The comments were made by an American scholar of South Asian history, Audrey Truschke, who took to Twitter to explain the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva. She made the tweets targeted at the American audience to apprise them of the right-wing ideology of United States presidential hopeful and member of the Democrats, Tulsi Gabbard.
https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1085145942959874048?s=20
She stated that Hinduism and Hindutva were as different from each other as Christianity and white supremacy and that justice and equality were incompatible with Hindutva.
She explained that Hindutva was the idea that India is a land ‘for Hindus, by Hindus’. This ideology views other Indians as second-class citizens, who form 20 percent of the Indian population.
A lot of Hindus are not very accepting of Hindutva ideology the same way a lot of people despise white supremacy and the two are frequently conflated by Hindutva supporters to tackle criticism.
Unlike Hinduism, Hindutva is an ideology that was born in the past century, inspired by movements like Nazism. Hindutva leaders have admired both Hitler and his persecution of Jews.
Truschke also gave her opinion on what the extremist ideology of Hindutva meant for India, saying that the ideology physically manifests itself in the death threats to Muslims and laws that privilege Hindus and punish Muslims. She gave the example of a recent bill proposed in India that sought to strip Muslim immigrants of their ability to gain Indian citizenship.
She also highlighted the deadly consequences of Hindutva ideology, which were evident in the mob lynchings of Muslims and Christians, with perpetrators rarely being prosecuted. In light of this, the Indian Supreme Court has recently warned about the takeover of ‘mobocracy’.