Hindutva, Manusmriti, and the Nation: The RSS, Savarkar, Golwalkar and Their Conflicts with the Buddha, Ambedkar, the Tricolour, and the Constitution of India

Introduction

The struggle for India’s freedom and the shaping of its republic produced competing visions of what it meant to be Indian. On one side stood Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966), theorist of Hindutva, and Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar (1906–1973), the second Sarsanghchalak (supreme leader) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Together, they crafted a vision of India as a “Hindu Rashtra” rooted in cultural unity and guided by a selective appropriation of Hindu traditions.

On the other side stood Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), architect of the Indian Constitution, tireless critic of caste, and later the leader of a mass Buddhist conversion movement. Ambedkar’s insistence on constitutional democracy, equality, and fraternity clashed with the RSS’s preference for cultural nationalism rooted in ancient texts, especially the Manusmriti, which Ambedkar denounced and famously burned in 1927.

This article visits the ideological contest between the RSS/Savarkar/Golwalkar and Ambedkar, tracing their conflicting attitudes toward:

• The Buddha and Buddhism
• The Indian Constitution vs. Manusmriti
• The Tricolour and national symbols
• Ambedkar’s social revolution

By unpacking historical writings, political debates, and symbolic clashes, we can see how the RSS sought to ground Indian nationhood in an exclusionary cultural identity, while Ambedkar envisioned a republic based on justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Savarkar: Hindutva and the Cultural Nation

Hindutva as Nationhood

Savarkar’s 1923 manifesto Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? defined the nation as those who considered India both their pitrubhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (holy land). By this definition, Muslims and Christians, whose sacred centers lay outside India, were excluded from the national core.¹

Savarkar’s framework emphasized ethnic-cultural homogeneity over political liberalism. For him, history was a story of Hindu resilience against foreign invaders. Social divisions like caste were seen as weakening Hindu unity but were not condemned outright as immoral.²

Savarkar and Buddhism

Savarkar treated Buddhism ambivalently. He admired the Buddha as an Indian sage but criticized Buddhism for allegedly weakening Hindu society with “ahimsa” (non-violence) and monastic withdrawal.³ He saw Ambedkar’s 1956 conversion to Buddhism not as liberation from Hinduism but as a sectarian move within India’s civilizational fold, downplaying Ambedkar’s radical rejection of caste.⁴

Thus, Savarkar appropriated the Buddha as part of a larger Hindu civilizational continuum, but dismissed Buddhism’s social-revolutionary potential as Ambedkar articulated it.

Golwalkar and the RSS: The Organic Hindu Nation

Golwalkar’s Vision

M. S. Golwalkar, in Bunch of Thoughts (1966), described India as a Hindu Rashtra, where minorities could live only if they accepted Hindu primacy. He rejected the “territorial nationalism” of the Constitution in favor of a cultural nationalism rooted in religion and tradition.⁵

Golwalkar expressed disdain for the Constitution drafted by Ambedkar, calling it a copy of Western models that ignored India’s ancient laws. He lamented that India had “nothing original” in its Constitution.⁶

The Manusmriti as Constitution

RSS ideologues, including Golwalkar, often invoked the Manusmriti as a more authentic guide than the Constitution. In the 1940s and 1950s, RSS leaders publicly stated that India did not need a “new constitution” because Manusmriti had already governed Hindu society for centuries.⁷

Golwalkar wrote:

“Our Constitution has nothing which can be called our own. It is just a carbon copy of the Western constitutions… But we had in our Manusmriti laws which governed us for thousands of years.”⁸

For Ambedkar, this was intolerable. The Manusmriti enshrined caste hierarchy and untouchability—the very evils the Constitution sought to abolish. Ambedkar’s Manusmriti Dahan in 1927 at Mahad symbolized the rejection of Brahmanical law as the basis of modern India.⁹

Thus, the RSS’s reverence for Manusmriti marked a profound clash with Ambedkar’s constitutional project.

Ambedkar: The Constitution and the Social Revolution

Ambedkar’s Constitutional Vision

As chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar insisted that political democracy must be underpinned by social democracy. In his final speech in November 1949, he warned:

“Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy… by which I mean a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life.”¹⁰

Ambedkar viewed the Constitution as a weapon against caste oppression. It outlawed untouchability (Article 17), guaranteed equality (Articles 14–18), and provided safeguards for minorities and Scheduled Castes.¹¹

Ambedkar vs. Manusmriti

Ambedkar was scathing in his critique of Manusmriti, which he saw as the scriptural sanction for untouchability and caste. At Mahad in 1927, he and his followers publicly burned the text. He wrote:

“Manu is the greatest enemy of equality. Manu is the greatest enemy of liberty.”¹²

Thus, when Golwalkar and RSS leaders praised Manusmriti as the authentic Indian law, they were in direct opposition to Ambedkar’s life’s work.

Ambedkar and the Buddha

Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956 with hundreds of thousands of followers was both spiritual and political. In his Twenty-Two Vows, he and his followers explicitly renounced faith in Hindu gods, belief in caste, and rituals rooted in Manusmriti.¹³

Ambedkar’s The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957, posthumously published) reinterpreted Buddhism as a rational, egalitarian religion that rejected hierarchy. For Ambedkar, Buddhism offered what Hinduism, tied to Manusmriti, could not: a foundation for human dignity.¹⁴

The Tricolour and National Symbols

National symbols became another site of conflict. The Indian Tricolour (saffron, white, green, with the Ashoka chakra) was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1947.

The RSS initially refused to accept the Tricolour, insisting on the saffron flag (bhagwa dhwaj) as the true emblem of the Hindu nation.¹⁵ After Gandhi’s assassination and the ban on the RSS in 1948, the organization was compelled to adopt the Constitution and Tricolour formally in order to be unbanned.¹⁶

Golwalkar reluctantly declared loyalty, but his writings continued to exalt saffron as the true civilizational flag. Critics saw this as evidence of the RSS’s instrumental, not principled, acceptance of national symbols.¹⁷

Ideological Antagonism: Hatred or Opposition?

The term “hatred” captures the moral and rhetorical intensity with which RSS ideologues opposed Ambedkar’s project:

• Golwalkar belittled the Constitution Ambedkar drafted.
• RSS leaders praised Manusmriti, the very text Ambedkar burned.
• Savarkar dismissed Ambedkar’s Buddhism as sectarian.
• The RSS rejected the Tricolour, another symbol Ambedkar defended.

Meanwhile, Ambedkar returned the hostility:

• He accused Hindu society (and by implication its defenders like Savarkar and Golwalkar) of being incapable of reform.
• He rejected Manusmriti as “the gospel of slavery.”
• He declared: “I was born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu.”¹⁸

This ideological antagonism was not merely theoretical—it shaped political conflicts over caste, democracy, and national identity.

Historiographical Perspectives

1. Instrumentalist Reading: Scholars argue Savarkar’s and Golwalkar’s concern with caste was pragmatic (to unify Hindus politically), whereas Ambedkar’s was ethical and structural.¹⁹
2. Civilization vs. Republic: The RSS projected India as an organic cultural entity; Ambedkar projected India as a republic of equal citizens.²⁰
3. Manusmriti as Symbol: For the RSS, Manusmriti symbolized cultural continuity. For Ambedkar, it symbolized oppression. Their divergent stances epitomize the contest between Hindu Rashtra and constitutional democracy.²¹

Contemporary Implications

Constitution vs. Cultural Nationalism

Even today, Sangh-affiliated leaders occasionally suggest reviewing the Preamble or question “secularism” and “socialism.” Critics see this as a continuation of Golwalkar’s skepticism of Ambedkar’s Constitution.²²

Ambedkar’s Legacy and Appropriation

Ironically, the RSS today often celebrates Ambedkar as a national icon, while downplaying his critiques of Hinduism and Manusmriti. Political analysts describe this as appropriation without acknowledgment of conflict.²³

Buddhism and Dalit Assertion

Ambedkarite Buddhism remains a force of Dalit identity and resistance. The RSS attempts to co-opt the Buddha as part of Hindu heritage but resists Ambedkar’s radical reinterpretation. This unresolved tension continues to shape politics in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and beyond.²⁴

Conclusion

The contest between Savarkar/Golwalkar/RSS and Ambedkar/Buddhism was, and remains, a battle of foundations:

• RSS: India as a Hindu Rashtra, with cultural laws like Manusmriti as guiding principles, saffron as the true flag, and the Buddha as an Indian sage within Hindu fold.
• Ambedkar: India as a republic of equal citizens, guided by a modern Constitution, symbolized by the Tricolour, rejecting Manusmriti, and rooted in the egalitarian ethics of Buddhism.

The survival of Indian democracy rests on Ambedkar’s vision: liberty, equality, and fraternity guaranteed by a Constitution—not on a revival of Manusmriti.

As long as the RSS clings to cultural majoritarianism and symbolic appropriation, and Ambedkarites uphold the promise of social democracy and the Buddha’s dhamma, this ideological struggle will remain central to the story of India.

Footnotes

1. V. D. Savarkar, Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (Nagpur: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1923).
2. Christophe Jaffrelot, Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 88–95.
3. Savarkar, Collected Works, Vol. 6 (Poona: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1963), 233.
4. Savarkar.org, “Savarkar on Buddhism and Ambedkar,” accessed 2025.
5. M. S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore: Jagarana Prakashana, 1966), 54–60.
6. Ibid., 116.
7. See Arundhati Roy, The Doctor and the Saint (New Delhi: Navayana, 2014), 42.
8. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, 116–17.
9. B. R. Ambedkar, “Address at Mahad Satyagraha,” 1927, in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 5.
10. B. R. Ambedkar, “Speech to the Constituent Assembly,” November 25, 1949.
11. The Constitution of India, Articles 14–18.
12. B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (1936), 23.
13. B. R. Ambedkar, Twenty-Two Vows, 1956.
14. B. R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma (Bombay: Siddharth College Publications, 1957).
15. Andersen and Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The RSS and Hindu Revivalism (New Delhi: Vistaar, 1987), 117.
16. Walter Andersen, “The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: Who Benefits and Who Loses?” Asian Survey 23, no. 7 (1983): 751–69.
17. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1996), 145.
18. B. R. Ambedkar, Speech at Yeola, October 1935.
19. Jaffrelot, Hindu Nationalism, 93.
20. Ananya Vajpeyi, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India (Harvard University Press, 2012).
21. Roy, The Doctor and the Saint, 45.
22. Times of India, “RSS Moots Debate on Secularism in Preamble,” February 2020.
23. The Wire, “RSS and Ambedkar: A Camaraderie That Never Existed,” April 2018.
24. Gail Omvedt, Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004).