To Savarkar, the author of Hindutva, tolerance of diversity among Indians is unthinkable:

Let our minorities remember that if strength lies in union, then in Hindutva lies the firmest and yet the
dearest bond that can effect a real, lasting and powerful union of our people. You may fancy that it
pays you to remain aloof for the passing hour, but it would do incalculable harm to this our ancient
race and civilization as a whole - and especially to yourselves.

Now, consider this:

"Today we often hear our political leaders speaking of 'national integration' and so on. But what is
that 'common emotion', that common basis on which all can come together? What are those eternal
life-springs of our national life that go to make it unified, resurgent and glorious? In the first place, the
feeling of burning devotion to the land, which from times immemorial we have regarded as our
sacred Matrubhoomi, - in the second place, the feeling of fellowship, of fraternity, born out of the
realization that we are the children of that one great common Mother, - in the third place, the intense
awareness of a common current of national life, born out of a common culture and heritage, of
common history and traditions, of common ideals and aspirations, - this trinity of values or, in a
word, Hindu Nationalism, forms the bedrock of our national edifice."

These words are not by Savarkar. They have been written by M.S. Golwalkar. Their views are
strikingly identical. Every nuance in Savarkar's Hindutva is present in Golwalkar's Thoughts. What
comes through most of all is the hate and damnation of others at their very birth. Sample this:

"Some wise men of today tell us that no man is born as Hindu or Muslim or Christian but as a simple
human being. This may be true about others. But for a Hindu, he gets the first samskar when he is
still in the mother's womb, and the last when his body is consigned to the flames. There are sixteen
samskars for the Hindu, which make him what he is. In fact, we are Hindus even before we emerge
from the womb of our mother. We are therefore born as Hindus. About the others, they are born to
this world as simple unnamed human beings and later on, either circumcised or baptized, they
become Muslims or Christians. (p. 118)

Golwalkar devotes an cntit'c chapter to denouncing 'Territorial Nationalism' (chapter X, pp.
136-57). He held that

"...here was already a full-fledged ancient nation of the Hindus and the various communities which
were living in the country were here either as guests, the Jews and Parsis, or as invaders, the
Muslims and Christians. They never faced the question how all such heterogeneous groups could be
called as children of the soil merely because, by an accident they happened to reside in a common
territory ruled by a common enemy.... The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger,
which formed the basis for our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring
content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made real the freedom movements virtually anti-British
movements. Anti-Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has
had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom struggle, its leaders and the common
people. (p. 142)

Golwalkar's denunciation of Gandhi was as coarse as Savarkar's:

Here we had leaders who were, as if, pledged to sap manliness from their own people. However,
this is not a mere accident of history. This leadership only came as a bitter climax of the despicable
tribe of so many of our ancestors who during the past twelve hundred years sold their national
honour and freedom to foreigners, and joined hands with the inveterate enemies of our country and
our religion in cutting the throats of their own kith and kin to gratify their personal egoism, selfishness
and rivalry. No wonder nemesis overtook such a people in the form of such a self-destruction. (p.
153)

Gowalkar clarified,

today, there is a misconception even regarding the word 'Bhartiya'. It is commonly used as a
translation of the word 'Indian' which includes all the various communities like the Muslim, Christian,
Parsi, etc. residing in this land. So, the word 'Bhartiya' too is likely to mislead us when we want to
denote our particular society. The word 'Hindu' connotes correctly and completely the meaning we
want to convey.' (p. 98)

Like Savarkar, Golwalkar concluded, 'All the requisites for making a full-fledged nation are thus
fufilled in the life of this great Hindu People. Therefore, we say that in this land of ours Bharat, the
national life is of the Hindu People. In short, this is the Hindu Nation' (p. 126). Gowalkar also
endorses the dual test of holyland and fatherland. 'They (Muslims and Christians) look to some
foreign lands as their holy places' (p. 128).

Gowalkar exhorts,

"if we are to rise again as a nation, we must correct the initial blunder which we committed in
accepting a new fangled idea of nationalism, which experience has proved to be absolutely false and
ruinous. Let us not be deluded into a wrong track by the wily propaganda of interested persons. We
have been sufficiently fooled up till now by their exhortation that we Hindus, who are having a great
philosophy of human brotherhood, catholicity of spirit and so on, should not narrow ourselves by the
talk of Hindu Nationalism and all such 'communal', 'medieval', and 'reactionary' ideas. We must be
able to see through the game and revert to the truth of our nationalism as an ancient fact and the
Hindus being the national society of Bharat, as so clearly restated by our revered founder when we
decided the word 'Rashtriya' for our organization [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, RSS]. (pp.
156-57)

This is the man whom Advani, Vajpayee and company for long hailed as 'Guruji' (mentor). Not one
BJP leader has yet criticized Gowalkar for his venous expression of hatred for Muslims.

"History has recorded that their antagonism was not merely political. Had it been so, they could have
been won over in a very short time. But it was so deep-rooted that whatever we believed in, the
Muslim was wholly hostile to it. If we worship in the temple, he would desecrate it. If we carry on
bhajans and car [sic] festivals, that would irritate him. If we worship cow, he would like to eat it. If
we glorify women as a symbol of sacred motherhood, he would like to molest her. He was tooth and
nail opposed to our way of life in all aspects - religious, cultural, social etc. He had imbibed that
hostility to the very core. (p. 148)

Now, consider what the BJP proposes in its election manifestos:

    "With a BJP Government at the Centre, the next five years will be devoted to implementing our
Manifesto based on the four concepts of Suraksha, Shuchita, Swadeshi and Samrasata. Hindutva,
or cultural nationalism, shall be the rainbow which will bridge our present to our glorious past and
pave the way for an equally glorious future; it will guide the transition from swarajya to surajya.

    "Our nationalist vision is not merely bound by the geographical or political identity of Bharat but it
is referred by our timeless cultural heritage, this cultural heritage which is central to all regions,
religions and languages, is a civilizitional identity and constitutes the cultural nationalism of India which
is the core of Hindutva. This we believe is the identity of our ancient nation 'Bharatvarsha'.... The
BJP is convinced that Hindutva has immense potentiality to re-energize this nation and strengthen and
discipliue it to undertake the arduous task of nation-building. This can and does trigger a higher level
of patriotism that can transform the country to greater levels of efficiency and performance. It is with
such integrative ideas in mind, the BJP joined the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for the construction
of Shri Rain Mandir at Ayodhya. This greatest mass movement in post-Independence history
reoriented the disoriented polity in India and strengthened the foundation of cultural nationalism.

An unbroken ideological thread binds Savarkar, Golwalkar, and the BJP. This writer has advisedly
refrained from quoting at any length Savarkar's comments on Muslims. He was, if anything, even
more coarse than Gowalkar; which is saying a lot. There is no form of vice or depravity which
Savarkar did not ascribe to Muslims, especially in Six Epochs of Indian History. The BJP invites the
nation -in which, presumably, Muslims and Christians are included - to regard this man as a 'national
hero'.