Emphasising on the need for ‘Hindutva’ in modern times for survival of Hinduism, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Tejasvi Surya on Thursday (13 February) said that the philosophy is the intellectual, political and social response of Hindus against proselytising Abrahamic faiths.

While speaking on the topic ‘Who is misrepresenting Hindutva?’ during Times Now summit, the Lok Sabha MP from south Bengaluru said that India as a nation was not born on 15 August 1947 and is a continuing civilisation with over thousands years of lived “civilisational experience”.

“The primary philosophical thought of India was all-inclusive, all-accepting. It was never exclusivist, and most importantly, it never negated the existence and validity of any other philosophical, spiritual and religious thoughts,” Tejasvi said.

However, when the India and Indian philosophies came into contact with the semitic Abrahamic faiths like Christianity and Islam, which inherently are exclusivist, conflicting, predatory and proselytising, a need arose for response from Hindus, he said.

“A response was made by Indians, by Hindus of that time, and that in the later context was called Hindutva,” Tejasvi said.

The BJP MP futher said that if Hinduism is the “potential inclusivity” of the commonwealth of indigenous thought, Hindutva is a kinetic effect, which is primarily to defend Hindu philosophy against what is not inclusive.

“Hindutva is an intellectual, political, social response of the Hindus to prevent themselves against aggression. Therefore, Hindutva cannot be dominating because Hindutva is the victim of aggression,” he said.

On the question of the need for Hindutva in 21st century, the BJP MP said that it was a response from Hindus to preserve their religion from Abrahamic faiths like Christianity and Islam which go to the extent of negating the existence of other faiths as false.