Buddha and Basava Are Anti-Nationals in the Brahminical ‘Hindu Nation’ of the RSS

This year, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh completes its 100th year. The purveyors of Hindutva majoritarian ethno-national supremacism have been the oldest and the longest fascist movement in the world.

What is the reason for its success?

One could be its reliance on the Brahminical hegemony and the deeply entrenched caste system. The success of historical Brahminism is in its tactical flexibility in accommodating an adversary within its hegemonic pantheon without fundamentally disturbing the dominance of the Brahmin order.

V.D. Savarkar epitomised this Brahminical strategy in his Hindutva: Who is a Hindu. In that Indian version of a fascist manifesto, Savarkar advocated that Hindutva is not Hinduism which is one among the many religions that originated from this geographical entity. This gave a picture that Hindutva is horizontally inclusive of all that is Indian and exclusive of only what has not taken birth on this soil. This cunning and co-optive interpretation of history was a ploy to undermine historical facts of Indian civilisation.

Indian civilisation has long been shaped by the antagonism between two fundamental streams: the Brahmana and the Śramaṇa. The former sanctified hierarchy through the varna-jati system, elevating it to the level of moral, legal, and religious doctrine. The latter, led by thinkers such as Gautam Buddha and Basavanna, (who founded Lingayat Dharma which was opposed to Sanatana Brahminism in Karnataka) and others which upheld equality (samata), compassion (karuṇā), wisdom (jñāna), and fellowship (maitri) as core social and ethical values. Hence, Dr B.R. Ambedkar emphasises that Indian history is essentially the mortal conflict between these two civilisational paradigms.

Islam and Christianity, which in their origin had Sramana egalitarian ethos, developed deep roots among the oppressed Sramana masses and became Indian.

So, Indian is not Brahmin or not-Brahmin alone. But the Savarkarite Hindutva will at once cunningly acknowledge the Indian origin of non-Brahmin and anti-Brahmnical religions, and also negate it or subordinate it to the Brahmin under the Hindutva garb. It is this cultural politics that has been behind the relative success of the Hindutva project even today.

From Brahminism to 'Hindutva': The Political Mask

During the colonial period and in the wake of the anti-colonial movement, Brahminism invented and redefined for itself a political Hindutva based on the Brahminical hegemonic culture. This was made into a durable national project and had Hindu Rashtra as its vision. It was bereft of any substantial anti-colonial content in it. It set to achieve the project by absorbing, marginalising, or erasing dissenting traditions. During the anti-colonial freedom struggle, when Indian identity was being articulated inclusively (“all who belong to this land are ours”), Savarkar and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) advanced this counter-vision of Hindu Rashtra.

This notion defined Indian-ness (Bhāratīyatā) not in civic or territorial terms but through cultural, racial, and religious homogeneity.

Savarkar proposed that only those for whom India was both pitrubhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (holy land) could be considered “true Indians,” thereby excluding Muslims, Christians, and Parsis. However, equally important was the fact that neither Savarkar nor the RSS extended this inclusivity even to other indigenous faiths – Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, or Lingayatism – despite their Indian origin.

Hindutva as the subjugation of the Non-Brahminical

Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva (1923) famously distinguished “Hindutva” from “Hinduism,” describing it as the cultural essence of India, encompassing all indigenous systems – Vedic and non-Vedic alike. RSS ideologues such as M.S. Golwalkar and Mohan Bhagwat have reiterated this position, claiming that “everything Indian is Hindu.” Yet, in practice, Hindutva has functioned as an ideological instrument to glorify Brahminism while subordinating all other religions to it.

Over a period of time, this myth of Hindutva inclusivity has gained currency even among some non-Brahmin who feel they are proud Hindus, despite being sub-ordinate to the Brahminical hegemonic order. At this juncture, it is necessary to interrogate Hindutva and expose its hypocrisy.

To test the authenticity of the RSS’s inclusivity, two questions may be posed.

What were the actual views of Savarkar and the RSS toward non-Brahminical religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, and Lingayatism?

And, how did they regard the egalitarian and anti-hierarchical values central to these traditions?

Buddha and Basava: Indian but 'anti-national'

In Bunch of Thoughts (1966), Golwalkar declares that India’s survival depended upon Dharma sattaa – the spiritual authority of Brahmins. He writes that when dharma was endangered, sages such as Vishvamitra, Vashishtha, and Agastya guided kings like Ram to restore order, implying that “the nation itself is Brahmin.”

Golwalkar further claims that Adi Shankaracharya rescued India from the “degeneration” caused by Buddhism, which he characterises as a betrayal of both “society” and “motherland.” According to him, Shankaracharya “eliminated Buddhism as a separate sect” by absorbing the Buddha as a divine avatar of Shiva, stating: “We worship Shiva, no doubt, but does that mean we also embrace the demons that surround him?”

Similarly, Golwalkar considered the independent identities of Sikhs and Lingayats to be acts of national disloyalty. In the same text, he equates their demands for separate recognition with “treason,” and even compared Punjabi linguistic reorganisation movements to the “division of the nation”

“Some of the Sikhs, Jains, Lingayats and Aryasamajists declare that they are separate from Hindus. Some prominent Sikh leaders are demanding and agitating for a separate sectarian Sikh State – though under the grab of a linguistic State, the Punjabi Suba. And strengthen their demand some of them have stooped to justify the creation of a separate State for Muslims, i.e., Pakistan.” (p. 105).

Even the present sarasanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat had, in 2018, denounced the demand for the separate religion status for the Lingayats as “ploy to divide Hindu society”.

Hence the Modi government had promptly rejected the recommendation made by the Karnataka government to accord Linagayatism a separate religious status.

The traitor

Golwalkar's understanding stems from his ideological patriarch Savarkar’s writings. In Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, Savarkar portrays the Buddha and his followers as the “first and original traitors” of India, accusing them of eroding the nation’s martial spirit and aiding foreign invaders. He praises the Brahmin general Pushyamitra Shunga for violently suppressing Buddhism, describing the destruction of monasteries and execution of monks as acts of “patriotic necessity”:

“It is for the sake of free development of human virtues that the principle of, (अहशॊवा) (non-violence), which emasculates human beings with the curse of weakness, should at times be killed by cruel violence! It itself becomes a truly righteous, a truly religious, act leading to the development of human culture!"

Elsewhere he writes:

“Buddhism did not recognize the differences of caste, race or nationality! This was the anti-national and anti-Indian wicked way in which the Buddhist preachers began to delude the people of India!”

And further justifies massacre of Buddhist saying:

"In order to put down as sternly as possible these highly objectionable treacherous acts of these Indian Buddhists, the plots hatched to undermine the national independence and the open instigation to do anti-national acts which went on incessantly through various Buddhist monasteries and viharas, Pushyamitra and his generals were forced, by the exigency of the time, when the war was actually going on, to hang the Indian Buddhists who were guilty of seditious acts and to pull down the monasteries which had become the centres of sedition. It was a just punishment for high treason and for joining hands with the enemy, in order that Indian independence and empire might be protected. It was no religious persecution. As the supreme authority in the imperial administrative structure of India, it was Pushyamitra's duty."

Savarkar thus recasts historical violence against Buddhists as a legitimate defence of the Hindu nation.

Manusmriti and the constitution: Competing foundations

To reveal the ideological core of Hindutva, one can juxtapose Savarkar’s veneration of the Manusmriti with Ambedkar’s radical critique. While Ambedkar burned the text in 1927 as a symbol of caste and gender oppression, Savarkar praised it as “the most revered scripture of the Hindu nation after the Vedas,” claiming that it codified the “spiritual and moral advancement” of the Hindu race:

“Even today, the lives and conduct of millions of Hindus are governed by Manusmriti. It remains the law of the Hindus, and this is a Hindu nation.”

When criticised for its regressive elements, Savarkar defended the text by asserting that, compared to the social codes of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, Manusmriti stood “far superior” and therefore “deserved full reverence.”

By contrast, the RSS’s official mouthpiece, Organiser, condemned the Indian Constitution of 1949 – drafted under B.R. Ambedkar’s leadership – for lacking “anything Indian”: “The worst thing about our Constitution is that there is nothing Indian in it. Our ancient law, the Manusmriti, was our true guide, but our Constitution-makers ignored it.”

Golwalkar, writing later, opposed Ambedkar’s campaign for the annihilation of caste, arguing instead that the RSS sought to return India “not 200 years, but 1,000 years back – to its glorious era.”

Hierarchy as harmony: The soft voice of Deendayal Upadhyaya

The essay also references Deendayal Upadhyaya, another key RSS ideologue, whose notion of integral humanism rearticulates caste hierarchy in spiritual terms. He cautioned against “misusing” the idea of equality: “No two men are equal. Each has his own innate qualities and corresponding duties—his swadharma. Following one’s swadharma is equivalent to following God. Therefore, every person should perform his own duties harmoniously, without conflict.”

Thus, RSS and the BJP are hegemonising Brahminism by philosophical justification of caste inequality, cloaked in moral language. He notes that contemporary political figures, including Narendra Modi, have echoed this logic by describing sanitation workers as “karmayogis” who find divinity in their hereditary vocation.

The anti-egalitarian core of Hindutva

Savarkar and K. B. Hedgewar, the RSS founder, both assured upper-caste interests that they would not support temple-entry laws for Dalits. Even in 1939 and again in 1941, Savarkar pledged that the Hindu Mahasabha would not endorse legislation mandating temple access for the “untouchables.”

It was precisely for this reason that Ambedkar, in framing the Republican Party of India’s election manifesto in 1951, categorically refused any alliance with the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS, calling them “the most reactionary organisations in India.”

The true face of Hindutva

Thus the ideological foundations of the RSS and Savarkar’s Hindutva rest upon Brahminical supremacy, not cultural inclusivity. Their vision of Bhāratīyatā equates Indian-ness with Brahminism, and their concept of Hindutva transforms the anti-caste, rationalist, and humanist teachings of Buddha, Basava, and Ambedkar into forms of “treachery.”

Thus a true Sramana – a term which includes Muslims and Christians – can not be a true national in a Brahmanical Hindu Nation.

While Muslims and Christians are excluded because their punyabhumi is not in India, non-Brahmins are sub-ordinated or executed since they ostensibly don’t have punya to own this bhumi.

Hence, a non-Brahmin cannot become a legitimate Hindu in a Brahmin nation. To have contrary illusion is not only self-deception but a profound act of betrayal – a betrayal of Buddha, of Basava, and of the egalitarian spirit of Śramaṇa India.

Shivasundar is a columnist and activist in Karnataka.

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