text:
Talk:Chinese fire drill

British Use of "Chinese [blank]" as a Slur
Probably not important, but would chinese whispers be another example for the list of 20th Century British-isms that use "Chinese" in a slightly derogatory way? I've always found that expression odd, anyway. In America we just call that game "Telephone". --Nomenclaturist (talk) 03:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Chinese Gift Exchange
- Not sure how old this expression is, but I have heard people use this to refer to the chaotic gift exchange game wherein each person at a party, upon being called up to select a "secret Santa" gift, is given a choice between either selecting an unopened gift from a pile of gifts, or of taking a gift that has already been opened away from another participant. If the person makes the later choice, then the person who had their gift taken away from them becomes next in line to make the same choice (unopened gift from pile vs. previously opened gift from another participant), with the exception that they cannot take back the very same gift that was just taken from them. Etc.

While this term immediately struck me as racially insensitive, those I have questioned about it hadn't even stopped to consider that it might be rooted in racism. Instead the term was tossed about as freely as one might toss about "Dutch Treat" these days, though that term, too, has its roots in a early British slur against the then-perceived stinginess of the Dutch.

As for "Indian Giver", which is mentioned by someone else in this discussion, it's my understanding that it stems from a lack of understanding by early American settlers of the practice among some "Indian" tribes of always returning any gift received with an even greater gift, or else risk insulting the original gift giver. Thus, to the early settlers, an "Indian Giver" was not one who took a gift back that they had previously given, but rather, was one who gave a gift with the expectation that they would not only receive a gift in return, but that the gift they received would be of greater value than the one they gave.
 * This may not be all that rare. There's been a fracas here several timezones away about a traditional confectionary with a name that generously translates as Negro's Kiss. It predates the offensive use of the term and as far as I know, which isn't very far, most people either aren't bothered because no offensive intent was meant or haven't thought about it at all - it's just a name. --Kiz o r  10:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Link
The link to www.thedigeratipeninsula.org.uk contains self-referential and unverified information dealing with the origin of the term, and definitely isn't encyclopedia-grade. I won't remove it now, but it would be nice to be able to credit a more authoratative piece on the subject. 24.76.183.115 06:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Racist?
Isn't this term considered racist, those silly people racing around but accomplishing nothing? Ortolan88

 * I think the origin of it is. I am not sure what the racism is, whether it is what you say or not.  I do know that now we just do Chinese fire drills without thought about its history.  That is, it is not racist for most people *now*. -- Ram-Man

 * I also think it's racist by todays standards of civil respect. I think an informative addition of that concept might be apropos. If you are trying to infer that this article should not exist, because the term is racist, I would say that's a bit narrow minded. It's not the duty of Wikipedia to eradicate racism. It is, however, it's obligation to describe it. Consider those people who are ignorant to the english speaking cultures of the world, perhaps even chinese people -- they should have the opportunity to learn about this euphamism in an informative and unbiased platform like Wikipedia. jgreat

 * Sorry, but whether "you" think about its history or not, it most certainly is racist and demeaning.David de Paoli

 * Well that is an interesting debate. It may even be related to the debate over the word "nigger", which I am not about to start here.  What I am saying is not a point of view.  It is simply the fact that people today take the term just as a label not really as too deep a meaning.  Sure it is racist (no one yet has shown conclusively that it is, but we all suspect it) and that should be put in the encyclopedia entry as well.  But be sure to put all of this in. -- Ram-Man

I'm sure the poster meant no offense, but the term is racist because it perpetuates a negative stereotype about Chinese people. What next? "Mexican standoff", two duellists shooting at the ceiling? Ortolan88

 * I'm sure you're right. Although it, and others like it, might be included in an entry entitled "Derogatory Stereotypical Ethnic References and Adages" or something like that. Such a subject might be educational in that it clearly reveals the racist origins of these sayings.David de Paoli

It'd probably fit better under an article that deals with this stuff more realistically - i.e., "oversensitivity on the part of minorities regarding long-standing colloquialisms." Maybe you could start it. 24.99.231.40 20:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

really?
In traditional Chinese, the word 'Chinese' sounds more like 'choong wuh duh'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.93.150 (talk) 16:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Stub
Is this ever going to be more than a stub? Should it be merged into a "list of stupid pranks"? -- Tarquin 17:38 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)

 * Possibly, but this *is* racist and has a history that could be developed. It is not merely a "stupid prank". -- Ram-Man

Gee
Well, golly gee! Jest listen to you all white trash moaning about racist langage! When I was a boy, all we had to worry about was walking 10 miles to school -- uphill each way!!! ;-) --Ed Poor

 * Has anyone added the uphill in snow phrase to the encyclopedia? It is just about the most popular phrase for parents to tell their children in America! -- Ram-Man

Terms
A lot of terms that start out as racist become ingrained in the culture and language and lose their racist meaning in everything but the name. I was looking up some information and found another similar situation. The term "Saturday Night Special" was a term that originated from a racist term against Blacks. While these terms have an origin of racism, they are not necessarily used as such, though they may still offend people. Goodness, I am sure the nickname "Ram-Man" could offend people! -- Ram-Man

 * As the excellent Wikipedia article makes clear, the term Saturday-night special was devised and used as an insulting racial code word. Ortolan88

Dealing with articles
Okay, all kidding aside: what do we do with articles whose titles managed to offend one ethnic group or another? Delete them, because they're "obviously" racist? --Ed Poor

 * What is the wikipedia policy on swear words? Those are offensive as well.  The policy should be similar at least. -- Ram-Man

Well, I wrote an article called [shithead], but some fuckhead deleted it ;-) --Ed Poor

Education
The encyclopedia is meant to educate. If people can't see the racism in "Chinese fire drill" then the article should point it out, as in the "Saturday night special article". Same goes for swear words, "Although considered by many offensive, this word ... "

This has made me think about "Indian giver". It could mean, if an Indian gives you a gift, he is likely to take it back, but it might also refer to the custom of potlatch, where guests receive all the gifts, or it might refer to the way white people have treated Indians. In any case, an article on Indian giver would have to take all of that into account.

By the way, implying that only older people use Chinese fire drill as a racist term while young people are innocent, what's up with that? Ortolan88

 * I've used the term Chinese Fire Drill many times without thinking about its origin. I am not saying that *all* old or young people think a certain way.  But there was an important historical reason for putting down the Chinese in the 1960s.  With the persecution of the Chinese surrounding some events such as the attack Pearl Harbor, this fits into that.  These days I would argue that children in general are *far* less racist than their parent's generation.  So they simply don't mean anything racist by the term and would not think of it as such.  Of course it *is* a racist term.  No one is denying that. -- Ram-Man

 * "the persecution of the Chinese surrounding some events such as the attack Pearl Harbor"? You are aware that it was the Japanese-Americans that were persecuted during WWII, and that the US at that time was allied with China, right? --178.201.95.34 (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Propaganda?
There's a fine line between "educating" and propagandizing. Is the Wikipedia supposed to assert that racism is wrong? How about religious bigotry? How about indifference to other people's problems in general? I don't think it's the mission of Wikipedia to educate. It should just provide an accurate reference to knowledge.

On the other hand, if you'd like to join me in building an educational wiki... --Ed Poor

 * " It should just provide an accurate reference to knowledge." Exactly. And the sayings we're discussing are offensive to some and rooted in racism. The subject is not whether racism is wrong or not. It is not surprising to note, however, that persons who are *not* the targets of these slurs are the ones most militantly ready to use extreme or preposterous examples in order to discredit those who are offended by them.David de Paoli

True. Wikipedia itself is neutral. The negativity against racism is imagined: All things cause a reaction. To make it neutral, the blatant negativity is countered with speech of equal, yet opposite, strength.

Besides, humans are biased. We just try to remove the humanity.--Oreichalcos (talk) 01:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Reference?
Was there ever a time when the idea that Chinese people are incapable of dealing with emergencies and that their only response is to run ineffectively about was a prevalent stereotype? Today is the first I've ever heard of it. My impression of Chinese is that they are outstandingly patient -- not prone to panic.

 * : This is the most plausible reference to the origin of this slur that I've seen- http://www.word-detective.com/back-x.html David de Paoli

 * Okay, I read that reference. It says: Hugh Rawson, author of some of the most fascinating word origins books in print. In his marvelous Wicked Words, Mr. Rawson notes that the use of the modifier "Chinese" in the derogatory sense of "confused, disorganized or inferior" dates back to the time of World War I and was largely a British invention. Other "Chinese" slurs of the day included "Chinese ace" (an inept aviator), "Chinese national anthem" (an explosion) and "Chinese puzzle" (one with no solution).

Let's get working on an article like ethnic slurs or ethnic stereotypes. --Ed Poor

Firestorm

 * Geez, I didn't mean to start a firestorm with a simple stub about a nearly-obsolete expression. Wow.  Since I started the entry, though, I'm hoping my latest edit, incorporating the excellent information added by you guys above, will satisfy most.

 * (Those who claim that any idea offensive to someone should *never* make into Wikipedia will of course, never be satisfied).  The disclaimers others have already made, plus my own, regarding the potential offensiveness of the term should suffice for the rest.

 * For the record, I never intended to offend anyone, I just saw "Musical Chairs", randomly associated "Chinese fire drill", and thought I should put it in. People say it, it has a meaning, (two really, literal and figurative), why not add it in?

 * For David di Paoli, and for the record, I'm both Jewish and Canadian, and I give the community permission to add in one more derogatory expression for each of these affiliations, if it helps balance things. :-) --Steve Rapaport

 * Jewish *AND* Canadian? Ha- ha. We could have a field day with those ;) FWIW, I'm an Italian Jew, so I know offensive stereotypes, too... the fact that I fit most of them is beside the point.David de Paoli

 * ...And I'm a Canadian Jew living in Italy. You think Italians in America are stereotyped, you should see them here...:-)  --Steve Rapaport

Copyright
BTW, for 151.38.27.208, I looked at the copyright info of word- detective and they forbid being linked to anything but their homepage, which is why I deleted the link as such.David de Paoli

 * Ok, that's me again (Steverapaport), idiotically forgetting to login before editing.  I've fired off an email asking *permission* to link to the guy's page at word-detective, either we get it in writing or we don't...--Steve Rapaport

Precision
Can we at least have some precision about this article? Is it popular in America, or in "America"? I can't fix this myself, as I don't know if they do this in Bolivia or just the US of A -- Tarquin 22:41 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)

 * As far as specifically "Chinese Fire Drill" goes, the source I cited previously in this dicussion reports its origin is in early 20th century Britain, so at least that one wouldn't be restricted solely to US usage. As far as the other ethnic stereotypes, I've witnessed evidence of most of them, or variations thereof, in at least 4 other countries; Canada, Japan, Germany and Mexico. Whether or to what degree they occur in the rest of the Americas besides Canada, Mexico and US, I wouldn't know.David de Paoli

 * I know for sure it made it to Canada, dunno about Britain but seems likely if that's where it comes from. Could just say "English speaking countries" I dunno.

Permission
For David de Paoli: I have permission to link to word detective:  Here's the mail from Evan: From: Evan Morris  To: Steve Rapaport

Hi,

No, I don't have any problem with any link, and links to any page (not just the front page) on my site are fine with me. The more the merrier. That "copyright" statement is there primarily to deter newspaper columnists and usenet "experts" who at one time were copying huge chunks of my stuff and using it without attribution.

Thanks for asking.

Regards,

Evan

 * So David can you please put the link back, I don't know how to mess around with the history system yet.

--Steve Rapaport.

 * :: Done. Thanks, Steve.David de Paoli

I am a Chinese born and I do not feel one bit offended by this or any other "racial slur" against chinese or "chinks" of any nationality, I find the phrase funny. Perhaps I have better self esteem and brighter outlook to the world than most. Perhaps that is why such words and phrases do not offend me. I do wonder why others do get so offended, lack of self esteem and boredom with life are all I can really figure. -D. Cho

Hi all, Forty years ago I worked with an old miner in Colorado. He was 78 at the time. He showed me some shallow caves or the start of a mine. These all had a blackened area from what appeared to have been a fire. Old Mr. Crisler explained that these caves were made by the Chinese workers. They would find a area that might have gold and would build a large fire in front of the rock. This fire would continue until the rock was very hot. Then they would race up to the heated rock face throwing buckets of water on the hot rocks. This would fracture the rock making it workable with picks and small single jack drills. You can imagine the smoke and steam that arose from the rock, not to mention the sight of long qued chinese laborers screaming in their native tongue. What would an Irish worker have thought upon witnessing this? He would refer to any chaotic situation as a chinese fire drill.john winkler

Need a substitute for this cliche
I don't want to be politically incorrect and say Chinese firedrill. Does anyone have a suggestion for a substitute phrase that expresses directed chaos without making a racial slur? It seems to be a frequent mode at my workplace.

Yes. "Clusterfuck." Also FUBAR.

Lane change
Some people in the U.S. use the term Chinese fire drill to refer to a driver changing over one or more lanes too fast.[3] In Texas, an immediate move from far-left lane to exit ramp is what we call the San Antonio Lane Change, but I doubt that term is used widely enough to be put on Wikipedia. Usually it's Hispanics driving a 4-door car that execute the move. -Rolypolyman 00:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"Chinese Ace" Reference
I noticed the term "Chinese Ace" in this article described simply as an inept pilot. Just wanted to throw in that according to my Air Force experience, a normal (or American) "Ace" is someone who has shot down at least 5 other aircraft, or has similarly scored 5 "kills". A "Chinese Ace", on the other hand, is someone who has either been shot down 5 times, who has crashed his own plane 5 times, or has ejected 5 times.

It is not hard to find pilots who have crashed or ejected once or even twice, but it takes a particular level of skill to repeat such events and maintain "alive" status. Obviously, such a pilot could readily be considered "inept" as the article states, but I believe has achieved a particular level of ineptness and luck that warrants a special title: Chinese Ace.

As so many other readers have accurately pointed out, it's extremely racist and of course inaccurate, but I'm just relaying how I've heard the term used.

I don't know how to make the changes to the wikipedia, and frankly, I'm too lazy to learn. So, anyone can feel free to copy what I've written or just ignore it.

70.169.53.69 (talk) 17:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Truthyness

Chinese fire drills in school buses
The last sentence of the introductory paragraph states: "Today, kids often perform this at bus stops on their way to or from school by running out of the bus running around it 3 or 4 times and coming back in to their original seats."

This, to me, sounds absurd. I know that where I live children are not allowed to leave the bus except in emergencies, and that this would be extremely difficult as there is only one accessible exit. Njk92 (talk) 05:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I remember doing it in a car on the way to school, which was about 15 years ago. I can't imagine this happening on a school bus. I'll remove. Johnnyt471 (talk) 22:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, I wasn't sure if the dispute tag was referencing this sentence or the entire paragraph, so I left it in. Johnnyt471 (talk) 22:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

 * This is original research but, when I was in junior high school in the 1980s in the US, we had school bus drivers who were high school students, something typical until around that time. Needless to say, judgement wasn't great all around and many drivers were lax on discipline. On the last day of school, some drivers would take long circuitous routes to school punctuated by Chinese fire drills at stoplights.  All the students on the bus would jump out of the back of the bus through the emergency exit and run around to the (regular) front door and re-enter.  All of this while waiting at a red light on a regular suburban 4-lane street.  This is probably one of many reasons why the pratice of having student bus drivers has disappeared. 68.48.20.74 (talk) 07:07, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Origin
The opening of the main paragraph bothers me: "The term goes back to the early 1900s, and is alleged to have originated..." If you follow the link referenced for this, it's just some guy writing it on a web page. Yet the author here states as fact that "the term goes back to the early 1900s." This is really just continuing a rumor. There is no knowledge of the authenticity of this account. This kind of thing makes me trust WP less and less over time. 2600:1702:4380:5FA0:A43A:19A6:6EB:2990 (talk) 04:27, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

 * I agree. This reference and the entire section about it being from a British ship with a Chinese crew is highly skeptical. It should be removed. This is similar to origin stories about the F word or Sh-t being acronyms. 75.149.128.121 (talk) 20:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 24 August 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Per the discussion below estar8806 (talk) ★ 12:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Chinese fire drill → Fire drill (slang) – "Fire drill" as a figurative term particularly for corporate chaos is still common, but these days almost always without the "Chinese" part: example. Of course the history should still be covered in the article. Jpatokal (talk) 04:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Oppose, the article and it's sources are specifically about the whole term, with a large focus on the "Chinese" aspect of it. I don't see any reason to change the scope of the article.--Cerebral726 (talk) 14:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There's nothing Chinese about it though? The term "Polish fire drill" has also been used: https://thorne_slang.en-academic.com/5092/Polish_fire_drill Jpatokal (talk) 07:14, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

title: Talk:Chinese fire drill


text:
Talk:Box Tunnel

Brunel's birthday
This needs to be pinned down as either true or false -- after all, it's a simple mattter of fact. Unless we can find an expert, I say we send a delegation of Wikipedians to camp out in situ! ;-) -- Tarquin 17:31 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)

 * As I said on Talk:Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I'm not hanging around in the middle of a high-speed railway line at any time of the day or year. Angus Buchanan, whom I quote in the article, is Emeritus Professor of the History of Technology at Bath, and is presumably contactable there. If you have access to an academic library, you may be able to read the correspondence in NCE that Buchanan mentions. I think one page I passed by while googling the question implied that the light shining down the tunnel would be murky at best with the diesel fumes (can't find it now). http://chemcomm1.clic.ac.uk/ticket_holders/b.html includes someone who claims to have seen the effect. Two things are certain: there's no proof that IKB did it deliberately, and the alignment of the tunnel is roughly in the right direction. --rbrwr

 * I've done a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, with help from Heavens Above and other sources, and I think that the sun must shine down the tunnel on one day or another in (approximately) the second week of April. Whether it is usually (or even ever) on the 9th, I don't know. Is there an astronomer in the house? --rbrwr

I'm not convinced. Partly because I've heard some academic whose name I wish I could remember saying it's a myth. Partly because it just smells of myth. And most of all -- if it's really true, why has no-one produced a photograph of it? -- Tarquin 18:19 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

 * I wish you could remember his name, too. Excellent question on the photograph, though. Here's one (alleged) answer and here's another. It might be worth searching out a collection of NCE. On the other hand this one gives a published source saying that it happens about a week later. Not that I believe anything I read on Usenet, y'know... --rbrwr 18:58 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

It was one of the lunchtime lectures I used to sometimes traipse along to when I was at University College London -- he was probably from the civil engineering department. Those usenet links are very tantalising...! -- Tarquin

A visit to Bristol reference library has left me none the wiser:

William Adams (ed) Encylopaedia of the great Western Railway ISBN 1-85260-329-1 says:

 * One of the two days in the year when the rising sun shines through the straight tunnel bore is close to Brunel's birthday, but does not coincide with it, despite the legend.

Muriel V. Searle Down the Line to Bristol ISBN 0-85936-188-8 quotes a contemporary source from 1842:

 * On Saturday the Box Tunnel presented a most splendid though singular appearance caused by the shining of the sun straight through it, and giving the walls a brilliancy, to use the expression of an eyewitness, "as though the whole tunnel had been made gilt."

April 9, 1842 was indeed a Saturday, though it's not clear that that is the day being referred to.

O.S. Nock Great Western in Colour ISBN 0-7137-0857-3 repeats the story without any proof, which isn't very useful to us. The newer edition of the Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats doesn't mention Box.

--rbrwr 15:27 Oct 6, 2002 (UTC)

 * At least this remembers that it would happen twice a year. It's often said it happens only on IKB's birthday, which is obviously false. (BTW, going by the analemma on my wee globe, the other day would be Sep 5, more or less.) Kwantus 23:03, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

Jeremy Clarkson, in his Great Britons programme on IKB, said that the "latest research" shows the effect is visible on April 6 - the only thing on the British railway network that arrives early. It's still just a rumour, though. --rbrwr

I went to the library of the UWE in Bristol and searched their collection of the New Civil Engineer as far back as 1992 without finding the photograph referred to here. Oh well, keep looking. --rbrwr

I've done the calculations, and the sun definately does not shine through the tunnel on his birthday. And it's not as simple as him omitting atmoshperic refraction either. I'm looking to finish an article that probably won't be published anywhere. If it is, I'll point to it from this article. Peter Maggs 17:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

To quote from the article, "the sun subtends an angle of about half a degree, which is more than the year to year variation" (referring to the azimuth of the rising Sun on any particular day).

I can confirm this is the case. Using SkyMap Pro, an obsessively accurate astronomical program that takes account of many factors including precession and atmospheric effects, I plotted positions for the rising Sun on 9 April 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. By graphically superimposing the four parallel tracks swept by the Sun's visible disc, it becomes evident that all four intersect, consistently sweeping a central band about 15 minutes of arc wide.

I have I diagram, which I am happy to share with anyone who wants to see it.

The linked post asserting that the birthday effect is impossible is plainly wrong. In my opinion, it should be more firmly dismissed in the text, and the repeated reference to it in the "External Links" section should be removed. Lycanthrope 21:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I am interested to read this discussion. My father was a keen rail enthusiast and was greatly interested in IK Brunel. Sometime in the mid 70's there had been a landslide at Wooton Bassett and the line through Box was blocked. He went down to the tunnel on the date of Brunels birthday (access to the railway being easier in those days) to check the phenomenon for himself. He maintained until the end of his life that he observed the rising sun through the tunnel and in fact he did take some photographs, although the resulting slides were almost completely washed out by the rising sun. Azmo247 (talk) 09:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I have received an email from David Needham, who writes (I have edited slightly):

I was talking to a guy whose parents live in the Box area. I told him about a photo I took in 1982 of the sun shining down the tunnel. It was my photo that the NCE used as a article photo, 4th April 1985.I thought I could find it on the net. I was very surprised that the world wide web does not have a copy of my photo on it, or the article.

That day, only one other guy turned up to see this so called myth actually happen as good as it will ever happen.

People are wasting their time trying to observe this in the modern day for several reasons.
 * 1) H&S is too strict today to get on the lines
 * 2) It has to be a Bank Holiday. The 6.00am train from Bristol fills the tunnel with diesel fumes 5 minutes before sunrise on other days.
 * 3) It has to be a Bank Holiday when there are no clouds between Chippenham and London (like 1982)
 * 4) The trees have to be culled on the right embankment on the East end (this happens about once every 20 years), the embankment blocks about 45% of the tunnel with no trees, with trees it is 90% blocked out.

This makes it a very rare occurrence, one which has rarely been observed.

9 April 1982 was Good Friday, by the way. If anyone wants to try to find the relevant issue of New Civil Engineer we now have a date - it was further back than I looked when I searched in 2002.

rbrwr± 12:46, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Well done Rbrwr and David Needham for providing the reference in New Civil Engineer. A copy is in the British Library, although it is stored off-site and needs 48 hours advance notice to order up. In fact the photograph is part of a most comprehensive article by Martin Barnes, who publishes very clear calculations to show that the Sun definitely DOES NOT shine through the tunnel on IKB's birthday, although it can do so a couple of days earlier, and also in September. It is a pity that copyright prevents putting any of this in Wikipedia, although I may try and trace the publishers of NCE to see if anything can be done. The actual photograph shows a red glow at the eastern end of the tunnel - possibly a reflection from something - not bright enough to be the direct Sun

Peter Maggs 14:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Maggs (talk • contribs)
 * Here's an online ref: Box Railway Tunnel and I.K. Brunel's Birthday - a Theoretical Investigation by Atkins, C. P. in Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Vol. 95, NO.6/OCT, P.260, 1985.   Misalignment of the tunnel is approximately 1 degree, and full illumination can occur on April 7 (April 6 on leap years). The conclusion is: "These not insubstantial discrepancies from the actual alignment would suggest that there had been no deliberate attempt at Solar coincidence on Brunel's part." Meters (talk) 22:11, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I think what is often forgotten is that if a straight tunnel is aligned so that it points above the horizon somewhere between about east and south east or west and south west then its pretty much inevitable that that the sun will shine through it on one day or another: the sun covers a rather large percentage of the sky over the course of the year. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 13:03, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Secret Tunnel... Conspiracy?
Am I the only one that considers the latter part of this article to be something of a conspiracy? Especially the end which basically equates to: "... which totally obscure the view of the tunnel".

While this might be fact, why is this relevant other than to support a conspiracy theory? Just wondering if this is acceptable or otherwise Worley-d 23:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I see what your saying but it is actually true. Inside box tunnel is a vast nuclear bunker, see Hawthorn, Wiltshire    Bailo26 3:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Vent shafts
In my contribution of 20:14, 15 August 2008 I stated that a fourth ventilation shaft would be expected between the third one and the West portal but it is not visible in Google Earth and that "It may be obscured by shadows or it may have been covered over if it was deemed unnecessary with the advent of electrically powered trains". User 217.44.42.119 changed "electrically powered" to "diesel" which is *not* what I meant. Diesel powered trains still burn oxigen and produce exhaust gases which need to be vented. Only electric trains do not produce exhaust gases and would not need ventilation in long tunnels. I have reverted that change for this reason. What we need is someone who can confirm whether the fourth vent shaft is still in existence or has been covered over. GS3 (talk) 20:06, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Do you have a source for where any vent shafts might be, and how many there are? As it stands the section is speculative/ OR and liable for deletion as a result.  From my assessment I think it more likely that there are only two vent shafts, rather than three, and the one that you've picked out inside the camp is related to the quarry and/ or the sub-surface military estate.
 * ALR (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

 * The line is not (yet) electrified, so it is unlikely the owners of the line would have allowed changes in anticipation of electrification. I think speculation, without sources, about the number of vent shafts belongs on the talk page or in a discussion forum, not in the article.  Perhaps you can find definitive information on Ordnance Survey maps, or in the archives of the Great Western Railway.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

East Portal
I have been looking at some old images of the East Portal online.

Brunel's sketches at http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brunel200.com/images/great_western_railway/jpegs/great_western_railway_5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brunel200.com/great_western_railway.htm&usg=__QlqBtGmHzxCwFgCp_gtMfxXqo_g=&h=271&w=199&sz=9&hl=en&start=100&sig2=eE68DK8mEaks7pFqehwFHA&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=SIUJ9I5rsnR8bM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbox%2Btunnel%2Bimages%26start%3D80%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=DgPFTO-LGozi4AaLzMG6Aw which shows that (as one might expect) he also intended the East Portal to be grand and Classical, if less so (because of restricted space) than the West.

I suggest that he did not originally intend the brick lining to come right to the entrance - this should be taller and lined by the rusticated stone, as in the upper sketch. Though the lining was there by c.1905, as shown in the photos at http://images.francisfrith.com/c10/450/45/51493.jpg and http://eshop.wiltshire.gov.uk/gallery/eshop/postcards/boxtunnel.jpg

Perhaps the strengthening was needed when the quarry branch was added?

On the basis of these images I wish to revise the opening paragraph slightly.

8474tim (talk) 04:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Defence Use
The old images mentioned above show that the quarry siding already existed at the turn of the century, so was not newly built in the 1930s as implied. See also http://www.aditnow.co.uk/cache/Box-Bath-Stone-Mine-Archive-Album/Box-Bath-Stone-Mine-Archive-Album-001.jpg and http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/images/strategic/box-tunnel.jpg (I assume that the Strategic Steam Reserve stuff is another Wiltshire hoax to go with ley lines, crop circles etc.)

8474tim (talk) 04:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Tunnel drawings
In this collection of engineering drawings, this drawing is a useful illustration of the longitudinal cross-section of the tunnel to show its steepness and its relation to the landscape. As it is dated 7 July 1838, it must already be in the public domain. Can it be used in the article? cmɢʟee☎✉ 12:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Construction
There isn't much information here about how the tunnel was constructed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.114.138 (talk) 11:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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New Theory
I have recently published the results of some research on the possibility of Brunel having deliberately aligned the tunnel to the morning sunrise on particular dates. The article can be seen here http://www.mirlibooks.com/isambards-gift.html I invite comments; editors may wish to link it to the main article. Peter Maggs 08:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Maggs (talk • contribs)

Just for the record I always sign my posts with 'Peter Maggs 15:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)' and I'm always told they are unsigned! Will someone tell me what I am doing wrong!!! Peter Maggs 15:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Maggs (talk • contribs)

 * I would guess your signature doesn't match the format that SineBot looks for when deciding to add the unsigned template. You can opt out by following the link to SineBot's user page and following the instructions there. --rbrwr± 12:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * Your .sig isn't linked (which is a requirement, AFAIR), it's just plain text. Andy Dingley 12:20, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * You are typing in a signature, but instead of that you need to type four tildes and Wikipedia will recognise them. Near the top of this page when in edit mode you get the message "and remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes." and it shows you what tildes are. I can't include that here because it will convert them to my signature. Afterbrunel (talk) 09:39, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

"We Need To Talk About Doreen", the 2nd episode of the 2nd series of McDonald & Dodds, turns more or less around the tunnel and the sunrise phenomenon. --Hodsha (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Box Tunnel


text:
Barley wine

Barley wine (often stylised barleywine) is a strong ale from 6–12% alcohol by volume.

History
The first beer to be marketed as barley wine was Bass No. 1 Ale, around 1870.

The Anchor Brewing Company introduced the style to the United States in 1976 with its Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale. Old Foghorn was styled as "barleywine" (one word) out of fear that occurrence of the word "wine" on a beer label would displease regulators. In 1983, Sierra Nevada Brewing released Bigfoot Barleywine, becoming the second barley wine label in the United States.

Characteristics
Barley wine typically reaches an alcohol strength of 6 to 12% by volume and is brewed from specific gravities as high as 1.120; equal to 320g/L of sugars. Use of the word "wine" is due to its alcoholic strength similar to a wine, but since it is made from grain rather than fruit, it is a beer. Breweries in the United States typically release it once a year during the autumn or winter.

The two primary styles of barley wine are the American, which tends to be hoppier and more bitter, with colours ranging from amber to light brown and the English style, which tends to be less bitter and may have little hop flavour, with more variety in colour ranging from red-gold to opaque black. Until the introduction of an amber-coloured barley wine under the name Gold Label by the Sheffield brewery Tennant's in 1951 (later brewed by Whitbread), British barley wines were always dark in colour.

Beer writer Michael Jackson referred to a barley wine by Smithwick's thusly: "This is very distinctive, with an earthy hoppiness, a wineyness, lots of fruit and toffee flavours." He also noted that its original gravity is 1.062.

Martyn Cornell was quoted as saying, "no historically meaningful difference exists between barley wines and old ales". He later clarified, "I don’t believe there is actually any such meaningful style as 'barley wine'".

Barley wines, such as Thomas Hardy's Ale, are sometimes labelled with a production date, as they are intended to be aged, sometimes extensively.

Taxes and legal impediments
Many jurisdictions have different taxing schemes for potables based upon alcohol content. Since barley wine has a high alcohol content, it is, in some jurisdictions, taxed at a higher rate than other beers. Thus, barley wines tend to suffer a further price premium compared with other beers. Similarly, many jurisdictions have different regulations regarding where beers and wines can be sold, leading to confusion regarding in which category barley wines fall, thus limiting access.

Wheat wine
A variation on the barley wine style involves adding a large quantity of wheat to the mash bill, resulting in what is referred to as "wheat wine". This style originated in the United States in the 1980s.

title: Barley wine


text:
Coenzyme Q – cytochrome c reductase

The coenzyme Q : cytochrome c – oxidoreductase, sometimes called the cytochrome bc1 complex, and at other times complex III, is the third complex in the electron transport chain, playing a critical role in biochemical generation of ATP (oxidative phosphorylation). Complex III is a multisubunit transmembrane protein encoded by both the mitochondrial (cytochrome b) and the nuclear genomes (all other subunits). Complex III is present in the mitochondria of all animals and all aerobic eukaryotes and the inner membranes of most bacteria. Mutations in Complex III cause exercise intolerance as well as multisystem disorders. The bc1 complex contains 11 subunits, 3 respiratory subunits (cytochrome B, cytochrome C1, Rieske protein), 2 core proteins and 6 low-molecular weight proteins.

Ubiquinol—cytochrome-c reductase catalyzes the chemical reaction

 * QH2 + 2 ferricytochrome c $$\rightleftharpoons$$ Q + 2 ferrocytochrome c + 2 H+

Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are quinol (QH2) and ferri- (Fe3+) cytochrome c, whereas its 3 products are quinone (Q), ferro- (Fe2+) cytochrome c, and H+.

This enzyme belongs to the family of oxidoreductases, specifically those acting on diphenols and related substances as donor with a cytochrome as acceptor. This enzyme participates in oxidative phosphorylation. It has four cofactors: cytochrome c1, cytochrome b-562, cytochrome b-566, and a 2-Iron ferredoxin of the Rieske type.

Nomenclature
The systematic name of this enzyme class is ubiquinol:ferricytochrome-c oxidoreductase. Other names in common use include:

Structure
Compared to the other major proton-pumping subunits of the electron transport chain, the number of subunits found can be small, as small as three polypeptide chains. This number does increase, and eleven subunits are found in higher animals. Three subunits have prosthetic groups. The cytochrome b subunit has two b-type hemes (bL and bH), the cytochrome c subunit has one c-type heme (c1), and the Rieske Iron Sulfur Protein subunit (ISP) has a two iron, two sulfur iron-sulfur cluster (2Fe•2S).

Structures of complex III: ,

Composition of complex
In vertebrates the bc1 complex, or Complex III, contains 11 subunits: 3 respiratory subunits, 2 core proteins and 6 low-molecular weight proteins. Proteobacterial complexes may contain as few as three subunits.

Table of subunit composition of complex III

 * a In vertebrates, a cleavage product of 8 kDa from the N-terminus of the Rieske protein (Signal peptide) is retained in the complex as subunit 9. Thus subunits 10 and 11 correspond to fungal QCR9p and QCR10p.

Reaction
It catalyzes the reduction of cytochrome c by oxidation of coenzyme Q (CoQ) and the concomitant pumping of 4 protons from the mitochondrial matrix to the intermembrane space:

 * QH2 + 2 cytochrome c (FeIII) + 2 H$+ in$ → Q + 2 cytochrome c (FeII) + 4 H$+ out$

In the process called Q cycle, two protons are consumed from the matrix (M), four protons are released into the inter membrane space (IM) and two electrons are passed to cytochrome c.

Reaction mechanism
The reaction mechanism for complex III (cytochrome bc1, coenzyme Q: cytochrome C oxidoreductase) is known as the ubiquinone ("Q") cycle. In this cycle four protons get released into the positive "P" side (inter membrane space), but only two protons get taken up from the negative "N" side (matrix). As a result, a proton gradient is formed across the membrane. In the overall reaction, two ubiquinols are oxidized to ubiquinones and one ubiquinone is reduced to ubiquinol. In the complete mechanism, two electrons are transferred from ubiquinol to ubiquinone, via two cytochrome c intermediates.

Overall:
 * 2 x QH2 oxidised to Q
 * 1 x Q reduced to QH2
 * 2 x Cyt c reduced
 * 4 x H+ released into intermembrane space
 * 2 x H+ picked up from matrix

The reaction proceeds according to the following steps:

Round 1: Round 2:
 * 1) Cytochrome b binds a ubiquinol and a ubiquinone.
 * 2) The 2Fe/2S center and BL heme each pull an electron off the bound ubiquinol, releasing two protons into the intermembrane space.
 * 3) One electron is transferred to cytochrome c1 from the 2Fe/2S centre, whilst another is transferred from the BL heme to the BH Heme.
 * 4) Cytochrome c1 transfers its electron to cytochrome c (not to be confused with cytochrome c1), and the BH Heme transfers its electron to a nearby ubiquinone, resulting in the formation of a ubisemiquinone.
 * 5) Cytochrome c diffuses. The first ubiquinol (now oxidised to ubiquinone) is released, whilst the semiquinone remains bound.
 * 1) A second ubiquinol is bound by cytochrome b.
 * 2) The 2Fe/2S center and BL heme each pull an electron off the bound ubiquinol, releasing two protons into the intermembrane space.
 * 3) One electron is transferred to cytochrome c1 from the 2Fe/2S centre, whilst another is transferred from the BL heme to the BH Heme.
 * 4) Cytochrome c1 then transfers its electron to cytochrome c, whilst the nearby semiquinone produced from round 1 picks up a second electron from the BH heme, along with two protons from the matrix.
 * 5) The second ubiquinol (now oxidised to ubiquinone), along with the newly formed ubiquinol are released.

Inhibitors of complex III
There are three distinct groups of Complex III inhibitors.
 * Antimycin A binds to the Qi site and inhibits the transfer of electrons in Complex III from heme bH to oxidized Q (Qi site inhibitor).
 * Myxothiazol and stigmatellin binds to the Qo site and inhibits the transfer of electrons from reduced QH2 to the Rieske Iron sulfur protein. Myxothiazol and stigmatellin bind to distinct but overlapping pockets within the Qo site.
 * Myxothiazol binds nearer to cytochrome bL (hence termed a "proximal" inhibitor).
 * Stigmatellin binds farther from heme bL and nearer the Rieske Iron sulfur protein, with which it strongly interacts.

Some have been commercialized as fungicides (the strobilurin derivatives, best known of which is azoxystrobin; QoI inhibitors) and as anti-malaria agents (atovaquone).

Also propylhexedrine inhibits cytochrome c reductase.

Oxygen free radicals
A small fraction of electrons leave the electron transport chain before reaching complex IV. Premature electron leakage to oxygen results in the formation of superoxide. The relevance of this otherwise minor side reaction is that superoxide and other reactive oxygen species are highly toxic and are thought to play a role in several pathologies, as well as aging (the free radical theory of aging). Electron leakage occurs mainly at the Qo site and is stimulated by antimycin A. Antimycin A locks the b hemes in the reduced state by preventing their re-oxidation at the Qi site, which, in turn, causes the steady-state concentrations of the Qo semiquinone to rise, the latter species reacting with oxygen to form superoxide. The effect of high membrane potential is thought to have a similar effect. Superoxide produced at the Qo site can be released both into the mitochondrial matrix and into the intermembrane space, where it can then reach the cytosol. This could be explained by the fact that Complex III might produce superoxide as membrane permeable HOO• rather than as membrane impermeable O$−. 2$.

Human gene names

 * MT-CYB: mtDNA encoded cytochrome b; mutations associated with exercise intolerance
 * CYC1: cytochrome c1
 * CYCS: cytochrome c
 * UQCRFS1: Rieske iron sulfur protein
 * UQCRB: Ubiquinone binding protein, mutation linked with mitochondrial complex III deficiency nuclear type 3
 * UQCRH: hinge protein
 * UQCRC2: Core 2, mutations linked to mitochondrial complex III deficiency, nuclear type 5
 * UQCRC1: Core 1
 * UQCR: 6.4KD subunit
 * UQCR10: 7.2KD subunit
 * TTC19: Newly identified subunit, mutations linked to complex III deficiency nuclear type 2. Helps remove the N-terminal fragment of UQCRFS1, which would otherwise interfere with complex III function.

Mutations in complex III genes in human disease
Mutations in complex III-related genes typically manifest as exercise intolerance. Other mutations have been reported to cause septo-optic dysplasia and multisystem disorders. However, mutations in BCS1L, a gene responsible for proper maturation of complex III, can result in Björnstad syndrome and the GRACILE syndrome, which in neonates are lethal conditions that have multisystem and neurologic manifestations typifying severe mitochondrial disorders. The pathogenicity of several mutations has been verified in model systems such as yeast.

The extent to which these various pathologies are due to bioenergetic deficits or overproduction of superoxide is presently unknown.

title: Coenzyme Q – cytochrome c reductase


text:
Hindutva

Hindutva ( lit. 'Hindu-ness') is a political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.

Inspired by European fascism, the Hindutva movement has been described as a variant of right-wing extremism, and as "almost fascist in the classical sense", adhering to a concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony. Some have also described Hindutva as a separatist ideology. Some analysts dispute the identification of Hindutva with fascism, and suggest Hindutva is an extreme form of conservatism or ethno-nationalism.

Savarkar
For Savarkar, in Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, Hindutva is an inclusive term of everything Indic. The three essentials of Hindutva in Savarkar's definition were the common nation (rashtra), common race (jati), and common culture or civilisation (sanskriti). Savarkar used the words "Hindu" and "Sindhu" interchangeably. Those terms were at the foundation of his Hindutva, as geographic, cultural and ethnic concepts, and "religion did not figure in his ensemble", states Sharma. His elaboration of Hindutva included all Indic religions, i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Savarkar restricted "Hindu nationality" to "Indian religions" in the sense that they shared a common culture and fondness for the land of their origin. Savarkar had made clear distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, that they are not same things as Hindutva does not concern religion or rituals but the basis of India's national character.

"A Hindu means a person who regards this land of Bharatvarsha, from the Indus to the seas as his Fater-Land as well as his Holy-Land that is the cradle land of his religion"

In summary, Savarkar's Hinduism is a concept beyond the practice of religion. It encompasses India's cultural, historical, and national identity rooted in Hindu traditions and values. Hindutva is to build a strong Hindu nation, and this is the principle that holds together the customs and culture of this land.

According to Christophe Jaffrelot, a political scientist specialising in South Asia, Savarkar – declaring himself as an atheist – "minimizes the importance of religion in his definition of Hindu", and instead emphasises an ethnic group with a shared culture and cherished geography. To Savarkar, states Jaffrelot, a Hindu is "first and foremost someone who lives in the area beyond the Indus river, between the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean". Savarkar composed his ideology in reaction to the "pan-Islamic mobilization of the Khilafat movement", where Indian Muslims were pledging support to the Istanbul-based Caliph of the Ottoman Empire and to Islamic symbols, his thoughts predominantly reflect deep hostility to Islam and its followers. To Savarkar, states Jaffrelot, "Muslims were the real enemies, not the British", because their Islamic ideology posed "a threat to the real nation, namely Hindu Rashtra" in his vision. All those who reject this historic "common culture" were excluded by Savarkar. He included those who had converted to Christianity or Islam but accepted and cherished the shared Indic culture, considering them as those who can be re-integrated.

According to Chetan Bhatt, a sociologist specialising in Human Rights and Indian nationalism, Savarkar "distances the idea of Hindu and of Hindutva from Hinduism". He describes Hindutva, states Bhatt, as "one of the most comprehensive and bewildering synthetic concepts known to the human tongue" and "Hindutva is not a word but a history; not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full".

Savarkar's notion of Hindutva formed the foundation for his Hindu nationalism. It was a form of ethnic nationalism per the criteria set by Clifford Geertz, Lloyd Fallers and Anthony D. Smith.

Supreme Court of India
The definition and the use of Hindutva and its relationship with Hinduism has been a part of several court cases in India. In 1966, the Chief Justice Gajendragadkar wrote for the Supreme Court of India in Yagnapurushdasji (AIR 1966 SC 1127), that "Hinduism is impossible to define". The court adopted Radhakrishnan's submission that Hinduism is complex and "the theist and atheist, the sceptic and agnostic, may all be Hindus if they accept the Hindu system of culture and life". The Court judged that Hinduism historically has had an "inclusive nature" and it may "broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more".

The 1966 decision has influenced how the term Hindutva has been understood in later cases, in particular the seven decisions of the Supreme Court in the 1990s that are now called the "Hindutva judgments". According to Ram Jethmalani, an Indian lawyer and a former president of its Supreme Court Bar Association, the Supreme Court of India in 1995 ruled that "Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism ... it is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the assumption ... that the use of words Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practising any religion other than the Hindu religion ... It may well be that these words are used in a speech to promote secularism or to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos, or to criticise the policy of any political party as discriminatory or intolerant." According to Jethmalani, the Supreme Court has properly explained the "true meaning" of the term, and "Hindutva is not hostility to any organised religion nor does it proclaim its superiority of any religion to another". According to him, it is unfortunate that "the communal propaganda machinery relentlessly disseminates "Hindutva" as a communal word, something that has also become embedded in the minds and language of opinion leaders, including politicians, media, civil society and the intelligentsia". The Indian lawyer Abdul Noorani disagrees, and states that the Supreme Court in its 1995 ruling gave "Hindutva a benign meaning, calling Hindutva the same as Indianization, etc." and these were unnecessary digressions from the facts of the case, and in doing so, the court may have brought down the wall separating religion and politics".

Ideology
The word Hindutva was already in use by the late 1890s by Chandranath Basu, Basu's usage of the word was to merely portray a traditional Hindu cultural view in contrary to the formation of the political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Savarkar, a right-wing nationalist and Indian freedom activist, wrote a book titled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?" in 1922, in which he outlined his ideology and "the idea of a universal and essential Hindu identity". The term "Hindu identity" is broadly interpreted and distinguished from "ways of life and values of others". The contemporary meaning and usage of Hindutva largely derives from Savarkar's ideas, as does the post-1980s nationalism and mass political activity in India. According to Jaffrelot, Hindutva as outlined in Savarkar's writings "perfectly illustrates" an effort at identity-building through the "stigmatisation and emulation of threatening others". In particular, it was pan-Islamism and similar "Pan-isms" that he assumed made the Hindus vulnerable, as he wrote:

"O Hindus, consolidate and strengthen Hindu nationality; not to give wanton offence to any of our non-Hindu compatriots, in fact to any one in the world but in just and urgent defence of our race and land; to render it impossible for others to betray her or to subject her to unprovoked attack by any of those 'Pan-isms' that are struggling forth from continent to continent."

The Hindutva ideology borrowed from European fascism. Parallels between Hindutva and European fascism are observed in the concepts such as repeated mobilisations, appeals to a mythic past, anti-socialism and other concepts. Since Savarkar's time, the "Hindu identity" and the associated Hindutva ideology has been built upon the perceived vulnerability of Indian religions, culture and heritage from those who through "orientalist construction" have vilified them as inferior to a non-Indian religion, culture and heritage. In its nationalistic response, Hindutva has been conceived "primarily as an ethnic community" concept, states Jaffrelot, then presented as cultural nationalism, where Hinduism along with other Indian religions are but a part.

According to Arvind Sharma, a scholar of Hinduism, Hindutva has not been a "static and monolithic concept", rather its meaning and "context, text and subtext has changed over time". The struggles of the colonial era and the formulation of neo-Hinduism by the early 20th century added a sense of "ethnicity" to the original "Hinduness" meaning of Hindutva. Its early formulation incorporated the racism and nationalism concepts prevalent in Europe during the first half of the 20th century, and culture was in part rationalised as a result of "shared blood and race". Savarkar and his Hindutva colleagues adopted the social Darwinism theories prevalent by the 1930s. In the post-independence period, states Sharma, the concept has suffered from ambiguity and its understanding aligned on "two different axes" – one of religion versus culture, another of nation versus state. In general, the Hindutva thought among many Indians has "tried to align itself with the culture and nation" axes.

According to Prabhu Bapu, a historian and scholar of Oriental Studies, the term and the contextual meaning of Hindutva emerged from the Indian experience in the colonial era, memories of its religious wars as the Mughal Empire decayed, an era of Muslim and Christian proselytisation, a feeling that their traditions and cultures were being insulted, whereby the Hindu intellectuals formulated Hindutva as a "Hindu identity" as a prelude to a national resurgence and a unified Indian nation against the "foreign invaders". The development of "religious nationalism" and the demand by the Muslim leaders on the Indian subcontinent for the partition of British India into Muslim and non-Muslim nations (Pakistan and Bangladesh being Muslim-majority, and India being Hindu-majority) during the middle of the 20th century, confirmed its narrative of geographical and cultural nationalism based on Indian culture and religions. Professor Muqtedar Khan has argued that Hindu nationalism further grew because of the religious divisions between Hindus and Muslims that were fomented by post-1947 Pakistani terrorist attacks in and military conflicts with India.

According to Chetan Bhatt, the various forms of Hindu nationalism including the recent "cultural nationalist" form of Hindutva, have roots in the second half of the 19th century. These are a "dense cluster of ideologies" of primordialism, and they emerged from the colonial experiences of the Indian people in conjunction with ideas borrowed from European thinkers but thereafter debated, adapted and negotiated. These ideas included those of a nation, nationalism, race, Aryanism, Orientalism, Romanticism and others. Decades before he wrote his treatise on Hindutva, Savarkar was already famous in colonial India for his version of 1857 "Mutiny" history. He studied in London between 1906 and 1910. There he discussed and evolved his ideas of "what constituted a Hindu identity", made friends with Indian student groups as well as non-Indian groups such as the Sinn Féin. He was a part of the underground home rule and liberation movement of Indians, before getting arrested for anti-British activities. His political activities and intellectual journeys through the European publications, according to Bhatt, influenced him, his future writings and the 20th-century Hindutva ideology that emerged from his writings.

Adoption
Savarkar's Hindutva ideology reached Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur (Maharashtra) in 1925, and he found Savarkar's Hindutva inspirational. He visited Savarkar in Ratnagiri shortly after and discussed with him methods for organising the 'Hindu nation'. Savarkar and Hedgewar discussions led in September that year to Hedgewar starting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, lit. "National Volunteer Society") with this mission. This organisation rapidly grew to become the largest Hindu nationalist movement. However, the term Hindutva was not used to describe the ideology of the new organisation; it was Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), with one RSS publication stating, "it became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that Hindutva was Rashtriyatva [nationalism]."

Hedgewar's RSS not only propagated Hindutva ideology, it developed a grassroots organizational structure (shakhas) to reform the Hindu society. Village level groups met for morning and evening physical training sessions, martial training and Hindutva ideology lessons. Hedgewar kept RSS an ideologically active but an "apolitical" organisation. This practice of keeping out of national and international politics was retained by his successor M. S. Golwalkar through the 1940s. Philosopher Jason Stanley states "the RSS was explicitly influenced by European fascist movements, its leading politicians regularly praised Hitler and Mussolini in the late 1930s and 1940s." In 1931, B. S. Moonje met with Mussolini and expressed a desire to replicate the fascist youth movement in India. According to Sali Augustine, the core institution of Hindutva has been the RSS. While the RSS states that Hindutva is different from Hinduism, it has been linked to religion. Therefore "cultural nationalism" is a euphemism, states Augustine, and it is meant to mask the creation of a state with a "Hindu religious identity". According to Jaffrelot, the regional heads of the RSS have included Indians who are Hindus as well as those who belong to other Indian religions such as Jainism.

In parallel to the RSS, Savarkar, after his release from the colonial prison, joined and became the president of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha in 1937. There, he used the terms Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra liberally, according to Graham. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who served as its president in 1944 and joined the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet after independence, was a Hindu traditionalist politician who wanted to uphold Hindu values but not necessarily to the exclusion of other communities. He asked for the membership of Hindu Mahasabha to be thrown open to all communities. When this was not accepted, he resigned from the party and founded a new political party in collaboration with the RSS. He understood Hinduism as a nationality rather than a community but, realising that this is not the common understanding of the term Hindu, he chose "Bharatiya" instead of "Hindu" to name the new party, which came to be called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Growth
The cabinet of the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru banned the RSS and arrested more than 200,000 RSS volunteers, after Nathuram Godse, a former volunteer of RSS, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru also appointed government commissions to investigate the assassination and related circumstances. The series of investigations by these commissions, states the political science scholar Nandini Deo, later found the RSS leadership and "the RSS innocent of a role in the assassination". The mass arrested RSS volunteers were released by the Indian courts, and the RSS has ever since used this as evidence of "being falsely accused and condemned".

According to the historian Robert Frykenberg specialising in South Asian Studies, the RSS membership enormously expanded in independent India. In this period, while RSS remained "discretely out of politics", Jan Sangh, another Hindutva-ideology-based organisation, entered the political arena. The Jan Sangh had limited success in the Indian general elections between 1952 and 1971. This was, in part, because of its poor organisation and leadership; its focus on the Hindutva sentiment did not appeal to the voters, and its campaign lacked adequate social and economic themes. This was also, in part, because Congress party leaders such Indira Gandhi had co-opted some of the key Hindutva ideology themes and fused it with socialist policies and her father's Jawaharlal Nehru Soviet-style centrally controlled economic model. The RSS continued its grassroots operations between 1947 and early 1970s, and its volunteers provided humanitarian assistance to Hindu and Sikh refugees from the partition of British India, victims of war and violence, and helped disaster victims to resettle economically.

Between 1975 and 1977, Indira Gandhi declared and enforced Emergency with press censorship, the arrests of opposition leaders, and the suspension of many fundamental human rights of Indian citizens. The abuses of Emergency triggered a mass resistance and the rapid growth of volunteers and political support to the Hindutva ideology. Indira Gandhi and her party were voted out of power in 1977. The Hindutva ideology-based Jan Sangh members such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Brij Lal Varma and Lal Krishna Advani gained national prominence, and the Hindutva ideology sympathiser Morarji Desai became the prime minister of a coalition non-Congress government. This coalition did not last past 1980, and from the consequent break-up of coalition parties was founding of the Bharatiya Janata Party in April 1980. This new national political party relied on the Hindutva ideology-based rural and urban grassroots organisations that had rapidly grown across India from the mid-1970s.

Hindutva under Modi (2014–present)
Since the 2014 Indian general election with the BJP winning, the premiership of Narendra Modi and state based BJP governments have pushed parts of the Hindutva agenda.

Abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir
On 5 August 2019, the Modi administration revoked the special status, or limited autonomy, granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir.

Ayodhya dispute
On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court of India passed resolution on creation of Ram Mandir on the disputed land of Ayodhya. The verdict also stated to provide 5 acre for creation of a mosque on another part of the land. The land was given to the Sunni Waqf Board. On 5 August 2019, Narendra Modi held the Bhoomipujan at the Ayodhya. He became the first prime minister to visit Ram Janmabhoomi and Hanuman Garhi. On 22 January 2024, the Ram Mandir was completed and inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi. In a speech he said, "Ram is the faith of India, Ram is the foundation of India, Ram is the idea of India, Ram is the law of India. Ram is the prestige of India, Ram is the glory of India...Ram is the leader and Ram is the policy."

Forced conversion bans
Many BJP-ruled states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka, have considered laws designed to prevent forced conversions from Hinduism to Islam through marriage. Hindutva advocates call this "love jihad", and it is widely considered to be an Islamophobic conspiracy theory. In September 2020, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked his government to come up with a strategy to prevent "religious conversions in the name of love". On 31 October, he announced that a law to curb "love jihad" would be passed by his government. The law, which also includes provisions against "unlawful religious conversion", declares a marriage null and void if the sole intention was to "change a girl's religion" and both it and the one in Madhya Pradesh imposed sentences of up to 10 years in prison for those who broke the law. The ordinance came into effect on 28 November 2020 as the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance. In December 2020, Madhya Pradesh approved an anti-conversion law similar to the Uttar Pradesh one. , Haryana and Karnataka were still in discussion over similar ordinances. In April 2021, the Gujarat Assembly amended the Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, bringing in stringent provisions against forcible conversion through marriage or allurement, with the intention of targeting "love jihad". The Karnataka state cabinet also approved an anti-conversion bill, making it a law in December 2021.

Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bharatiya Janata Party
The RSS established a number of affiliate organisations after Indian Independence to carry its ideology to various parts of the society. Prominent among them is the Vishva Hindu Parishad, which was set up in 1964 with the objective of protecting and promoting the Hindu religion. It subscribed to Hindutva ideology, which came to mean in its hands political Hinduism and Hindu militancy.

A number of political developments in the 1980s caused a sense of vulnerability among the Hindus in India. This was much discussed and leveraged by the Hindutva ideology organisations. These developments include the mass killing of the Hindus by the militant Khalistan movement, the influx of undocumented Bangladeshi immigration into Assam coupled with the expulsion of Hindus from Bangladesh, the Congress-led government's pro-Muslim bias in the Shah Bano case as well as the Rushdie affair. The VHP and the BJP utilised these developments to push forward a militant Hindutva nationalist agenda leading to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The BJP officially adopted Hindutva as its ideology in its 1989 Palampur resolution.

The BJP claims that Hindutva represents "cultural nationalism" and its conception of "Indian nationhood", but not a religious or theocratic concept. It is "India's identity", according to the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat.

According to the anthropologist and South Asia Politics scholar Thomas Hansen, Hindutva in the post-Independence era has emerged as a political ideology and a populist form of Hindu nationalism. For Indian nationalists, it has subsumed "religious sentiments and public rituals into a larger discourse of national culture (Bharatiya culture) and the Hindu nation, Hindu rashtra", states Hansen. This notion has appealed to the masses in part because it "connects meaningfully with everyday anxieties of security, a sense of disorder" in modern Indian life. The BJP has deployed the Hindutva theme in its election campaign since early 1991, as well as nominated candidates who are affiliated with organisations that support the Hindutva ideology. The campaign language of the Congress Party leader Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s mirrored those of Hindutva proponents. The political speeches and publications by Indian Muslim leaders have declared their "Islamic religious identity" being greater than any "political ideology or national identity". These developments, states Hansen, have helped Hindu nationalists spread essentialist constructions per contemporary Hindutva ideology.

Concepts and issues
Hindutva ideology has focused on the following issues:
 * Political representation of Hindu nationalists, and in some cases exclusivist interests of the Hindus and Indic-centered culture
 * Jammu and Kashmir as an integral, inseparable part of India
 * Address Christian and Islamic proselytisation, religious conversion practices and the arithmetic of religious communities in India; insist that Muslims and Christians accept its doctrine of equality of religions
 * Implement social justice, reservations and rural Indic interests according to the Hindutva model
 * Textbook revision and educating Indian youth in the Hindutva version of Indian history
 * Ayodhya and other sites of historic religious disputes
 * Strengthen the defence forces of India
 * Replace "pseudo-secularism" with "true secularism", the latter being the Western style separation of religion and state
 * Decentralize and reform the Indian economy, end the socialist, centrally-planned, state-owned economic model
 * Represent the diaspora and its Indic cultural interests in the international forums

Uniform Civil Code
The Hindutva leaders have sought a Uniform Civil Code for all the citizens of India, where the same law applies to all its citizens irrespective of the individual's religion. They state that differential laws based on religion violate the Indian Constitution and have sowed the seeds of divisiveness between different religious communities. Under the current laws that were enacted in 1955–56, state John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, the constitutionally directive principle of a Uniform Civil Code covers only non-Muslims. The Uniform Civil Code is opposed by the Muslim leaders. A Uniform Civil Code that applies equally to the Muslims in India is also opposed by political parties such as the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party.

Protection of Hindu interests
The followers of Hindutva are known for their criticism of the Indian government as too passive with regard to the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus by Kashmiri Muslim separatists and the 1998 Wandhama massacre, and advocates of Hindutva wish a harder stance in Jammu and Kashmir. The supporters of Hindutva sought to protect the native Hindu culture and traditions especially those that symbolised the Hindu culture. They believe that Indian culture is identical with the Hindu culture. These include animals, language, holy structures rivers and medicine.

They opposed the continuation of Urdu being used as a vernacular language as they associated it with Muslims. They felt that Urdu symbolised a foreign culture. For them, Hindi alone was the unifying factor for all the diverse forces in the country. They even wanted to make Hindi as the official language of India and felt that it should be promoted at the expense of English and the other regional languages, with some Hindutva followers describing this with the slogan "Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan". However, this caused a state of tension and alarm in the non-Hindi regions. The non-Hindi regions saw it as an attempt by the north to dominate the rest of the country. Eventually, this demand was put down in order to protect the cultural diversity of the country.

Hindutva activists have boycotted several Bollywood movies in recent years, claiming that they use too much Urdu and are anti-Hindu; some activists have called for South Indian cinema to be patronised instead, claiming that it is more culturally rooted. Hindutva opposition to Urdu coincides with a desire to spread a Sanskritised Hindi across India.

Organisations
Hindutva is the guiding ideology of the RSS and its affiliated family of organisations, the Sangh Parivar. In general, Hindutvavadis (followers of Hindutva) believe that they represent the well-being of Dharmic religions: Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Most nationalists are organised into political, cultural and social organisations using the concept of Hindutva as a political tool. The first Hindutva organisation formed was the RSS, founded in 1925. A prominent Indian political party, the BJP, is closely associated with a group of organisations that advocate Hindutva. They collectively refer to themselves as the "Sangh Parivar" or family of associations, and include the RSS, Bajrang Dal and the VHP. Other organisations include:
 * Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the overseas branch of the RSS
 * Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, a workers' union
 * Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a students' union
 * Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, a farmers' organisation

Political parties that are independent from the Sangh Parivar's influence but that also espouse the Hindutva ideology include the Hindu Mahasabha, Prafull Goradia's Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and the Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is a Sikh religious party that maintained ties with Hindutva organisations and political parties, as they also represent Sikhism. By September 2020, SAD left the NDA over the farms bill.

Hindutva violence
Since the mid-2010s, there has been a notable increase in violence motivated by Hindutva ideology, particularly towards Muslims, and includes acts of extremist terroristic violence. This has principally been perpetrated by or has implicated members, or alleged members, of Hindu nationalist organizations such as the RSS or Abhinav Bharat. The violence has also been condoned by the BJP politicians and used as an electoral strategy to garner support from the far-right Hindu population. The veneration of cows as deities and restrictions on meat consumption have also been used by to justify violence against Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and lower-caste Hindus.

Cow vigilantism

There has been a rise in the number of incidents of cow vigilantism since the election of a BJP majority in the Parliament of India in 2014. The frequency and severity of cow vigilante violence has been described as "unprecedented". Human Rights Watch has reported that there has been a surge in such violence since 2015. The surge is attributed to the recent rise in Hindu nationalism in India. Many vigilante groups say they feel "empowered" by the victory of the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 2014 election.

According to a Reuters report, there were 63 attacks in India between 2010 and mid 2017 resulting in 28 deaths, 24 of them Muslim, and 124 injuries. Most attacks occurred after Narendra Modi took office in 2014.

Many BJP states have passed laws against cattle slaughter such as Gujarat. On 6 June 2017, Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed the state police to take action against cow slaughter and cattle smuggling under the National Security Act and the Gangster Act, and in (2021) Assam Assembly passed a bill that prohibits the slaughter or sale of beef within a 5 km radius of any temple. The legislation seeks to ensure that permission for slaughter is not granted to areas that are predominantly inhabited by Hindu, Jain, Sikh and other non-beef eating communities or places that fall within a 5 km radius of a temple, satra and any other institution as may be prescribed by the authorities. Exemptions, however, might be granted for certain religious occasions.

Similarities with fascism and Nazism
The Hindutva ideology of organisations such as RSS have long been compared to fascism or Nazism. An editorial published on 4 February 1948, for example, in the National Herald, the mouthpiece of the Indian National Congress party, stated that "it [RSS] seems to embody Hinduism in a Nazi form" with the recommendation that it must be ended. Similarly, in 1956, another Congress party leader compared Jana Sangh to the Nazis in Germany. After the 1940s and 1950s, a number of scholars have labelled or compared Hindutva to fascism. Marzia Casolari has linked the association and the borrowing of pre-World War II European nationalist ideas by early leaders of Hindutva ideology. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations, the term Hindutva has "fascist undertones". Many scholars have pointed out that early Hindutva ideologues were inspired by fascist movements in early 20th-century Italy and Germany.

The Indian Marxist economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik calls Hindutva "almost fascist in the classical sense". He states that the Hindutva movement is based on "class support, methods and programme". According to Patnaik, Hindutva has the following fascist ingredients: "an attempt to create a unified homogeneous majority under the concept of "the Hindus"; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity".

According to some opinion writers, Hindutva shows ethno-nationalism and hyper-militarism similar to Revisionist Zionism  and Kahanism.

According to Jaffrelot, the early Hindutva proponents such as Golwalkar envisioned it as an extreme form of "ethnic nationalism", but the ideology differed from fascism and Nazism in three respects. First, unlike fascism and Nazism, it did not closely associate Hindutva with its leader. Second, while fascism emphasised the primacy of the state, Hindutva considered the state to be a secondary. Third, while Nazism emphasised primacy of the race, the Hindutva ideology emphasised primacy of the society over race. According to Achin Vanaik, several authors have labelled Hindutva as fascist, but such a label requires "establishing a fascist minimum". Hindu nationalism, states Vanaik, is "a specific Indian manifestation of a generic phenomenon [of nationalism] but not one that belongs to the genus of fascism".

According to Mark Juergensmeyer, a number of writers in India and outside India have variously described Hindutva as "fundamentalist" and "India's flirtation with native fascism", while others disagree. The debate on Hindutva is a matter of perspective. The Indians debate it from the perspective of their own colonial past and their contemporary issues, while the Euro-American view considers it from the global issues, their own experiences with fundamentalism in light of classic liberal and relativist positions, states Juergensmeyer.

Sociologists Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta have described difficulties in identifying Hindutva with fascism or Nazism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, its "distinctively Indian" character, and "the RSS's disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society". They describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism". According to Thomas Hansen, Hindutva represents a "conservative revolution" in postcolonial India, and its proponents have been combining "paternalistic and xenophobic discourses" with "democratic and universalist discourses on rights and entitlements" based on "desires, anxieties and fractured subjectivities" in India.

Upper casteism
When Prime Minister V. P. Singh launched the Mandal Commission to broaden reservations in government and public university jobs to a significant portion of the Shudras who were officially branded the Other Backward Classes (OBC), the mouthpiece of the Hindutva organisation RSS, Organiser magazine, wrote of "an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fallout from an expected Shudra revolution".

According to social scientist and economist Jean Drèze, the Mandal Commission angered the upper castes and threatened to distance the OBCs, but the Babri Masjid's destruction and ensuing events helped to reduce this challenge and reunified Hindus on an anti-Muslim stance. He further claims "The Hindutva project is a lifeboat for the upper castes in so far as it promises to restore the Brahminical social order" and the potential enemies of this ideology is anybody whose acts or might hinder the process of restoring the Brahminic social order. Drèze further claims that although Hindutva is known as a majoritarian movement, it can be best expressed as an oppressive minority movement.

According to Jaffrelot, the Sangh Parivar organisations with their Hindutva ideology have strived to impose the belief structure of the upper caste Hindus. According to Dalit rights activist and political theorist Kancha Ilaiah, "Hindutva Is Nothing But Brahminism" and that only "Dalitisation can effectively counter the danger of Brahminical fascism disguised as Hindutva".

According to sociologist Amritorupa Sen, the privileges of the upper caste and especially Brahmins have become invisible. There has been a cultural norm that Brahmins take care of the lower castes out of a moral responsibility but also out of human kindness. This creates an intrinsically unequal social structure.

Ahistorical premises, separatism
According to Jaffrelot, the Hindutva ideology has roots in an era where the fiction in ancient Indian mythology and Vedic antiquity was presumed to be valid. This fiction was used to "give sustenance to Hindu ethnic consciousness". Its strategy emulated the Muslim identity politics of the Khilafat movement after World War I, and borrowed political concepts from the West – mainly German. Hindutva organizations treat events in Hindu mythology as history. Hindutva organizations have been criticized for their belief in statements or practices that they claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.

Hindutva ideology is also described to be separatist in its form. Siddharth Varadarajan writes that Hindutva separatism seeks to depart from the "philosophical, cultural and civilization mores of the country, including Hinduism itself".

According to Anthony Parel, a historian and political scientist, Savarkar's Hindutva, Who is a Hindu? published in 1923 is a fundamental text of Hindutva ideology. It asserts, states Parel, India of the past to be "the creation of a racially superior people, the Aryans. They came to be known to the outside world as Hindus, the people beyond the Indus River. Their identity was created by their race (jati) and their culture (sanskriti). All Hindus claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers. They created a culture – an ensemble of mythologies, legends, epic stories, philosophy, art and architecture, laws and rites, feasts and festivals. They have a special relationship to India: India is to them both a fatherland and a holy land." The Savarkar's text presents the "Hindu culture as a self-sufficient culture, not needing any input from other cultures", which is "an unhistorical, narcissistic and false account of India's past", states Parel.

The premises of early Hindu nationalist thought, states Chetan Bhatt, reflected the colonial era European scholarship and Orientalism of its times. The idea of "India as the cradle of civilization" (Voltaire, Herder, Kant, Schlegel), or as "humanity's homeland and primal philosophy" (Herder, Schlegel), or the "humanism in Hindu values" (Herder), or of Hinduism offering redemption for contemporary humanity (Schopenhauer), along with the colonial era scholarship of Frederich Muller, Charles Wilkins, William Jones, Alexander Hamilton and others were the natural intellectual matrix for Savarkar and others to borrow and germinate their Hindu nationalist ideas.

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, a Fellow of the British Academy and a scholar of Politics and Philosophy of Religion, states that Hindutva is a form of nationalism that is expounded differently by its opponents and its proponents. The opponents of Hindutva either consider it as a fundamentalist ideology that "aims to regulate the working of civil society with the imperatives of Hindu religious doctrine", or alternatively, as another form of fundamentalism while accepting that Hinduism is a diverse collection of doctrines, is complex and is different from other religions. According to Ram-Prasad, the proponents reject these tags, viewing it to be their right and a desirable value to cherish their religious and cultural traditions. The Hindutva ideology according to Savarkar, states Ram-Prasad, is a "geography, race, and culture" based concept. However, the "geography" is not strictly territorial but is an "ancestral homeland of a people", and the "race" is not biogenetic but described as the historic descendants of the intermarriage of Aryans, native inhabitants and "different peoples" who arrived over time. So, "the ultimate category for Hindutva is culture", and this culture is "not strictly speaking religious, if by religion is meant a commitment to certain doctrines of transcendence", he states. The proponents state that in the Hindutva thought, there is a kernel of coherent and justifiable thesis about the Indian culture and history.

Threats to academic freedom
Hindutva ideology has been linked to threats to academics and students, both in India and the United States. For instance, in 2011, Hindutva activists successfully led a charge to remove an essay about the multiple narratives of Ramayanas from Delhi University's history syllabus. Romila Thapar, one of India's most eminent historians, has faced repeated Hindutva-led attacks. The Hindu right has been responsible for pushback against scholars of South Asia and Hinduism based in North America, including Wendy Doniger and Sheldon Pollock. Under BJP leadership, the Indian state has been accused of monitoring scholars and denying some research access. Audrey Truschke is one such example who remains frequent target of their threats.

In 2021, a group of North American-based scholars of South Asia formed a collective and published the Hindutva Harassment Field Manual to, they argue, answer the Hindutva threat to their academic freedom. They documented further incidents of Hindutva harassment of academics in North America, dating back to the 1990s. The Association for Asian Studies noted that Hindutva, described as a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from Hinduism, resorted to "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists who critically analyze its politics". A number of scholars and participants withdrew from the conference following the threats they received from ultranationalists and Hindutva supporters.

Hindutva pop
Hindutva pop is a subgenre of Indian pop promoting Hindutva ideas. It openly calls for violence against many non-Hindu minorities, especially Muslims. Hindutva pop artists defend their music as neither xenophobic nor Islamophobic, arguing it promotes truth. Popular Hindutva pop artists like Laxmi Dubey and Prem Krishnavanshi mainstream the xenophobic values of the genre.

title: Hindutva


text:
User:TomCerul

I am a Software Engineer living in Albany, New York.

I'm also to blame for http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=216.44.198.225 in 2002.

There is another Tom Cerul who lives in the Roanoke, VA area and who is interested in photography. That's a different guy.

title: User:TomCerul