Title: The Saffron Swastika – The Notion of Hindu Fascism (2-Volume Set)
Author: Koenraad Elst
Published: 2004
Country Published: India
Publisher: Voice of India
ASIN: B0043H03L2
Description:
This book presents a wide-ranging study of Fascism, Nazism, Communism and the Hindutva movement, and draws a conclusion that Hindu Fascism like Loch Ness monster is merely a combination of words which may produce some sound and fury but which signify no observed reality.
One of the rare matters on which all known religions seem to agree, is the condemnation of calumny as an extremely grave evil. In today’s opinion climate, no calumny is worse than the allegation that someone is a ‘fascist’, by which is meant a ‘Nazi’. It is this gravest of calumnies which is nowadays routinely heaped upon Hinduism and its political vanguard. Originally launched by the Communists, the defamatory slogan of ‘Hindu fascism’ has been adopted by Christian and Islamic spokesmen as well as by many Western India -watchers.
There is nothing either in the time-honored doctrines or the hoary history of Hinduism, which resembles even remotely the ideology, or history of Nazism, or for that matter, Christianity or Islam or Communism. Hinduism has always been and remains a deep-rooted tradition of spiritual, cultural and social pluralism with ample provision for all sorts of skepticism and democratic debate. Far from creating any machinery for heresy hunting and persecution of dissent. Hindus have given shelter to the persecuted people from many lands and in all ages. But what is most important, they have always regarded their own homeland as the only playfield for their chakravartins, and never waged wars of conquest beyond the borders of Bharata-varsha.
Contrary to an assiduously propagated myth, RSS leader M S Golwalkar in his admittedly immature booklet, We: Our Nationhood Defined, did not hold up Hitler as a model for India. Far from it, he explicitly sought guidance from democratic political thinkers.
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