Understanding Negative and Positive Hindutva in Golwalkar’s Ideology

M.S. Golwalkar, the second chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, gave Hindutva an ideological depth that went far beyond slogans and street politics. One of his most distinctive contributions was the distinction he drew between two kinds of Hindutva: a negative version built on opposition and fear, and a positive version built on internal strength and cultural revival. Understanding this distinction is essential for anyone studying modern Indian political thought, because it reveals how Golwalkar redefined the very idea of national regeneration. For him, true strength came not from capturing political power but from organising society around its cultural and spiritual roots.

Who was Golwalkar and why does this distinction matter? 🔗

Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973), known to his followers as “Guruji”, served as the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS from 1940 to 1973. During his long tenure he transformed the organisation from a small group based in Nagpur into a widespread network with lakhs of members. He is widely regarded as the thinker who gave Hindutva its ideological rigour, primarily through his works We, or Our Nationhood Defined and the later anthology of his speeches, Bunch of Thoughts, published in 1966.

Golwalkar developed his ideas during a turbulent period marked by Partition, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, a temporary ban on the RSS, and the challenges of nation-building. In this context, he wanted to clarify what kind of Hindu identity he was advocating. He worried that Hindutva was often misunderstood and reduced to a narrow, even harmful, idea. To address this, he separated Hindutva into two angles. The distinction was not just academic. It shaped how the RSS positioned itself in relation to politics and how it imagined the long-term work of strengthening Hindu society.

What was negative Hindutva? 🔗

Golwalkar used the term negative Hindutva to describe a reactionary form of Hindu assertion. According to him, this version emerged largely as a reaction to perceived threats, whether from Muslim communalism or from the secularism of the Congress. In his analysis, negative Hindutva was based on hostility. It defined Hindu identity by what it stood against rather than what it stood for.

A defensive and reactive posture 🔗

The key feature of negative Hindutva was its defensive nature. It responded to immediate challenges, especially the influence of Islam and Christianity, which Golwalkar believed had weakened the indigenous Hindu identity over centuries. This produced what can be called a siege mentality. Hindus, in this framing, were always on guard, always reacting, and rarely building. Golwalkar argued that this approach drained energy into opposition instead of construction.

Politics as the central flaw 🔗

For Golwalkar, the deeper problem with negative Hindutva was its obsession with political power. He saw it as a means to capture political power, treating the state as the primary tool for solving the community’s problems. He rejected this view. He believed that great empires built through political power had repeatedly collapsed when faced with invaders, precisely because they lacked deeper cultural foundations. A movement defined by reaction and the pursuit of office, he warned, would always be fragile.

What was positive Hindutva? 🔗

In contrast, positive Hindutva represented Golwalkar’s own preferred vision. He insisted that his Hindutva was positive in the sense that it was not developed as a reaction to any adversary. Instead of defining itself through enemies, it focused inward, on building strength, unity, and resilience within Hindu society itself.

Organisation of society as a social force 🔗

The essence of positive Hindutva, in Golwalkar’s words, was the organisation of Hindus as a social force that would remain steadfast even in the most trying circumstances. This is where the RSS itself became the model. The organisation was conceived as a structure that emphasised discipline, character-building, and collective action through its daily shakhas. The goal was not to win an election but to slowly create a disciplined and self-aware society that could sustain itself across generations.

Cultural and spiritual revival 🔗

Positive Hindutva placed enormous weight on reviving Hindu cultural and spiritual traditions. Golwalkar saw Hinduism not merely as a religion but as a comprehensive way of life encompassing philosophy, ethics, and social organisation. He wanted to draw on shared cultural symbols, festivals, and values to unite a diverse society. The aim was not just to preserve ancient practices but to make them relevant to contemporary challenges, so that they could serve as the moral foundation of national life.

Healing internal weaknesses 🔗

Crucially, positive Hindutva turned attention to the internal divisions that Golwalkar believed had historically weakened Hindu society. This included addressing caste divisions by emphasising a common Hindu identity, and bridging regional and linguistic differences in the service of a unified society. Where negative Hindutva pointed outward at enemies, positive Hindutva pointed inward at the work of self-improvement and consolidation. In his view, a community that could not overcome its own fractures had no hope of lasting strength.

Regeneration through culture, not political power 🔗

The heart of Golwalkar’s argument was that genuine national regeneration could not come from political power. It had to come from cultural and spiritual foundations. He believed India’s true strength lay not in its territorial boundaries or political structures but in its ancient spiritual heritage. This is a recurring theme across his writings. He repeatedly argued that the regeneration of the nation could only come about through the revival of what he called its “Hinduness”, rather than through the machinery of the state.

This conviction explains a famous position Golwalkar took on the RSS and politics. Writing in 1956, he warned that the RSS could not be drawn into politics and could not function as a handmaid of political parties, because an organisation devoted to the wholesale regeneration of the cultural life of a nation had to remain independent of party politics. In other words, the slow, foundational work of cultural transformation was, for him, more important and more durable than the pursuit of immediate political gains. He distrusted top-down political change and favoured the gradual transformation of individuals, families, and communities.

How Golwalkar differed from Savarkar 🔗

This emphasis on culture and spirit also distinguished Golwalkar from V.D. Savarkar, the thinker who first systematised the concept of Hindutva. Savarkar’s formulation was largely territorial and political. He defined a Hindu through the criteria of a common nation, a common race, and a common civilisation, anchored to the land between the Indus and the seas. His approach was relatively secular and pragmatic in framing.

Golwalkar took this in a different direction. He supplanted Savarkar as the principal ideologue of Hindu nationalism, but his version was far more rooted in spiritualism. He rejected what he called “territorial nationalism”, the modern idea that identifies a nation with its territory and grants equal citizenship to everyone living within it. For Golwalkar, the nation was a cultural and spiritual organism, not merely a legal-territorial unit. This is why his positive Hindutva stressed inner revival over external markers of statehood.

A critical perspective 🔗

It is important to study these ideas with a critical eye, because they remain deeply contested. Golwalkar’s framework has drawn sharp criticism from scholars and commentators. His writings, particularly Bunch of Thoughts, have been criticised for treating Muslims, Christians, and Communists as internal threats. Critics note that the book argues that hostile elements within the country posed a greater menace than aggressors from outside. Notably, the RSS itself distanced itself from controversial aspects of the book in 2018.

Scholars have also pointed out that the line between “negative” and “positive” Hindutva can be thinner in practice than in theory. The same ideas that Golwalkar framed as positive cultural revival contained the seeds of later concepts such as “ghar wapsi” and the notion of “appeasement” of minorities, which many argue are themselves exclusionary. The distinction is therefore best understood as Golwalkar’s own self-presentation, rather than as a neutral description. For students of political thought, the value lies in understanding both how Golwalkar wanted his ideology to be seen and how others have interpreted its actual implications.

Why this distinction still matters 🔗

The negative-positive distinction is more than a historical curiosity. It reflects a genuine strategic choice within nationalist movements: whether to define a community by its enemies or by its internal projects. Golwalkar’s insistence on cultural foundations over political power helps explain why the RSS has historically presented itself as a social and cultural body rather than a political party, even as its ideas have profoundly shaped Indian politics. The framework also raises enduring questions about the relationship between culture, religion, and citizenship in a diverse democracy. Whether one accepts or rejects his conclusions, his attempt to ground nationalism in something deeper than the state remains one of the most influential, and most debated, ideas in modern Indian political thought.

What do you think? Can a nationalism that defines itself primarily through culture and religion ever fully include those who fall outside that cultural identity? And is Golwalkar’s claim that lasting strength comes from social organisation rather than political power convincing in a democracy where state power shapes so much of public life?

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/biography/M-S-Golwalkar
2. https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/nationalism-golwalkars-head-of-rss-three-decades/31781/
3. https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-delhi/ideas-and-institutions-in-indian-political-thought/hindutva-v-d-savarkar/92831213
4. https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-delhi/political-science/savarkar-hindutva/47956595
5. https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/aakar-patel-why-in-the-rss-view-the-nation-must-be-governed-by-hindu-thought-1905436
6. https://www.outlookindia.com/national/everything-that-s-wrong-with-rewriting-history-under-hindutva-nationalism-magazine-203922
7. https://scroll.in/article/881409/how-the-rss-guru-ms-golwalkar-twisted-nehrus-writings-to-justify-the-hindutva-project-of-ghar-wapsi