Hindutva (Who is Hindu?)

The romantic history of almost all books by Veer Savarkar apart from the originality and excellence of their subject and style, docs in itself entitle them to get prominently featured in the world classics.

The history of this book on" Hindutva" also does not form an exception to this general statement.

(1) It was during his stay from 1906 to 1910 in England that the attention of Veer Savarkarji was drawn pointedly to the question as to who can by precisely called a 'Hindu '. There was a perfect chaos raging in India at that time as regards this problem which owing to the controversy in connection with communal representation assumed an acutely Political aspect. The Arya-Samajists, the Sikhs, the Brahmos the Jains, and several other important constituents which composed and formed along with the Sanatanists the great Hindu community were some times counted as Hindus and at other times as non-Hindus as a whim or fad, a policy or petty interests dictated. From the most eminent scholars 60th Indian and English right down to the penny aliner in the daily sheets, each and all who got interested in the subject tried to define the word 'Hindu '. How the more precisely they tried to define the word' Hindu' the more confounded the confusion grew, could best be seen by the fact that a respectable and studied booklet published at that time on the subject " Who is a Hindu" could collect some fifty definitions of the word which then held the field and how the author of it at last summed up the argument by pointing out that the word' Hindu' was simply unde-finable!