National conference on Hindutva held at IIT Delhi; academics, minister attend

Sanjoy Roy, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at DU, said, “The purpose was to understand the role of teachers and academicians to preserve and work for our Indian culture, our knowledge system, to bring Hinduism forward.”

A national conference titled ‘The Eternal Relevance of Hindutva’ was held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi on Sunday. The event, organised by the World Association of Hindu Academicians (WAHA), brought together academicians and invited speakers from multiple universities across the country.

Delhi minister Parvesh Sahib Singh was invited as the chief guest, while K K Aggarwal, President of South Asian University (SAU), Delhi, delivered the special address at the event.

The purpose of the conference was laid out by Nachiket Tiwari, faculty member at IIT-Kanpur and a prominent leader of WAHA. Tiwari detailed WAHA’s objectives and the meaning of Hindutva.

Tiwari said, “India, Hindus, Indian culture — there are many misconceptions surrounding all of this. And the main responsibility of removing these misconceptions can only lie with a teacher.”

Tiwari argued that academic networks, rather than media interventions, were central to shaping public discourse. “People think that this problem will be solved by changing the media. But the mind of the media changes only when the mind of the teacher changes, when the mind of the intellectual changes,” he said. “Until teachers and academicians are united, until we network them, this problem will remain… and it will only worsen.”

Explaining the theme of the conference, Tiwari said, “Today’s topic is ‘The Eternal Relevance of Hindutva’. Hindutva means Hindu-ness — manushyatva, human-ness. These days, many political interpretations have made the term meaningless.” He added, “That element which exists in the mind of a Hindu, in the intellect, and which is spread across all Hindus, that element is Hindutva.”

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sanjoy Roy, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Delhi University, who attended the conference, said: “The purpose was to understand the role of teachers and academicians to preserve and work for our Indian culture, our knowledge system, to bring Hinduism forward.”

Roy said that the event drew participants from “Indore, Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Kanpur University” and included many academics.

Arvind Nema, Deputy Director, IIT-Delhi, addresses the audience at the conference and welcomed them on behalf of the organisers. Nema said Tiwari was “guiding WAHA with his excellent work ability and coordinating it very effectively”.

WAHA’s earlier conferences have addressed topics such as ‘Misportrayal of Hindu Dharma and Traditions in the Academia,’ ‘Bharatiya Knowledge System & Its Relevance in the Present,’ and ‘Western Methods of Interpreting Texts and Their Consequences.’

Its first international conference, held in Haridwar in October 2019, involved participation of organisations such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishva Hindu Parishad, ISKCON, Ramakrishna Mission, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, and Art of Living, according to the website.