Hindutva before Hindutva: Selected Writings and Discourses of Chandranath Basu in Translation [Paperback]

This book weaves the past with the present to trace and analyse the distinctive but reiterative evocations of Hindutva ideology in the modern-colonial period. It studies the concept of Hindutva as understood by its first major spokesperson Chandranath Basu, a formidable late 19th-century scholar-critic. T

PART I

Introduction 3

PART II

Selected Writings 79

A

Autobiographical 81

1 Reminiscences of My Childhood 83

B

The Philosophical and Social Foundations of Hindutva 91

2 What Is Hindutva? 93

3 Soaham (I Am Thou) 97

4 Loy (Dissolution of the Soul) 103

5 Kaa Pantha? (Which Is the Correct Path to Adopt?) 110

6 Nishkam Dharma 115

7 Hindu Polytheism: Political Sagacity in Religion 118

8 The Varna System and the Formation of Our National Character 124

9 The Ideal Hindu Diet 128

10 Forbearance in the Hindu Tradition 133

11 The World as a Mart: The Source of Happiness and Aesthetic Delight 141

12 Lessons in Self-disciplining and the Foundations of Character 144

C

Hindutva as Patriarchy 147

13 Hindu Marriages 149

14 Shakuntalatattva: A Critique of Kalidass Abhigyanshakuntala 161

15 Savitritattva: Savitris Tale 172

16 Two Hindu Wives 180

D

Thoughts on Language and Literature 185

17 Tale of the English Scholar 187

18 Of Biographies 193

19 The State of Contemporary Bengali Literatul³!