The Supreme Court has refused social activist Teesta Setalvad’s plea to recheck the “devastating consequences” of its 1995 judgment that has said that Hindutva or Hinduism is a “way of life” and has nothing to do with the “narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry”.

The seven-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, has clarified that the Supreme Court is now examining only what constitutes the corrupt electoral practice under Section 123 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The court said that it will not be going into the larger issue of whether Hindutva meant the Hindu religion.

Justice Verma had concluded in 1995 that “no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms‘Hindu’, ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage”.

Ms. Setalvad NGO activist, theatre activist and author Shamsul Islam and senior journalist Dilip Mandal has appealed to the Bench that the interpretation given in the December 11, 1995 judgment by Justice J.S. Verma had led to “Hindutva becoming a mark of nationalism and citizenship”.

Ms. Setalvad and her two co-applicants had said that the court’s interpretation of Hindutva/Hinduism had led to the “demands of homogenisation and assimilation of minority communities and SC/STs in the Hindutva way of life”.

By Premji