Muscular Hinduism is a philosophy that advocates for Hindus to be physically strong. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda are considered to have been major early proponents in the early 20th century. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Muscular Hinduism is a philosophy that advocates for Hindus to be physically strong. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda are considered to have been major early proponents in the early 20th century. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The muscularisation of Hinduism in Uttar Pradesh began to occur in the early 20th century, when communal conflicts expanded and urban Hindus became more visible in performing armed displays as part of processions during their religious festivals. [6]
Gita Press, which has links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is one of the oldest publishers that has supported Muscular Hinduism since the early 20th century. [7]
Muscular Hinduism has been partly inspired by fears of violence by Muslims towards Hindus, particularly towards Hindu women. [8] Muscular Hinduism was also inspired to a significant extent by Western influences such as Muscular Christianity and general British ideas of religion, sport, and masculinity, [9] [10] [11] [12] which were propounded in South Asia during British rule, with some influences in this direction also having come from the YMCA. [13] Opposition to colonialism in general, [14] [15] and British stereotyping of Indian men as effeminate was also used as a rationale for Muscular Hinduism; [16] [17] [18] Mahatma Gandhi propounded Muscular Hinduism as a counter to muscularity as propounded by the British during his early life as a way of addressing his feelings of physical inferiority. [19]
Muscular Hinduism promoted various sports alongside traditional Indian physical culture at a time when some practitioners of indigenous physical culture were opposed to the recently imported British physical culture and were actively standardising Indian sports for usage in formal competition, [20] [8] [21] with yoga in particular having been somewhat remolded into a tool of physical and martial strengthening. [22] [23] [21] These physical culture practices were pursued in gymkhanas and akhadas. [24] [20]
Muscular Hinduism is supported by the RSS as part of a broader project to politically remake India and further nation-building; [26] this effort takes place in part in opposition to Hindus of a less nationalistic character. [27] The RSS provides paramilitary training for its members. [28] Major Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politicians such as Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath have been associated with the promotion and execution of Muscular Hinduism at the governmental level. [29] [25]
The muscularity of the narratives present in the Mahabharata, which culminates in a brutal war fought for righteousness, have been propounded to a greater extent in the modern era. [30]
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and is the father of modern Indian nationalism who is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion in the late nineteenth century.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar, which has developed a presence in all facets of Indian society and includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling political party under Narendra Modi, the 14th prime minister of India. Mohan Bhagwat has served as the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS since March 2009.
Hindutva is a political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the current ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.
David Frawley, also known as Vamadeva Shastri, is an American Hindu writer, astrologer, acharya, ayurvedic practitioner, and Hindutva activist.
Koenraad Elst is a Flemish author, known primarily for his adherence to the Hindutva ideology and support of the Out of India theory, which is regarded as pseudo-historical by mainstream scholarship. Scholars accuse him of harboring Islamophobia.
The Sangh Parivar refers, as an umbrella term, to the collection of Hindutva organisations spawned by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which remain affiliated to it. These include the political party Bharatiya Janata Party, religious organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad, students union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), religious militant organisation Bajrang Dal that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the worker's union Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. It is also often taken to include allied organisations such as the Shiv Sena, which share the ideology of the RSS.
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) is a spiritual and philanthropic organisation headquartered in Belur Math, West Bengal. The mission is named after the Indian Hindu spiritual guru and mystic Ramakrishna. The mission was founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on 1 May 1897. The organisation mainly propagates the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta–Advaita Vedanta and four yogic ideals – Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja yoga. The mission bases its work on the principles of Karma Yoga, the principle of selfless work done with a dedication to God.
Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, popularly known as Guruji, was the second Sarsanghchalak ("Chief") of the organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Golwalkar is considered one of the most influential and prominent figures among Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh by his followers.
The Hindu American Foundation is an American Hindu non-profit advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council.
The National Hindu Students' Forum (NHSF (UK)) is a network of Hindu societies operating on university and further education campuses in the United Kingdom. The NHSF (UK) was started in 1991 by young British Hindus, and has chapters on many university campuses around the United Kingdom. The NHSF has been described by historian Edward Anderson as having ties to the Sangh Parivar, a group of Hindu nationalist organisations in India such as the RSS and the BJP. In early years the NHSF had the same address as the HSS, a UK charity, per Manoj Ladwa, the then HSS spokesman. Ladwa later served as a senior advisor to Narendra Modi during his successful Indian election campaign of 2014. Although the HSS is considered to be inspired by the RSS, a UK charity commission inquiry in 2016 found no formal links between the two.
Voice of India (VOI) is a publishing house based in New Delhi, India, that specialises in Hindu nationalist books and serves as one of the most important tools in the development of Hindutva ideologies.
The Rashtra Sevika Samiti is a Hindu nationalist women's organisation that parallels the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for men. Even though it is often referred to as the "Sister" of the RSS, the organisation claims that it is independent of the RSS while sharing its ideology. Membership and leadership is embraced to women and its activities are directed to nationalist devotion and mobilisation of Hindu women.
Sadhvi Rithambara is a Hindu Vestal (Sadhvi), public speaker and nationalist ideologue who is the founder-chairperson of Durga Vahini, the women's wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), established in 1991. She gained national prominence with VHP in the late 1980s through the Jan Jagran Abhiyan, and in the 1990s during the run up to the Babri Masjid demolition. Subsequently, she was named an accused in the Liberhan Commission report, though later acquitted by the CBI court in 2020.
Hindu Revolution is a term in Hindu nationalism referring to a sociopolitical movement aiming to overthrow untouchability and casteism to unified social and political community to create the foundations of a modern nation.
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" is a simplistic translation of हिन्दू राष्ट्रवाद. It is better described as "Hindu polity".
Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk from India. His teachings and philosophy are a reinterpretation and synthesis of various strands of Hindu thought, most notably classical yoga and (Advaita) Vedanta. He blended religion with nationalism, and applied this reinterpretation to various aspect's of education, faith, character building as well as social issues pertaining to India. His influence extended also to the west, and he was instrumental in introducing Yoga to the west.
Neo-Vedanta, also called Hindu modernism, neo-Hinduism, Global Hinduism and Hindu Universalism, are terms to characterize interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century. The term "Neo-Vedanta" was coined by German Indologist Paul Hacker, in a pejorative way, to distinguish modern developments from "traditional" Advaita Vedanta.
Rousing Call to Hindu Nation or Swami Vivekananda's Rousing Call to Hindu Nation (1963) is a compilation of Indian Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda's writings and speeches edited by Eknath Ranade the leader of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The book was published in 1963, in the birth centenary of Vivekananda. Ranade dedicated the book as a "personal homage to the great patriot-saint" Swami Vivekananda.
Joseph S. Alter is an American medical anthropologist known for his research into the modern practice of yoga as exercise, his 2004 book Yoga in Modern India, and the physical and medical culture of South Asia.
Hinduism is the largest religion in South Asia with about 1.2 billion Hindus, forming just under two-thirds of South Asia's population. South Asia has the largest population of Hindus in the world, with about 99% of all global Hindus being from South Asia. Hinduism is the dominant religion in India and Nepal and is the second-largest religion in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.
