Publication: DAWN
Title: How India became Hindutva
URL: https://www.dawn.com/news/1960820/how-india-became-hindutva
Publication Date: December 13, 2025
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Op-Ed | Dawn’s Hindutva Story Ignores the Real Two Indias—And the Pakistan Next Door
By: SamyaTattwa – AHAD
Dawn’s “How India became Hindutva” leans on a tired trope: turn Hindu volunteerism—hostels, blood banks, yoga camps—into a global “far-right” conspiracy. It’s a punchy narrative. It’s also upside-down about where rights, law, and minorities actually stand in South Asia.
Start with constitutions, not caricatures. India’s text guarantees freedom of religion to all persons (Article 25) and has repeatedly been policed by an assertive Supreme Court, which in 2019 resolved Ayodhya by awarding the disputed land to a temple and simultaneously ordering five acres for a new mosque—while calling the 1992 demolition unlawful. That is adjudicated pluralism, not mob rule. 
Now look across the border. Pakistan’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion (Article 2), bars non-Muslims from the presidency (Article 41(2)), and—since the Second Amendment (1974)—legally declares Ahmadis non-Muslim, with cascading restrictions on their worship and identity. These are not vibes or “soft power”; they are hard law. 
That legal asymmetry shows up on the street. Pakistan’s blasphemy code (Section 295-C) carries the death penalty; courts continue to issue capital verdicts, and accusations spark predictable mob violence, frequently against religious minorities. Recent wire reports and rights briefings read like a grim loop: death sentences for online posts; gunmen attacking an Ahmadi house of worship; lynchings after rumors. 
By contrast, India’s minorities don’t just exist; they speak. In the Pew mega-survey, fully 95% of Indian Muslims said they are proud to be Indian, with 85% affirming Indian culture—figures that don’t square with the apocalypse Dawn keeps selling. Pride doesn’t erase problems; it does tell you people feel they belong. 
Dawn also sanitizes a century of anti-Hindu erosion inside Pakistan. Post-Partition, Hindus became targets of structural and social pressure: discriminatory laws, routine temple vandalism, and the steady drumbeat of forced conversions of Hindu and Christian girls, especially in Sindh—documented annually by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Even when Pakistan’s courts step in, the pattern persists. Meanwhile, retaliatory frenzies—like the wave of temple attacks after 1992—underscore how fragile non-Muslim worship remains. 
None of this excuses India’s lapses or fringe bigotry. It does demand honest baselines. India’s civil society—including Hindu networks the piece sneers at—is legal, registered, and regulated. Courts routinely discipline the state. The Ayodhya outcome paired Hindu restitution with a court-mandated mosque. That is the exact opposite of a theocratic capture. 
Pakistan’s baseline is different: a state-religion constitution, office-bar by creed, a community (Ahmadis) de-legitimized in law, and capital blasphemy that chills speech and fuels mobs. When Dawn indicts “Hindutva” but declines to read its own statute book aloud, it’s not doing journalism; it’s doing projection. 
The fairest way to test the “Hindu supremacy” thesis is results, not rhetoric:
• Law & institutions: India’s Supreme Court crafted a dual remedy in Ayodhya; Pakistan’s courts, even when well-intentioned, operate under laws that hard-code religious hierarchy. 
• Minority voice: Indian Muslims report overwhelming national pride (Pew); in Pakistan, minorities navigate a system where speech and worship can be criminal. 
• Public order: India prosecutes lynching and riot cases within a single penal code; Pakistan’s blasphemy accusations repeatedly explode into street vigilantism, with predictable targets. 
Yes, scrutinize Hindu organizations. Audit their money. Critique their ideas. But don’t pretend that youth hostels and blood banks are stealth militias while a state with capital blasphemy and creed-barred offices is the region’s pluralist conscience. That’s not sharp analysis; it’s moral fog.
South Asia deserves better arguments. Start with constitutions. Add data. Keep the comparisons honest. Do that, and the cartoon of “India turned Hindutva” fades—and a much clearer picture of two very different state treatments of minorities comes into view.