DU  set to co-host global event on ‘Challenges & Future of Hindutva’.

Delhi University set to co-host global event on ‘Challenges & Future of Hindutva’ in November. 

Sugandha Jha | TOI Online | New Delhi | Oct 3, 2025::  Delhi University has invited papers on themes such as the “possibility of Hindu Rashtra in the future of Bharat”, “conspiracies of Hindu fragmentation”, and “framing of the varna system as social duty” for an international conference it is co-hosting next month with the portal Vishwa Samvad Kendra and Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University, Delhi.

The invitation note of the Nov 7-8 event, titled “Narratives on Hindutva: Discourses, Challenges and Future”, also lists “caste and gender critiques, secular frameworks, globalisation pressure and media bias” as the challenges before Hindutva today.

The concept note describes Hindutva as a “living and evolving dharmic tradition”\ and draws a contrast with “Abrahamic faiths”, which it says treat women as “passive followers” while Hindu traditions see them as “active adhyatmika agents”.

DU’s Centre for Hindu Studies (CHS) is the co-organiser. Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal and DU vicechancellor Yogesh Singh are among the invited guests.

There was no immediate response from Singh. Prerna Malhotra, head,CHS, said, “It is high time a space for fresh explorations is created and discussions take place from the indigenous lenses. The conference will provide space for academic coming-together of minds to deliberate on issues related to Hindutva, just like the old dharmic tradition of shastrarth.”

The concept note says the conference seeks to “revisit and rethink” dominant narratives on Hindu Dharma shaped by colonial, Marxist and postcolonial theories, and to create space for “fresh explorations” into themes like civilisational unity beyond the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the place of women and family in social thought, and the interplay of vijñana (science) and spirituality.

Its stated objective is “to challenge the limited ways in which Hindutva is often portrayed”. “Too frequently, it is dismissed as a political orthodoxy or as a rigid ideology, rather than being recognised as a darsana, a civilisational vision of a rule-bound and ethical society rooted in Bharat’s indigenous traditions… The conference seeks to highlight the richness of Hindutva thought.”

Among the sub-themes, the note on the concept of Aryan invasion says it will “revisit the Aryan-Dravidian divide as a colonial construct, later used in postindependence politics”. On Hindu fragmentation, it states: “Colonial ‘divide-andrule’ strategies, missionary activities and political mobilisations deepened these rifts… this theme discusses ways to reaffirm unity while respecting diversity.”

The section on varna and jati says: “Varna originally referred to the division of social duties and later evolved into a complex jati system. While fluid in practice, colonial interpretations froze it into rigid hierarchies of caste.” The conference, it adds, will revisit dharmic perspectives that emphasise “cooperation and social harmony over inherited status”.

The section on Hindu Rashtra frames it “both as a cultural-philosophical vision and as a political concept”, exploring its “historical articulations” and its “place within contemporary democracy”.

Researchers in Hindu studies, Sanskrit, history, political science and sociology, policy experts, and those “interested in dharmic and civilisational studies” have been invited to participate.
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Courtesy: Times Of India.