Shivanand Tiwari of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) said that the Hindutva ideologue, Vinayak Savarkar wrote that calling a cow, a mother is an insult to the human race.
The former Rajya Sabha MP was speaking in context to a statement given by Congress' Digvijaya Singh where the former Madhya Pradesh CM had said that Savarkar has written that it is ok to eat beef.
The discussion about Hindu vs Hindutva has been sparkling since Rahul Gandhi gave the slogan of 'Hindu ho, Hindutvavadi nahi' (I am Hindu, not Hindutvavadi) from a rally in Jaipur. RJD leader, Shivanand Tiwari has jumped into the debate saying that the idea of 'Hindutva' was given by Savarkar in 1923 and it ceased to exist before that.
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"Savarkar has written, ‘How can an animal be a mother or father of a human? How can a cow, that spills its own excreta by its tail be called a mother? It is an insult to the human race.’," Tiwari told ANI.
"He has said it quite clearly. You are believing in some of the things that Savarkar has said, but ignore the other things like this one," he added.
"The first usage of 'Hindutva' word was made by Savarkar. You won't find the word Hindutva before that in any Hindi dictionary. In 1923, he used the word for the first time and said that Hindu and Hindutare two different things," Tiwari said.
Tiwari further goes on to explain the difference between Hindu and Hindutva, according to him. "Our religion, the Sanatan dharma, is such old religion. Even these people (BJP) say that our religion is thousands of years old. So you want to change that age-old religion completely to something said by someone in 1923?"
"Ved, Upanishads, Purans have become incorrect and Savarkar’s idea of Hindutva becomes correct, this is incredible," he said.
"This is an attempt to change the country in a negative direction. This is dangerous for our unity and also for our religion," the RJD leader concluded.