A nation is a soul, a spiritual principal. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principal. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is the present-day consent, the desire to live together, and the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form.

 

Man does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of heroic endeavours, selfless sacrifices and glorious deeds of devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for they have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory in song, tradition and legend, this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past, to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together and to wish to perform still more, these are the essential conditions for being the people of a country. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed down. The Spartan song –‘We are what you were; we will be what you are’, is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of Hindutva today. If Hindutva vanishes, what will Bharatvarsha be? She will become a geographical expression of the vanished past, a dim memory of a perished glory. We have to avert this grim national tragedy at any cost. How can we forget that our history, our literature, our art, our temples and monuments, all have Hinduism writ indelibly across them?