Racial and ethnic Hindu identity In
Essentials of Hindutva, Savarkar
racialises and ethnicises an imagined Hindu identity. He contrasts Hinduism, which he describes as merely a "spiritual or religious dogma or system", with the term "
Hindutva" (), which, he writes, "embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of our Hindu race". His criteria for being considered a Hindu is inclusive across caste, creed, and faith; any person for whom India is both
pitrabhumi () and
punyabhumi () qualifies as a natural and national inhabitant. Savarkar also forms clear boundaries between those deemed Hindus and non-Hindus, advocating for the purification of the nation from those deemed outsiders, such as Muslims and Christians, who, according to Savarkar, have their sacred lands outside of India, in "
Arabia or
Palestine". He did not strictly argue for racial purity; he contends that Hindus who had converted to Islam or Christianity may be readmitted if they
convert back to Hinduism as well as marry and have children with Hindus, thereby being welcomed back to the "Hindu fold". Articulating a
militantly chauvinistic and
nativist form of genomic and geocentric nationalism, Savarkar argues that Hindus constitute a distinct and
primordial civilisation and stresses Hindu devotion to common ethnic ties, rooted in the ideals of
sacred blood and sacred soil. Appealing to the "racial unity" and "racial oneness" of the Hindus, Savarkar attacks the British conception of the castes being racially differentiated, yet argues for the defence of a caste system which was barely distinguishable, founded on a hierarchically conceived nobility and purity of "upper" caste "blood". His over-integrated conception of an imagined Hindu race was both formed against, and mirrored, the racial supremacism of British colonialism; he repeatedly asserts that racial inheritance of Hindu blood is the defining characteristic of Hindutva. Savarkar's conception of Hindu ethnic nationalism drew heavily on British and German
orientalist thought as well as on contemporary currents of ethnic nationalism in Europe. He was particularly influenced by
Johann Kaspar Bluntschli's concept of
German ethnic and racial nationalism. While imprisoned, he read and taught Bluntschli's works. Bluntschli distinguished between a racially superior "principal nation" and a racially inferior "alien nation". This framework appealed to Savarkar, as it allowed him to compensate the British claims of racial superiority, by asserting the racial superiority of an imagined Hindu race against an imagined Muslim race. Adopting Bluntschli's model, Savarkar argued that Hindus constituted the principal nation, while Muslims constituted the alien nation. Philosopher
Martha Nussbaum has described the pamphlet as a "European product".
Hindu colonialism Savarkar argues that Hindus who had reached distant parts of the world as merchants and traders were colonisers, with the potential to "own a whole country" and "form a separate state". He contends that the process of Hindu colonisation would improve lives on a global scale or, as he puts it, "from Pole to Pole". In his view, Hindus needed not only to unify territorially, a notion that later evolved into the concept of
Akhand Bharat, but to colonise parts of the planet in order to establish a Hindu
world empire. Throughout the pamphlet, he uses the terms "Hindu nation" and "Hindu empire" interchangeably.
Conflict of life and death Savarkar wrote that a "conflict of life and death" had ensued ever since
Mahmud of Ghazni of the
Ghaznavid Empire crossed the
Indus River into the
Indian subcontinent in 11th century CE, and that this prolonged conflict made Hindus "intensely conscious of ourselves as Hindus and were welded into a nation". According to journalist Dhirendra K. Jha, Savarkar's pamphlet sought to channel the dominant
anti-British sentiment of Hindus into
anti-Muslim action by portraying Hindus chiefly in opposition to Muslims, drawing on the British Raj's colonial policy of '
divide and rule'. == Explanatory notes ==