More than once, RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat has categorically made it clear that India is a Hindu rashtra, its identity Hindutva and that anyone living in the country is a Hindu, irrespective of one’s religion. Indeed, Hindutva is this nation’s lifeline—if history is anything to go by.

In fact, Bhagwat’s predecessor Balasaheb Deoras had attributed India’s Hindu-majority status to why democracy and secularism exist in the country. The coexistence of these two features eludes our neighbours who separated from India for historical reasons, he had said, citing Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and even parts of China, where minorities are being selectively annihilated. “Hence it is necessary to keep India a Hindu nation for the sustenance of various religious groups,” according to Deoras.

Many educated Indians got trapped intellectually when the British scholars, who, as part of their divide-and-rule policy, propagated that ‘Hindu’ denotes a religion. But eminent thinkers like...