What do you think?
Rate this book
Do You Know Your Hinduism?: Notes For Modern-Day Hindus
Hinduism is one of the world’s oldest living religions. Its beliefs, practices, iconography, and symbols permeate the lives of millions of Indians. Importantly, Hinduism, both as a religion and a constellation of beliefs, operates across multiple registers—from the deeply intimate arena of personal faith to expansive political claims.
In this thoughtful and illuminating book, Rajmohan Gandhi, one of India’s greatest living historians and public intellectuals, puts Hinduism under the microscope and sees it not as a monolith, but as an evolving civilizational entity. Drawing on history, philosophy, politics, and lived practice, he traces its multiple strands, explores how its ideas have been interpreted and reinterpreted over time, and reflects on the moral and social questions they raise.
Hinduism, Gandhi shows, has never spoken in a single voice. Its strength lies in debate, dissent, and ethical inquiry. At a time when the Hindu tradition is too often reduced to slogans or weaponized for narrow political ends, this book restores our belief in Hinduism’s intellectual richness and its remarkable capacity for self-criticism. Above all, it reinstates an enduring ethical vision, one that carries particular urgency in our present fractured Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the idea that the world is one family.
In this thoughtful and illuminating book, Rajmohan Gandhi, one of India’s greatest living historians and public intellectuals, puts Hinduism under the microscope and sees it not as a monolith, but as an evolving civilizational entity. Drawing on history, philosophy, politics, and lived practice, he traces its multiple strands, explores how its ideas have been interpreted and reinterpreted over time, and reflects on the moral and social questions they raise.
Hinduism, Gandhi shows, has never spoken in a single voice. Its strength lies in debate, dissent, and ethical inquiry. At a time when the Hindu tradition is too often reduced to slogans or weaponized for narrow political ends, this book restores our belief in Hinduism’s intellectual richness and its remarkable capacity for self-criticism. Above all, it reinstates an enduring ethical vision, one that carries particular urgency in our present fractured Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the idea that the world is one family.
167 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 18, 2026
About the author
Rajmohan Gandhi
50 books95 followersRajmohan Gandhi (born 1935)is a biographer and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and a research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Until end-December 2012 he taught political science and history at the University of Illinois and divided his time between India and the United States.
Until end-December 2012 he taught political science and history at the University of Illinois and divided his time between India and the United States.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 23, 2026
First Impression
When you pick up a book titled Do You Know Your Hinduism?
you expect to find yourself. Your roots. Your identity. And for the first half of this book, that is exactly what happens.
Rajmohan Gandhi — historian, scholar, and grandson of the Mahatma — opens with a question so simple yet so profound that it immediately pulls you in:
Why is the word "Hindu" almost never used as an adjective?
We say "Christian charity," "Muslim faith," "Sikh langar" — but when do we say "a Hindu act"?
That single observation sets the tone for what begins as a genuinely beautiful, intellectually rich exploration of Hindu values and identity.
The book is structured around four broad concerns:
1. What is a Hindu Quality?
Gandhi opens by observing that unlike "Christian charity" or "Muslim faith," the word Hindu is rarely used as an adjective — rarely describing an act or a quality.
This becomes the book's central provocation: can Hinduism be defined not just by race or birth, but by values and deeds? He traces Hinduism's core ideas through the nine-point framework from Hinduism Today, and through thinkers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Shardha Ram Phillauri, and the songs Om Jai Jagadish Hare and Ishwar Allah Tere Naam. The ancient concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — the world is one family — emerges as Hinduism's most universal and relevant gift to humanity.
2. Mahatma Gandhi's Hinduism
A full chapter is devoted to Gandhi's personal Hinduism — rational, inclusive, and globally open. Gandhi's faith was not confined by scripture or caste; it was guided by conscience, reason, and morality.
He drew equally from the Gita, Tolstoy, and the Sermon on the Mount. His Hinduism insisted on equal rights for all faiths and rejected any notion of Hindu supremacy. The chapter powerfully illustrates how Gandhi's values — tyag (sacrifice), ahimsa (non-violence), and acceptance — were deeply Hindu yet universally human.
3. Whence the Revenge Drive?
This is the book's most courageous and uncomfortable chapter. Gandhi confronts the rise of Hindu nationalism and the politics of grievance head-on. He challenges the "Mythic Past of Glory" narrative, questions who truly won and lost in India's medieval invasions, and argues that the desire for revenge against today's Muslims for wrongs committed centuries ago is both historically dishonest and morally indefensible. He cites K. M. Munshi's powerful reminder that India's history is not one of defeat but of resilience and absorption. The chapter is a clear-eyed call for Hindus to distinguish between learning from the past and being consumed by it.
4. Hindus on Planet Earth
The final chapter maps the global Hindu diaspora — over 1.2 billion Hindus worldwide, circling the globe like a pradakshina. Gandhi explores whether Hinduism is an ethnic religion or a universal one, the growing anti-immigration backlash in the US, UK, and Australia, and what it means for India's Hindus living abroad. He ends with a quiet but urgent question: what impact are 1.2 billion Hindus having on the world, and are they living by the values their tradition has gifted them?
Final Verdict:
What makes Parts 3 and 4 so difficult to read is not that the author raises hard questions — hard questions are welcome. It is that those questions are asked almost exclusively of Hindus, while the same rigorous interrogation is not applied equally to other communities or historical actors. A truly balanced book would hold all sides to the same standard.
There is also a subtle but persistent undercurrent through the latter half of the book that equates Hindu pride with aggression, and Hindu historical memory with bigotry. Many readers — especially young Hindus who are not driven by hatred but simply by a desire to know and reclaim their history — will feel misrepresented by this framing.
Knowing your history and acting on revenge are two entirely different things. author conflates them too often.
Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti — Truth is one. The wise speak of it in many ways."
— Rig Veda, as quoted in this book.
Perhaps the truest review of this book lies in that one line itself.
When you pick up a book titled Do You Know Your Hinduism?
you expect to find yourself. Your roots. Your identity. And for the first half of this book, that is exactly what happens.
Rajmohan Gandhi — historian, scholar, and grandson of the Mahatma — opens with a question so simple yet so profound that it immediately pulls you in:
Why is the word "Hindu" almost never used as an adjective?
We say "Christian charity," "Muslim faith," "Sikh langar" — but when do we say "a Hindu act"?
That single observation sets the tone for what begins as a genuinely beautiful, intellectually rich exploration of Hindu values and identity.
The book is structured around four broad concerns:
1. What is a Hindu Quality?
Gandhi opens by observing that unlike "Christian charity" or "Muslim faith," the word Hindu is rarely used as an adjective — rarely describing an act or a quality.
This becomes the book's central provocation: can Hinduism be defined not just by race or birth, but by values and deeds? He traces Hinduism's core ideas through the nine-point framework from Hinduism Today, and through thinkers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Shardha Ram Phillauri, and the songs Om Jai Jagadish Hare and Ishwar Allah Tere Naam. The ancient concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — the world is one family — emerges as Hinduism's most universal and relevant gift to humanity.
2. Mahatma Gandhi's Hinduism
A full chapter is devoted to Gandhi's personal Hinduism — rational, inclusive, and globally open. Gandhi's faith was not confined by scripture or caste; it was guided by conscience, reason, and morality.
He drew equally from the Gita, Tolstoy, and the Sermon on the Mount. His Hinduism insisted on equal rights for all faiths and rejected any notion of Hindu supremacy. The chapter powerfully illustrates how Gandhi's values — tyag (sacrifice), ahimsa (non-violence), and acceptance — were deeply Hindu yet universally human.
3. Whence the Revenge Drive?
This is the book's most courageous and uncomfortable chapter. Gandhi confronts the rise of Hindu nationalism and the politics of grievance head-on. He challenges the "Mythic Past of Glory" narrative, questions who truly won and lost in India's medieval invasions, and argues that the desire for revenge against today's Muslims for wrongs committed centuries ago is both historically dishonest and morally indefensible. He cites K. M. Munshi's powerful reminder that India's history is not one of defeat but of resilience and absorption. The chapter is a clear-eyed call for Hindus to distinguish between learning from the past and being consumed by it.
4. Hindus on Planet Earth
The final chapter maps the global Hindu diaspora — over 1.2 billion Hindus worldwide, circling the globe like a pradakshina. Gandhi explores whether Hinduism is an ethnic religion or a universal one, the growing anti-immigration backlash in the US, UK, and Australia, and what it means for India's Hindus living abroad. He ends with a quiet but urgent question: what impact are 1.2 billion Hindus having on the world, and are they living by the values their tradition has gifted them?
Final Verdict:
What makes Parts 3 and 4 so difficult to read is not that the author raises hard questions — hard questions are welcome. It is that those questions are asked almost exclusively of Hindus, while the same rigorous interrogation is not applied equally to other communities or historical actors. A truly balanced book would hold all sides to the same standard.
There is also a subtle but persistent undercurrent through the latter half of the book that equates Hindu pride with aggression, and Hindu historical memory with bigotry. Many readers — especially young Hindus who are not driven by hatred but simply by a desire to know and reclaim their history — will feel misrepresented by this framing.
Knowing your history and acting on revenge are two entirely different things. author conflates them too often.
Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti — Truth is one. The wise speak of it in many ways."
— Rig Veda, as quoted in this book.
Perhaps the truest review of this book lies in that one line itself.
May 2, 2026
Disappointed that a man of some scholarship and reflection turned out a polemic that had nothing new to say
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews