Victory of Bengal - 2

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1. Bengal was first to get colonised (British got lucky in Bengal because we were busy recovering after Panipat). They were first to get exposed to (and imposed upon) western values. When India conquered finally by the British in 1818 Maharashtra (the ruling power of India for almost a century by then) literally entered state of collective depression till rise of Tilak. 

2. This is the time when people like Phule (and Ram Mohan Roy in Bengal, that Dravidian theory pastor in TN, the pastor macauliffe’s in Punjab) ran amock and unchallenged creating all sorts of vicious schemes to divide Hindus along multiple lines. Think of it - from 1818 to late 1880s (arrival of Tilak on national scene) there was no pro-Hindu voice in Maharashtra. 

3. By then the Westphalian nation-state construct based on French values (liberty-equality-fraternity) was forced upon us decisively. The modern nationalism (of nation-state) that French or Germans or British have - Indians never had need for it. And there is nothing in Hindu dharma shastras that prepared Hindus for this. Muslims are theologically prepared for this (since European concept is Abrahamic in origin). 

4. This is where Bengal’s contribution comes in. They began formulating and developing new Hindu response to this “nation-state” nationalism. That was later developed by Savarkar et al in 1920s. But the fundamental research of you want to call it and ground work on idea level happened in Bengal in the time when MH was in depression.

5. Tilak, Lajpat rai, Bipinchandra Pal trio popularised that newly developed idea of nationalism (not fully Hindu then but it was Hindu nationalism for all practical purposes - the stotra of Bhudevi - Vande Mataram that was revealed to Bankim by the gods is purely of Hindu in character).

6. Gandhi et al hijacked this to their perverted secular Indian nationalism but even Indian nationalism remains Hindu nationalism at its core no matter how hard congress tried to abolish it). 

7. That is the biggest contribution of Bengal towards Hindu civilisation. They came up with a workable and scalable solution called “Hindu Nationalism” which was later perfected by Savarkar at al and deployed all over India.

8. I am hoping they will similarly come up with workable and scalable idea of gharwapsi. They can do that because they are non-traditional Hindus (vrātya, if I may use the term - though it has negative connotation in traditional vaidika dharma - I don’t mean it that way).