By Abhishek Chakraborty / India Today
By Abhishek Chakraborty: Pavan K Varma, author-diplomat and former Rajya Sabha MP, said he is “wary” of the label “Hindu Rashtra” because it is exclusionist by definition, which Hinduism itself has not been. He was speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2022.
“There is a principal identity and certain scholars are aware of it. They are critical of this because, perhaps, they do not want, in today’s milieu, for political and maybe valid reasons, to accept the greatness of a civilization and its multifaceted achievements.
“Hindu civilisation dates back to the dawn of time. With greater research, we know that the previous theory of Aryans coming to India in 1500 BC has been rubbished by historians. The antiquity of this civilization has been pushed back as a result of research on the elusive river Saraswati. We now go back to 4,000 BC if not more,” he said.
Investor and author Harsh Madhusudan disagreed, saying: “If you are proud of the Hindu civilization, it is the Hindu Rashtra.” He sought to define Hindu Rashtra as a “subset of dharma, which is universal, and overlaps Bharatiya sanskriti (culture)”. “It is simply the local idiomatic expression of a universal dharma. In India, we never have a minority problem with Parsis, Jains, or Jews. We have a problem where there is aggressive tendencies to convert and diffidence about accepting nationality wholesale,” he said.
This story was originally published in indiatoday.in . Read the full story here