A political tract or an assertion of identity? On Sunday evening, Calcutta could not decide.

The Debate 2026, presented by the Calcutta Debating Circle in association with The Telegraph, had the motion: “Hinduism needs protection from Hindutva”.

On the hallowed lawns of Calcutta Club, after nearly three hours of heated exchanges, a show of hands revealed that the house remained undecided.

Speaking for the motion were Mani Shankar Aiyar, former diplomat and Congress MP; Mahua Moitra, Trinamool Congress MP; Ashutosh, journalist and former AAP leader; and Ruchika Sharma, historian and popular content creator.

Opposing the motion were Sudhanshu Trivedi, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson; Swapan Dasgupta, journalist and former BJP MP; J Sai Deepak, advocate and author; and Agnimitra Paul, BJP MLA.

Two others made repeated appearances, not in form but in spirit: Mahatma Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Aiyar set the tone for the evening. “Hinduism is a great spiritual religion. Hindutva is a political tract,” he said. “Hindutva is not the protector of Hinduism. Hindutva is the perverter of Hinduism. There is no way Gandhi’s Hinduism can be protected or promoted by Savarkar’s Hindutva.”

Dasgupta responded with a food analogy. “The Aiyar Hinduism of Mani in Tamil Nadu is strictly vegetarian. My faith, of a very Shakta kind, is strictly non-vegetarian. Does that make Mani more true to the faith than me? These are wrong assumptions, Hindutva has taught Indians the importance of fighting back, of not taking things lying down,” he said.

Moitra’s counterpunch drew energy from a recent incident in the city itself. “It is actually our Hinduism, Swapan-da, that allows you to eat that chicken patty here and not say anything about it,” she said. “Because if it was your Hindutva, one kilometre away on the Calcutta Maidan, just for eating that chicken patty, your brothers might have beaten you to a pulp.”

Deepak said Hinduism needed protection through Hindutva and from secularism. Bengal, he said, was the cradle of Hindutva, which he said was a response to the colonial invasion. “If someone tries to tell you Hindutva is hyper-masculine that is because Bengali masculinity informs Hindutva,” he said.

Historian Sharma took the audience back thousands of years to argue that “the core of Hinduism is pluralism”. “Hinduism is endangered by Hindutva because the core of Hindutva is exclusionary,” she said. Masculinity was nothing to be proud of, she reminded Deepak and the audience, particularly if it is Bengali, because “Bengal itself, and its brand of Hinduism, is built on a goddess”.

Paul accused so-called secularists of selective outrage. Voices were raised for Palestine and Venezuela, but fell silent when Hindus were killed closer home, she said.

Ashutosh responded by saying he expected Paul to be equally outraged by the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh in 2015. He called it shameful that the state government had recently sought to close the case related to the killing triggered by suspicion that Akhlaq had stored beef.

Trivedi said the BJP had already won Tripura and Assam, and Bengal was next. “We have already received the blessings of Tripura Sundari and Kamakhya. We have started receiving the blessings of Kali in Calcutta. When it is complete, the true power of Hindutva will be shown to the world,” he said.

Economist and author Prasenjit K Basu, and historian and former JNU professor Mridula Mukherjee, spoke briefly as discussants. Basu said that Hindus had faced persecution in neighbouring countries due to the absence of Hindutva, which he said was necessary to protect Hinduism.

Mukherjee said she had expected the opposition — those who spoke against the motion — to be better informed. She and historian Sharma pointed out historical inaccuracies in the arguments of the opposition members. Mukherjee also expressed disappointment and surprise at the omission of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose from a debate held in Calcutta.

Setting the context at the outset, Kunal Sarkar, cardiac surgeon and founder-trustee of the Calcutta Debating Circle, said the motion was a question that was “not to be brushed under the carpet”.

It was not brushed aside. Yet, by the end of the evening, it remained unanswered.