogation of article 370 of the Indian Constitution as important Hindutva concerns, linked to the identity and integrity of India.