At a civil society meeting in Bangalore this week, the question was asked if a Hindu Rashtra was on the horizon in the event of a third term for the Modi government. To see if this is possible, one must begin by asking what it is, and how Hindu Rashtra will be different from what we have at present.
Until 2008, after which it became a republic like ours, Nepal was a Hindu Rashtra, the only one in the world. Why was it a Hindu Rashtra? Because executive power flowed from a Kshatriya (Chhetri) king as prescribed in the Manu Smriti. Nepal’s 1959 Constitution identifies the head of State as someone who is an ‘adherent of Aryan culture and Hindu religion’.
The 1962 Constitution defines Nepal as an ‘independent, indivisible and sovereign Hindu State’ and repeats the formulation of the king as being Aryan and Hindu. The Raj Sabha or governing council includes the head Brahmin (Bada Gurujyu) and officiating priest (Mool Purohit).
Nepal’s 1990 Constitution defined the country as being ‘multiethnic, multilingual, democratic, independent, indivisible, sovereign, Hindu and constitutional monarchical kingdom’. It restated the ‘Aryan-ness’ and ‘Hinduness’ of the king. The Raj Sabha was now to be called Raj Parishad and the Mool Purohit excluded, though the Bada Gurujyu remained.
The 1959 Constitution had no religious freedom as such, and ‘no person shall be entitled to convert another person to his........