Hinduism, Hindutva, and the People Who Lit My Mind
11 Dec 2025 Share on:
On 3rd February 2006, at 11:26 PM, a much younger version of me sat with a notebook and tried to list the people who had truly shaped his thinking.
The list was short, and a bit grand for a college kid’s diary:
Lord Krishna. Mahatma Gandhi. Bhagat Singh. Ram Prasad Bismil. Premchand. Jawaharlal Nehru. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Dr. Manmohan Singh.
And that night, one more name joined them:
Dr. Karan Singh.
I had just encountered his articulation of Hinduism and Hindutva, and it quietly rearranged the furniture in my head.
The rare people who touch both mind and heart
I have always been suspicious of “inspiration.”
Most grand speeches evaporate by the time you reach the parking lot.
But every once in a while, someone’s words don’t just sound wise, they start doing slow, patient work inside you. They challenge you, annoy you, educate you. They sit on your mental bookshelf and refuse to leave.
That is what these figures did for me.
- Krishna’s conversations in the Gita taught me that doubt is not a sin but a starting point.
- Gandhi’s stubborn insistence on non-violence showed how inner discipline can become political force.
- Bhagat Singh and Ram Prasad Bismil embodied courage that did not wait for “perfect conditions.”
- Premchand dragged everyday Indian life into literature and forced us to look at it without filters.
- Nehru and Patel turned impossible theory into a functioning state.
- Kalam and Manmohan Singh represented a quiet, technocratic ideal: intelligence without theatrics.
From this crowd of giants, I did not receive a single “formula for life.”
What I absorbed was a way of thinking: to question, to empathize, to stay curious.
And then came Karan Singh, with a deceptively simple distinction:
Hinduism as a way of seeking;
Hindutva as a project of identity.
Hinduism: river, not fortress
The Hinduism I grew up with did not arrive as a rulebook.
It arrived as:
- stories my elders told at night
- bhajans floating from a neighbour’s house
- a temple visit that was half spirituality, half street food
- a vague habit of folding hands before exams “just in case”
It was messy, contradictory, generous. You could argue with God, ignore God, or turn God into a metaphor and nobody came to confiscate your ration card.
When I later read and heard Karan Singh speak, he put sharper language to what I had only felt:
Hinduism is a civilizational habit of searching.
It is comfortable with multiplicity: many deities, many philosophies, many paths.
You can be drawn to Advaita’s non-dual silence, to Bhakti’s emotional surrender, to Yoga’s discipline, or to a calm agnosticism that still respects the tradition. All of these can sit around the same metaphorical kitchen table and argue late into the night.
The point is not that Hinduism is flawless or superior. History is littered with its own injustices and blind spots. The point is that, at its core, it contains tools to self-correct: debate, commentary, reinterpretation, dissent from within.
That is what makes it feel like a river; ancient, meandering, sometimes polluted, but always capable of renewal.
Hindutva: when a river is turned into a wall
Hindutva is something else.
Hinduism asks, “What is the nature of reality, self, and duty?”
Hindutva asks, “Who truly belongs here?”
One is metaphysical and ethical.
The other is political and majoritarian.
Hinduism is comfortable with questions that may never be fully answered.
Hindutva is obsessed with answers that must never be questioned.
Once you see this difference, it becomes hard to unsee:
- Hinduism can live alongside other faiths, learn from them, even absorb ideas without feeling threatened.
- Hindutva needs a permanent sense of threat to justify itself. Without an enemy, it has no purpose.
Hinduism invites you to look inward and transform yourself.
Hindutva invites you to look outward and suspect your neighbour.
Hinduism is vast enough to hold the Gita, the Upanishads, the Charvaka materialists, the Bhakti poets, the Sufi-infused traditions, and a million local deities with their own stories.
Hindutva tries to compress all of that into a single slogan, preferably in all caps.
Why Karan Singh’s distinction still matters
Back in 2006, I did not fully grasp the political weight of this difference. I just knew it felt right that someone could say:
“I love Hindu philosophy deeply,
and precisely because of that,
I reject narrow, exclusionary nationalism done in its name.”
In a time where every identity is being sharpened into a weapon, this stance feels almost revolutionary.
It offers a third path:
- Not self-hating rejection of your own culture.
- Not blind worship of a mythical golden past.
- But a rooted openness: secure enough in its heritage to be self-critical and humane.
That is why I put Karan Singh on that short list in my notebook.
He did what real teachers do:
he gave language to a discomfort I already had, and showed that loving a tradition and resisting its misuse are not contradictions — they are obligations.
Where this leaves me today
Nearly two decades after that late-night entry, I find my relationship with faith has become more agnostic, more questioning, sometimes more impatient.
But the basic architecture remains:
- I am still more interested in Dharma as a lived, everyday ethic. Hinduism gives me identity.
- I am still suspicious of any ideology that needs enemies to survive.
- And I still feel that if your God cannot coexist with someone else’s God or their lack of one, the problem is not with them, it is with your God-concept.
Hinduism gives me metaphors, stories, and philosophical toys to think with.
Hindutva tries to reduce all that complexity into a political loyalty test.
I know which side of that line I want to stand on.
That boy in 2006 thought he was just making a list of impressive people.
What he was really doing was choosing his intellectual ancestors.
I am still trying, clumsily, to be worthy of that lineage where courage, curiosity, and compassion matter more than flags and slogans.
If Hinduism is a river, I would rather spend my life learning to swim in it,
than helping anyone build walls around it.