title: Hindutva

text: According to the "Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations", "Hindutva, translated as 'Hinduness,' refers to the ideology of Hindu nationalists, stressing the common culture of the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. ... Modern politicians have attempted to play down the racial and anti-Muslim aspects of Hindutva, stressing the inclusiveness of the Indian identity; but the term has Fascist undertones." According to "The Dictionary of Human Geography", "Hindutva encapsulates the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism, a 'Hinduness' allegedly shared by all Hindus." According to "A Political and Economic Dictionary of South Asia", "One of the main purposes behind the concept of Hindutva was to construct a collective identity to support the cause of 'Hindu-unity' (Hindu "Sanghatan") and to avoid too narrow a definition of Hinduism, which had the consequence of excluding Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains from the Hindu community. Later, Hindu-nationalist ideologues transformed the concept into a strategy to include non-Hindus, in order to widen their social base, and for political mobilization.


title: Hindutva

text: According to "Encyclopædia Britannica"'s article on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a Hindu and Indian nationalist, ""Hindutva" ("Hinduness") ... sought to define Indian culture as a manifestation of Hindu values; this concept grew to become a major tenet of Hindu nationalist ideology." According to the "Encyclopedia of Hinduism", Hindutva as defined in the classic statement of its ideology, is the "culture of the Hindu race" where Hinduism is but an element and "Hindu dharma is a religion practiced by Hindus as well as Sikhs and Buddhists". The article further states, "proponents of Hindutva have sought to promote the identification of national identity with the religious and broader cultural heritage of Hindus. Measures taken to achieve this end have included attempts to 'reclaim' individuals judged to have taken up 'alien' religions, the pursuit of social, cultural and philanthropic activities designed to strengthen awareness of Hindu belonging, and direct political action through various organisations, including recognized political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)."


title: Hindutva

text: For Savarkar, in "", Hindutva is an inclusive term of everything Indic. The three essentials of "Hindutva" in Savarkar's definition were the common nation ("rashtra"), common race ("jati"), and common culture or civilisation ("sanskriti"). Savarkar used the words "Hindu" and "Sindhu" interchangeably. Those terms were at the foundation of his Hindutva, as geographic, cultural and ethnic concepts, and "religion did not figure in his ensemble", states Sharma. His elaboration of Hindutva included all Indic religions, i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Savarkar restricted "Hindu nationality" to "Indian religions" in the sense that they shared a common culture and fondness for the land of their origin.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Christophe Jaffrelot, a political scientist specialising in South Asia, Savarkar – declaring himself as an atheist – "minimizes the importance of religion in his definition of Hindu", and instead emphasises an ethnic group with a shared culture and cherished geography. To Savarkar, states Jaffrelot, a Hindu is "first and foremost someone who lives in the area beyond the Indus river, between the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean". Savarkar composed his ideology in reaction to the "pan-Islamic mobilization of the Khilafat movement", where Indian Muslims were pledging support to the Istanbul-based Caliph of the Ottoman Empire and to Islamic symbols, his thoughts predominantly reflect deep hostility to Islam and its followers. To Savarkar, states Jaffrelot, "Muslims were the real enemies, not the British", because their Islamic ideology posed "a threat to the real nation, namely Hindu Rashtra" in his vision. All those who reject this historic "common culture" were excluded by Savarkar. He included those who had converted to Christianity or Islam but accepted and cherished the shared Indic culture, considering them as those who can be re-integrated.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Chetan Bhatt, a sociologist specialising in Human Rights and Indian nationalism, Savarkar "distances the idea of Hindu and of Hindutva from Hinduism". He describes Hindutva, states Bhatt, as "one of the most comprehensive and bewildering synthetic concepts known to the human tongue" and "Hindutva is not a word but a history; not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full".


title: Hindutva

text: Savarkar's notion of "Hindutva" formed the foundation for his Hindu nationalism. It was a form of ethnic nationalism per the criteria set by Clifford Geertz, Lloyd Fallers and Anthony D. Smith.


title: Hindutva

text: The definition and the use of "Hindutva" and its relationship with Hinduism has been a part of several court cases in India. In 1966, the Chief Justice Gajendragadkar wrote for the Supreme Court of India in Yagnapurushdasji (AIR 1966 SC 1127), that "Hinduism is impossible to define". The court adopted Radhakrishnan's submission that Hinduism is complex and "the theist and atheist, the sceptic and agnostic, may all be Hindus if they accept the Hindu system of culture and life". The Court judged that Hinduism historically has had an "inclusive nature" and it may "broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more".


title: Hindutva

text: The 1966 decision has influenced how the term Hindutva has been understood in later cases, in particular the seven decisions of the Supreme Court in the 1990s that are now called the "Hindutva judgments". According to Ram Jethmalani, an Indian lawyer and a former president of its Supreme Court Bar Association, the Supreme Court of India in 1995 ruled that "Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism ... it is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the assumption ... that the use of words Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practising any religion other than the Hindu religion ... It may well be that these words are used in a speech to promote secularism or to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos, or to criticise the policy of any political party as discriminatory or intolerant." According to Jethmalani, the Supreme Court has properly explained the "true meaning" of the term, and "Hindutva is not hostility to any organised religion nor does it proclaim its superiority of any religion to another". According to him, it is unfortunate that "the communal propaganda machinery relentlessly disseminates "Hindutva" as a communal word, something that has also become embedded in the minds and language of opinion leaders, including politicians, media, civil society and the intelligentsia". The Indian lawyer Abdul Noorani disagrees, and states that the Supreme Court in its 1995 ruling gave "Hindutva a benign meaning, calling Hindutva the same as Indianization, etc." and these were unnecessary digressions from the facts of the case, and in doing so, the court may have brought down the wall separating religion and politics".


title: Hindutva

text: The word Hindutva was already in use by the late 1890s by Chandranath Basu, and later the national figure Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Basu's usage of the word was to merely portray a traditional Hindu cultural view in contrast to the political ideology, purveyed by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Savarkar, a right-wing nationalist and Indian freedom activist, wrote a book titled <nowiki>"</nowiki>"Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?"" in 1923, in which he outlined his ideology and "the idea of a universal and essential Hindu identity". The term "Hindu identity" is broadly interpreted and distinguished from "ways of life and values of others". The contemporary meaning and usage of Hindutva largely derives from Savarkar's ideas, as does the post-1980s nationalism and mass political activity in India. According to scholar Christophe Jaffrelot, Hindutva as outlined in Savarkar's writings "perfectly illustrates" an effort at identity-building through the "stigmatisation and emulation of threatening others". In particular, it was pan-Islamism and similar "Pan-isms" that he assumed made the Hindus vulnerable, as he wrote:


title: Hindutva

text: Since Savarkar's time, the "Hindu identity" and the associated Hindutva ideology has been built upon the perceived vulnerability of Indian religions, culture and heritage from those who through "orientalist construction" have vilified them as inferior to a non-Indian religion, culture and heritage. In its nationalistic response, Hindutva has been conceived "primarily as an ethnic community" concept, states Jaffrelot, then presented as cultural nationalism, where Hinduism along with other Indian religions are but a part.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Arvind Sharma, a scholar of Hinduism, Hindutva has not been a "static and monolithic concept", rather its meaning and "context, text and subtext has changed over time". The struggles of the colonial era and the formulation of neo-Hinduism by the early 20th century added a sense of "ethnicity" to the original "Hinduness" meaning of Hindutva. Its early formulation incorporated the racism and nationalism concepts prevalent in Europe during the first half of the 20th century, and culture was in part rationalised as a result of "shared blood and race". Savarkar and his Hindutva colleagues adopted the social Darwinism theories prevalent by the 1930s. In the post-independence period, states Sharma, the concept has suffered from ambiguity and its understanding aligned on "two different axes" – one of religion versus culture, another of nation versus state. In general, the Hindutva thought among many Indians has "tried to align itself with the culture and nation" axes.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Prabhu Bapu, a historian and scholar of Oriental Studies, the term and the contextual meaning of Hindutva emerged from the Indian experience in the colonial era, memories of its religious wars as the Mughal Empire decayed, an era of Muslim and Christian proselytisation, a feeling that their traditions and cultures were being insulted, whereby the Hindu intellectuals formulated Hindutva as a "Hindu identity" as a prelude to a national resurgence and a unified Indian nation against the "foreign invaders". The development of "religious nationalism" and the demand by the Muslim leaders on the Indian subcontinent for the partition of British India into Muslim and non-Muslim nations during the first half of the 20th century, confirmed its narrative of geographical and cultural nationalism based on Indian culture and religions.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Chetan Bhatt, the various forms of Hindu nationalism including the recent "cultural nationalist" form of Hindutva, have roots in the second half of the 19th century. These are a "dense cluster of ideologies" of primordialism, and they emerged from the colonial experiences of the Indian people in conjunction with ideas borrowed from European thinkers but thereafter debated, adapted and negotiated. These ideas included those of a nation, nationalism, race, Aryanism, Orientalism, Romanticism and others. Decades before he wrote his treatise on Hindutva, Savarkar was already famous in colonial India for his version of 1857 "Mutiny" history. He studied in London between 1906 and 1910. There he discussed and evolved his ideas of "what constituted a Hindu identity", made friends with Indian student groups as well as non-Indian groups such as the Sinn Féin. He was a part of the underground home rule and liberation movement of Indians, before getting arrested for anti-British activities. His political activities and intellectual journeys through the European publications, according to Bhatt, influenced him, his future writings and the 20th-century Hindutva ideology that emerged from his writings.


title: Hindutva

text: Savarkar's Hindutva ideology reached Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur (Maharashtra) in 1925, and he found Savarkar's "Hindutva" inspirational. He visited Savarkar in Ratnagiri shortly after and discussed with him methods for organising the 'Hindu nation'. Savarkar and Hedgewar discussions led in September that year to Hedgewar starting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, lit. "National Volunteer Society") with this mission. This organisation rapidly grew to become the largest Hindu nationalist movement. However, the term "Hindutva" was not used to describe the ideology of the new organisation; it was "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu nation), with one RSS publication stating, "it became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that "Hindutva" was "Rashtriyatva" [nationalism]."


title: Hindutva

text: Hedgewar's RSS not only propagated Hindutva ideology, it developed a grassroots organizational structure ("shakhas") to reform the Hindu society. Village level groups met for morning and evening physical training sessions, martial training and Hindutva ideology lessons. Hedgewar kept RSS an ideologically active but an "apolitical" organisation. This practice of keeping out of national and international politics was retained by his successor M. S. Golwalkar through the 1940s. Philosopher Jason Stanley states "the RSS was explicitly influenced by European fascist movements, its leading politicians regularly praised Hitler and Mussolini in the late 1930s and 1940s." In 1931, B.S. Moonje met with Mussolini and expressed a desire to replicate the fascist youth movement in India. According to Sali Augustine, the core institution of Hindutva has been the RSS. While the RSS states that Hindutva is different from Hinduism, it has been linked to religion. Therefore "cultural nationalism" is a euphemism, states Augustine, and it is meant to mask the creation of a state with a "Hindu religious identity". According to Jaffrelot, the regional heads of the RSS have included Indians who are Hindus as well as those who belong to other Indian religions such as Jainism.


title: Hindutva

text: In parallel to the RSS, Savarkar after his release from the colonial prison joined and became the president of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha in 1937. There, he used the terms "Hindutva" and "Hindu Rashtra" liberally, according to Graham. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who served as its president in 1944 and joined the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet after independence, was a Hindu traditionalist politician who wanted to uphold Hindu values but not necessarily to the exclusion of other communities. He asked for the membership of Hindu Mahasabha to be thrown open to all communities. When this was not accepted, he resigned from the party and founded a new political party in collaboration with the RSS. He understood Hinduism as a nationality rather than a community but, realising that this is not the common understanding of the term "Hindu", he chose "Bharatiya" instead of "Hindu" to name the new party, which came to be called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.


title: Hindutva

text: The cabinet of the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru banned the Hindutva ideology-based RSS and arrested more than 200,000 RSS volunteers, after Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a former volunteer of RSS, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru also appointed government commissions to investigate the assassination and related circumstances. The series of investigations by these government commissions, states the Political Science scholar Nandini Deo, later found the RSS leadership and "the RSS innocent of a role in the assassination". The mass arrested RSS volunteers were released by the Indian courts, and the RSS has ever since used this as evidence of "being falsely accused and condemned".


title: Hindutva

text: According to the historian Robert Frykenberg specialising in South Asian Studies, the RSS membership enormously expanded in independent India. In this period, while RSS remained "discretely out of politics", Jan Sangh, another Hindutva-ideology-based organisation entered the political arena. The Jan Sangh had limited success in the Indian general elections between 1952 and 1971. This was, in part, because of Jan Sangh's poor organisation and leadership, its focus on the Hindutva sentiment did not appeal to the voters, and its campaign lacked adequate social and economic themes. This was also, in part, because Congress party leaders such Indira Gandhi had co-opted some of the key Hindutva ideology themes and fused it with socialist policies and her father's Jawaharlal Nehru Soviet-style centrally controlled economic model. The Hindutva-inspired RSS continued its grassroots operations between 1947 and early 1970s, and its volunteers provided humanitarian assistance to Hindu and Sikh refugees from the partition of British India, victims of war and violence, and helped disaster victims to resettle economically.


title: Hindutva

text: Between 1975 and 1977, Indira Gandhi declared and enforced Emergency with press censorship, the arrests of opposition leaders, and the suspension of many fundamental human rights of Indian citizens. The abuses of Emergency triggered a mass resistance and the rapid growth of volunteers and political support to the Hindutva ideology. Indira Gandhi and her party were voted out of power in 1977. The Hindutva ideology-based Jan Sangh members such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Brij Lal Varma and Lal Krishna Advani gained national prominence, and the Hindutva ideology sympathiser Morarji Desai became the prime minister of a coalition non-Congress government. This coalition did not last past 1980, and from the consequent break-up of coalition parties was founded the Bharatiya Janata Party in April 1980. This new national political party relied on the Hindutva ideology-based rural and urban grassroots organisations that had rapidly grown across India from the mid-1970s.


title: Hindutva

text: Since the 2014 Indian general election with the (BJP) Bharatiya Janata Party winning, the Premiership of Narendra Modi and state based (BJP) governments have pushed parts of the Hindutva agenda.


title: Hindutva

text: On 5 August 2019, the Modi administration revoked the special status, or , granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir.


title: Hindutva

text: On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court of India passed resolution on creation of Ram Mandir on the disputed land of Ayodhya. The verdict also stated to provide for creation of a mosque on another part of the land. The land was given to the Sunni Waqf Board. On 5 August 2019, Narendra Modi held the Bhoomipujan at the Ayodhya. He became the first prime minister to visit Ram Janmabhoomi and Hanuman Garhi.


title: Hindutva

text: Many BJP-ruled states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka, have considered laws designed to prevent forced conversions from Hinduism to Islam through marriage. Hindutva advocates call this "love jihad", and it is widely considered to be an Islamophobic conspiracy theory. In September 2020, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked his government to come up with a strategy to prevent "religious conversions in the name of love". On 31 October, he announced that a law to curb "love jihad" would be passed by his government. The law in Uttar Pradesh, which also includes provisions against "unlawful religious conversion", declares a marriage null and void if the sole intention was to "change a girl's religion" and both it and the one in Madhya Pradesh imposed sentences of up to 10 years in prison for those who broke the law. The ordinance came into effect on 28 November 2020 as the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance. In December 2020, Madhya Pradesh approved an anti-conversion law similar to the Uttar Pradesh one. As of 25 November 2020, Haryana and Karnataka were still in discussion over similar ordinances. In April 2021, the Gujarat Assembly amended the Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, bringing in stringent provisions against forcible conversion through marriage or allurement, with the intention of targeting "love jihad". The Karnataka state cabinet also approved an anti-conversion bill, making it a law in December 2021.


title: Hindutva

text: There has been a rise in the number of incidents of cow vigilantism since the election of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) majority in the Parliament of India in 2014. The frequency and severity of cow vigilante violence has been described as "unprecedented". Human Rights Watch has reported that there has been a surge in cow vigilante violence since 2015. The surge is attributed to the recent rise in Hindu nationalism in India. Many vigilante groups say they feel "empowered" by the victory of the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 2014 election.


title: Hindutva

text: According to a Reuters report, a total of 63 cow vigilante attacks had occurred in India between 2010 and mid 2017, most after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. In these attacks between 2010 and June 2017, "28 Indians – 24 of them Muslims – were killed and 124 injured", states the Reuter's report.


title: Hindutva

text: Also many BJP states have passed laws against Cattle slaughter such as (2017), Gujarat, 6 June 2017, Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed the state police to take action against cow slaughter and cattle smuggling under the National Security Act and the Gangster Act, and in (2021) Assam Assembly passed a bill that prohibits the slaughter or sale of beef within a 5-km radius of any temple. The legislation seeks to ensure that permission for slaughter is not granted to areas that are predominantly inhabited by Hindu, Jain, Sikh and other non-beef eating communities or places that fall within a 5-km radius of a temple, satra and any other institution as may be prescribed by the authorities. Exemptions, however, might be granted for certain religious occasions.


title: Hindutva

text: The RSS established a number of affiliate organisations after Indian Independence to carry its ideology to various parts of the society. Prominent among them is the Vishva Hindu Parishad, which was set up in 1964 with the objective of protecting and promoting the Hindu religion. It subscribed to "Hindutva" ideology, which came to mean in its hands political Hinduism and Hindu militancy.


title: Hindutva

text: A number of political developments in the 1980s caused a sense of vulnerability among the Hindus in India. This was much discussed and leveraged by the Hindutva ideology organisations. These developments include the mass killing of the Hindus by the militant Khalistan movement, the influx of undocumented Bangladeshi immigration into Assam coupled with the expulsion of Hindus from Bangladesh, the Congress-led government's pro-Muslim bias in the Shah Bano case as well as the Rushdie affair. The VHP and the BJP utilised these developments to push forward a militant Hindutva nationalist agenda leading to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The BJP officially adopted Hindutva as its ideology in its 1989 Palampur resolution.


title: Hindutva

text: The BJP claims that "Hindutva" represents "cultural nationalism" and its conception of "Indian nationhood", but not a religious or theocratic concept. It is "India's identity", according to the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat.


title: Hindutva

text: According to the Anthropologist and South Asia Politics scholar Thomas Hansen, Hindutva in the post-Independence era, has emerged as a political ideology and a populist form of Hindu nationalism. For Indian nationalists, it has subsumed "religious sentiments and public rituals into a larger discourse of national culture (Bharatiya culture) and the Hindu nation, Hindu rashtra", states Hansen. This notion has appealed to the masses in part because it "connects meaningfully with everyday anxieties of security, a sense of disorder" in modern Indian life. The Bharatiya Janata Party has deployed the Hindutva theme in its election campaign since early 1991, as well as nominated candidates who are affiliated with organisations that support the Hindutva ideology. The campaign language of the Congress Party leader Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s mirrored those of Hindutva proponents. The political speeches and publications by Indian Muslim leaders have declared their "Islamic religious identity" being greater than any "political ideology or national identity". These developments, states Hansen, have helped Hindu nationalists spread essentialist constructions per contemporary Hindutva ideology.


title: Hindutva

text: The Hindutva leaders have sought a Uniform Civil Code for all the citizens of India, where the same law applies to all its citizens irrespective of the individual's religion. They state that differential laws based on religion violate the Indian Constitution and these differential laws have sowed the seeds of divisiveness between different religious communities. Under the current laws that were enacted in 1955–56, state John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith, the constitutionally directive principle of a Uniform Civil Code covers only non-Muslims. The Uniform Civil Code is opposed by the Muslim leaders. A Uniform Civil Code that applies equally to the Muslims in India is also opposed by political parties such as the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party.


title: Hindutva

text: The followers of Hindutva are known for their criticism of the Indian government as too passive with regard to the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus by Kashmiri Muslim separatists and the 1998 Wandhama massacre, and advocates of Hindutva wish a harder stance in Jammu and Kashmir.


title: Hindutva

text: The supporters of Hindutva sought to protect the native Hindu culture and traditions especially those that symbolised the Hindu culture. They believe that Indian culture is identical with the Hindu culture. These include animals, language, holy structures rivers and medicine.


title: Hindutva

text: They opposed the continuation of Urdu being used as a vernacular language as they associated it with Muslims. They felt that Urdu symbolised a foreign culture. For them, Hindi alone was the unifying factor for all the diverse forces in the country. It even wanted to make Hindi as the official language of India and felt that it should be promoted at the expense of English and the other regional languages. However, this caused a state of tension and alarm in the non-Hindi regions. The non-Hindi regions saw it as an attempt by the north to dominate the rest of the country. Eventually, this demand was put down in order to protect the cultural diversity of the country.


title: Hindutva

text: Attempts have been made to revive and promote Hindu pseudoscience particularly in the fields of indigenous medicine, especially Ayurveda. This revivalist movement in medicine was predominantly a result to the emergence of Hindu nationalism in the 1890s.


title: Hindutva

text: Hindutva is the guiding ideology of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliated family of organisations, the Sangh Parivar. In general, "Hindutvavadis" (followers of Hindutva) believe that they represent the well-being of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and all other religions prominent in India.


title: Hindutva

text: Most nationalists are organised into political, cultural and social organisations using the concept of Hindutva as a political tool. The first Hindutva organisation formed was the RSS, founded in 1925. A prominent Indian political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is closely associated with a group of organisations that advocate Hindutva. They collectively refer to themselves as the "Sangh Parivar" or family of associations, and include the RSS, Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad. Other organisations include:


title: Hindutva

text: Political parties that are independent from the Sangh Parivar's influence but that also espouse the Hindutva ideology include the Hindu Mahasabha, Prafull Goradia's Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Subramanian Swamy's Janata Party and the Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena. and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is a Sikh religious party that maintained ties with Hindutva organisations and political parties, as they also represent Sikhism. By September 2020, SAD left the NDA over the farms bill.


title: Hindutva

text: <section begin="fascism" />The Hindutva ideology of organisations such as RSS have long been compared to fascism or Nazism. An editorial published on 4 February 1948, for example, in the "National Herald", the mouthpiece of the Indian National Congress party, stated that "it [RSS] seems to embody Hinduism in a Nazi form" with the recommendation that it must be ended. Similarly, in 1956, another Congress party leader compared Hindutva-ideology based Jana Sangh to the Nazis in Germany. After the 1940s and 1950s, a number of scholars have labelled or compared Hindutva to fascism. Marzia Casolari has linked the association and the borrowing of pre-World War II European nationalist ideas by early leaders of Hindutva ideology. According to the "Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations", the term Hindutva has "fascist undertones". Many scholars have pointed out that early Hindutva ideologues were inspired by fascist movements in early 20th-century Italy and Germany.


title: Hindutva

text: The Indian Marxist economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik calls Hindutva "almost fascist in the classical sense". He states that the Hindutva movement is based on "class support, methods and programme". According to Patnaik, Hindutva has the following fascist ingredients: "an attempt to create a unified homogeneous majority under the concept of "the Hindus"; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity".<section end="fascism" />


title: Hindutva

text: According to Jaffrelot, the early Hindutva proponents such as Golwalkar envisioned it as an extreme form of "ethnic nationalism", but the ideology differed from fascism and Nazism in three respects. First, unlike fascism and Nazism, it did not closely associate Hindutva with its leader. Second, while fascism emphasised the primacy of the state, Hindutva considered the state to be a secondary. Third, while Nazism emphasised primacy of the race, the Hindutva ideology emphasised primacy of the society over race. According to Achin Vanaik, several authors have labelled Hindutva as fascist, but such a label requires "establishing a fascist minimum". Hindu nationalism, states Vanaik, is "a specific Indian manifestation of a generic phenomenon [of nationalism] but not one that belongs to the genus of fascism".


title: Hindutva

text: According to Mark Juergensmeyer, a number of writers in India and outside India have variously described Hindutva as "fundamentalist" and "India's flirtation with native fascism", while others disagree. The debate on Hindutva is a matter of perspective. The Indians debate it from the perspective of their own colonial past and their contemporary issues, while the Euro-American view considers it from the global issues, their own experiences with fundamentalism in light of classic liberal and relativist positions, states Juergensmeyer.


title: Hindutva

text: Sociologists Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta have described difficulties in identifying Hindutva with fascism or Nazism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, its "distinctively Indian" character, and "the RSS's disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society". They describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism". According to Thomas Hansen, Hindutva represents a "conservative revolution" in postcolonial India, and its proponents have been combining "paternalistic and xenophobic discourses" with "democratic and universalist discourses on rights and entitlements" based on "desires, anxieties and fractured subjectivities" in India.


title: Hindutva

text: When Prime Minister V. P. Singh launched the Mandal Commission to broaden reservations in government and public university jobs to a significant portion of the Shudras who were officially branded the Other Backward Classes (OBC), the propaganda outlet of the Hindutva organisation RSS, "Organiser" magazine, wrote of "an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fallout from an expected Shudra revolution". According to social scientist and economist Jean Drèze, the Mandal commission angered the upper castes and threatened to distance the OBCs, but the Babri Masjid's destruction and ensuing events helped to reduce this challenge and reunified Hindus on an anti-Muslim stance. He further claims "The Hindutva project is a lifeboat for the upper castes in so far as it promises to restore the Brahminical social order" and the potential enemies of this ideology is anybody whose acts or might hinder the process of restoring the Brahminic social order. Drèze further claims that although Hindutva is known as a majoritarian movement, it can be best expressed as an oppressive minority movement. According to French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, the Sangh Parivar organisations with their Hindutva ideology have strived to impose the belief structure of the upper caste Hindus. According to Dalit rights activist and political theorist Kancha Ilaiah, "Hindutva Is Nothing But Brahminism" and that only "Dalitisation can effectively counter the danger of Brahminical fascism disguised as Hindutva".


title: Hindutva

text: According to Jaffrelot, the Hindutva ideology has roots in an era where the fiction in ancient Indian mythology and Vedic antiquity was presumed to be valid. This fiction was used to "give sustenance to Hindu ethnic consciousness". Its strategy emulated the Muslim identity politics of the Khilafat movement after World War I, and borrowed political concepts from the West – mainly German. Hindutva organizations treat events in Hindu mythology as history. Hindutva organizations have been criticized for their belief in statements or practices that they claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.


title: Hindutva

text: According to Anthony Parel, a historian and political scientist, Savarkar's "Hindutva, Who is a Hindu?" published in 1923 is a fundamental text of Hindutva ideology. It asserts, states Parel, India of the past to be "the creation of a racially superior people, the Aryans. They came to be known to the outside world as Hindus, the people beyond the Indus River. Their identity was created by their race (jati) and their culture (sanskriti). All Hindus claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers. They created a culture – an ensemble of mythologies, legends, epic stories, philosophy, art and architecture, laws and rites, feasts and festivals. They have a special relationship to India: India is to them both a fatherland and a holy land." The Savarkar's text presents the "Hindu culture as a self-sufficient culture, not needing any input from other cultures", which is "an unhistorical, narcissistic and false account of India's past", states Parel.


title: Hindutva

text: The premises of early Hindu nationalist thought, states Chetan Bhatt, reflected the colonial era European scholarship and Orientalism of its times. The idea of "India as the cradle of civilization" (Voltaire, Herder, Kant, Schlegel), or as "humanity's homeland and primal philosophy" (Herder, Schlegel), or the "humanism in Hindu values" (Herder), or of Hinduism offering redemption for contemporary humanity (Schopenhauer), along with the colonial era scholarship of Frederich Muller, Charles Wilkins, William Jones, Alexander Hamilton and others were the natural intellectual matrix for Savarkar and others to borrow and germinate their Hindu nationalist ideas.


title: Hindutva

text: Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, a Fellow of the British Academy and a scholar of Politics and Philosophy of Religion, states that Hindutva is a form of nationalism that is expounded differently by its opponents and its proponents. The opponents of Hindutva either consider it as a fundamentalist ideology that "aims to regulate the working of civil society with the imperatives of Hindu religious doctrine", or alternatively, as another form of fundamentalism while accepting that Hinduism is a diverse collection of doctrines, is complex and is different than other religions. According to Ram-Prasad, the proponents of Hindutva reject these tags, viewing it to be their right and a desirable value to cherish their religious and cultural traditions. The Hindutva ideology according to Savarkar, states Ram-Prasad, is a "geography, race, and culture" based concept. However, the "geography" is not strictly territorial but is an "ancestral homeland of a people", and the "race" is not biogenetic but described as the historic descendants of the intermarriage of Aryans, native inhabitants and "different peoples" who arrived over time. So, "the ultimate category for Hindutva is culture", and this culture is "not strictly speaking religious, if by religion is meant a commitment to certain doctrines of transcendence", he states. The proponents state that in the Hindutva thought, there is a kernel of coherent and justifiable thesis about the Indian culture and history.


title: Hindutva

text: Hindutva ideology has been linked to threats to academics and students, both in India and the United States. For instance, in 2011, Hindutva activists successfully led a charge to remove an essay about the multiple narratives of Ramayanas from Delhi University's history syllabus. Romila Thapar, one of India's most eminent historians, has faced repeated Hindutva-led attacks. The Hindu right has been responsible for pushback against scholars of South Asia and Hinduism based in North America, including Wendy Doniger and Sheldon Pollock. Under BJP leadership, the Indian state has been accused of monitoring scholars and denying some research access. Audrey Truschke is one such example who remains frequent target of their threats.


title: Hindutva

text: In 2021, a group of North American-based scholars of South Asia formed a collective and published the Hindutva Harassment Field Manual to, they argue, answer the Hindutva threat to their academic freedom. They documented further incidents of Hindutva harassment of academics in North America, dating back to the 1990s. The Association for Asian Studies noted that Hindutva, described as a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from Hinduism, resorted to "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists who critically analyze its politics". A number of scholars and participants withdrew from the conference following the threats they received from ultranationalists and Hindutva supporters.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Henri (, ; born 16 April 1955) is the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He has reigned since 7 October 2000. Henri, the eldest son of Grand Duke Jean and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium, is a first cousin of King Philippe of Belgium. In 2019, Henri's net worth was estimated around US$4 billion.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Prince Henri was born on 16 April 1955, at the Betzdorf Castle in Luxembourg as the second child and first son of Hereditary Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg and his wife, Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. His father was the eldest son of Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg by her husband, Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma. His mother was the only daughter of King Leopold III of Belgium by his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. The prince's godparents were the Prince of Liège (his maternal uncle) and Princess Marie Gabriele (his paternal aunt).


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Henri has four siblings: Archduchess Marie Astrid of Austria (born 1954), Prince Jean of Luxembourg (born 1957), Princess Margaretha of Liechtenstein (born 1957) and Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg (born 1963).


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: On 12 November 1964, when Henri was nine, his grandmother's abdication and his father's subsequent accession as grand duke made him heir apparent. As the grand duke's eldest son, he automatically took the title of Hereditary Grand Duke.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Henri was educated in Luxembourg and in France, where he obtained his baccalaureate in 1974, after which he undertook military officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, England on the Standard Military Course (SMC) 7. He then studied political science at University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, graduating in 1980.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Prince Henri became heir apparent to the Luxembourg throne on the abdication of his paternal grandmother, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, on 12 November 1964. From 1980 to 1998, he was a member of the Council of State.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: On 4 March 1998, Prince Henri was appointed as lieutenant representative by his father, Grand Duke Jean, meaning that he assumed most of his father's constitutional powers. On 7 October 2000, immediately following the abdication of his father, Henri acceded as Grand Duke of Luxembourg and took the constitutional oath before the Chamber of Deputies later that day.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: On 2 December 2008, it was announced that Grand Duke Henri had stated he would refuse to give his assent to a new law on euthanasia that had been passed earlier in the year by the Chamber of Deputies. Under the constitution then, the grand duke "sanctions and promulgates the laws" meaning the need for the grand duke's sanction or approval was required in order for laws to take effect. In the absence of clarity on the long-term implications for the constitutional position of the grand duke posed by such a refusal, it was announced by Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker that a constitutional amendment would be brought forward.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: The Luxembourg ruling house had tried to block a decision by Parliament only once before, when Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaïde refused to sign a bill in 1912 to reduce the role of Roman Catholic priests within the education system. The ultimate solution was that the grand duke would be declared unable to perform his duty temporarily. This was similar to the "escape route" provided to his uncle King Baudouin of Belgium when he refused to sign an abortion law in 1991; thus the law could take effect without the signature of the grand duke, but also without the need to enact far-reaching changes in the constitution.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Article 34 of the constitution was subsequently amended to remove the term "assent", leaving the relevant provision to read: "The Grand Duke promulgates the laws..." As a result, his signature is still needed but it is clear that his signature is automatic and that he has no freedom of decision. The head of state no longer has to "sanction" laws for them to take effect, as the officeholder merely promulgates them.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: As the head of a constitutional monarchy, Grand Duke Henri's duties are primarily representative. However, he retains the constitutional power to appoint the prime minister and government, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, to promulgate laws and to accredit ambassadors.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Grand Duke Henri is commander-in-chief of the Luxembourg Army, in which he holds the rank of general. He is also an honorary major in the British RAF Regiment.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: One of the grand duke's main functions is to represent Luxembourg in the field of foreign affairs. In May 2001, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa undertook their first foreign state visit to Spain at the invitation of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Grand Duke Henri is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a member of The Mentor Foundation (established by the World Health Organization) and a director of the Charles Darwin Trust for the Galápagos Islands.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: The grand duke lives with his family at Berg Castle in Luxembourg. He also has a holiday home in Cabasson, a village in the commune of Bormes-les-Mimosas in Southern France.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: While studying in Geneva, Henri met the Cuban-born María Teresa Mestre y Batista, who was also a political science student. They married in Luxembourg in a civil ceremony on 4 February 1981 and a religious ceremony on 14 February 1981 with the previous consent of the grand duke, dated 7 November 1980; and they remain married. The couple has five children: Guillaume, Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Prince Félix of Luxembourg, Prince Louis of Luxembourg, Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg, and Prince Sébastien of Luxembourg.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: Since the accession of Henri to the Grand Ducal Throne in 2000, the court's approach to media and publicity has varied markedly. In 2002, Grand Duke Henri expressly identified himself with a press conference called by Grand Duchess Maria Teresa with a view to discussing with journalists the shortcomings of her personal relations with her mother-in-law Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: In contrast, when the grand ducal couple's first grandchild was born in 2006, the Court Circular pointedly omitted to mention the event, probably as the father Prince Louis was not married at the time. However, the pregnancy was announced in 2005, so the country was informed that the prince and his girlfriend were going to be parents. The press also had access to the child's baptism.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: The grand ducal family's approach to media and publicity issues has given rise to media comment regarding the quality of communications advice which has been sought and followed. As well as the public airing of the difficulties between the grand duchess and her mother-in-law, several other events have resulted in adverse publicity, most notably: in 2004, the opening of parliament by the grand duke in person, the first time in over 100 years the monarch had done so; in 2005, the grand duke announced he intended to vote in favour of the European Constitution in the impending referendum, only to be reminded by senior politicians that he had no such right. The proposed sale of large tracts of the Gruenewald in the summer of 2006 was shortly followed by the proposed sale (cancelled shortly afterwards) at Sotheby's of recently deceased Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte's effects.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: On 31 January 2020, the Waringo report was released, a governmental report on the internal workings of the monarchy that had been compiled by Jeannot Waringo, former Financial Director of Luxembourg. The report identified significant problems in terms of staff management at the Palace resulting in a high turnover rate and an atmosphere of fear. It noted that internal communications were almost nonexistent. Waringo indicated that the most important staff decisions were made by the Grand Duchess. There was no division of staff for personal use and that for official functions. Waringo was also not able to determine if the grand ducal couple's private activities were financed by the State or not. The report calls for a reform of the monarchy.


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: The Court responded that "(i)n the interests of greater transparency and modernization, the Court will contribute constructively to the implementation of the improvements proposed in this report."


title: Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg

text: On 3 February 2011, Henri was admitted to the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg on falling ill. Shortly after, the grand ducal court issued a statement saying that he was to undergo an angioplasty. The day after, the communications chief announced that the procedure had been a success. "The state of His Royal Highness' health is not disturbing," the statement read, before stating the grand duke may leave the hospital within the next few days. Although the reason has not formally been disclosed, it is reported that the grand duke felt ill after waking that day, and the court physician noticed circulation problems. It was then that he was rushed to hospital, to the cardiac unit, and was discharged the following day.


title: David Prowse

text: David Charles Prowse (1 July 1935 – 28 November 2020) was an English actor, bodybuilder and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader (voiced by American actor James Earl Jones) in the original "Star Wars" trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange". In 2015, he starred in two documentaries concerning his Darth Vader role, one entitled "The Force's Mouth" which included Prowse voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time, and the other entitled "I Am Your Father" covering the subject of fallout between Prowse and Lucasfilm.


title: David Prowse

text: Prior to his role as Vader, Prowse had established himself as a super-hero figure in the United Kingdom as the "Green Cross Man" in the Green Cross Code road safety public information aimed at children and young people.


title: David Prowse

text: David Charles Prowse was born on 1 July 1935 in Bristol. He is the son of Gladys ("née" Burt) and Charles Prowse. He was brought up on the Southmead housing estate in Bristol, gaining a scholarship to Bristol Grammar School. Prowse was tall, standing , and developed an interest in bodybuilding. His early jobs included a bouncer at a dance hall, where he met his future wife, and a helper at Henleaze Swimming Pool. Following his successes from 1961 in the British heavyweight weightlifting championship, he left Bristol in 1963 to work for a London weightlifting company.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse won the British heavyweight weightlifting championship in 1962 and the following two years. He represented England in the weightlifting event at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse helped to train Christopher Reeve for the lead role in "Superman" (1978) after lobbying for the part himself. In a television interview, he related how his response to being told "we've found our Superman" was "Thank you very much." Only then was he told that Reeve had been chosen for the role and he was to only be a trainer. He trained Cary Elwes for his role as Westley in "The Princess Bride" (1987).


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse also became fitness consultant to Harrods, ripped up phone books under the stage name 'Jack the Ripper', and opened a series of gyms, including The Dave Prowse Fitness Centre in Southwark, London.


title: David Prowse

text: His first appearance is a brief cameo in a gym as a weightlifter in the 1968 TV show "The Champions": the opening sequence of episode 2 "The Invisible Man".


title: David Prowse

text: In the United Kingdom, Prowse was well known as the Green Cross Man, a superhero invented to promote a road safety campaign for children in 1975. As a result of his association with the campaign, which ran between 1971 and 1990, he received the MBE in 2000.


title: David Prowse

text: He had a role as Frank Alexander's manservant, Julian, in the film "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), in which he was noticed by the future "Star Wars" director George Lucas. He played a circus strongman in "Vampire Circus" (1972), a Minotaur in the "Doctor Who" serial "The Time Monster" (also 1972), and an android named Coppin in "The Tomorrow People" in 1973. He appeared in an episode of "", "The Beta Cloud" (1976), right before he was cast as Darth Vader. Around that time, he appeared as the Black Knight in the Terry Gilliam film "Jabberwocky" (1977) and was supposed to play Minoton in "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977), but the part went to Peter Mayhew instead, who later played Chewbacca in "Star Wars".


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse claimed that he nearly got the role of Jaws in "James Bond" (which ultimately went to Richard Kiel) and was offered the part of Conan the Barbarian before Arnold Schwarzenegger.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse had a small role as Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the 1981 BBC TV adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". He appeared in the first series of "Ace of Wands" on LWT and as a bodyguard in "Callan" (1974), a feature film version of the TV series. He played Charles, the duke's wrestler, in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "As You Like It" in 1978.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse played Frankenstein's monster in three films, "Casino Royale" and the Hammer horrors "The Horror of Frankenstein" and "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell". Prowse made two uncredited appearances on "The Benny Hill Show". On Hill's first show for Thames Television in 1969, he played a briefs-clad muscleman in the "Ye Olde Wishing Well" quickie, and in 1984 "Scuttlevision" he showed off his muscles in a sketch set to the song "Stupid Cupid". The earlier routine was also featured in the 1974 film "The Best of Benny Hill", in which he was credited.


title: David Prowse

text: Among his many non-speaking roles, Prowse played a major role in "Portrait of Brenda", the penultimate episode of "The Saint" broadcast in 1969.


title: David Prowse

text: In May 2010, he played Frank Bryan in "The Kindness of Strangers", an independent British film produced by Queen Bee Films. The film screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse played the physical form of Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Prowse spoke the dialogue during filming, but George Lucas wanted a "darker voice" than Prowse's relatively jovial West Country accent, and had James Earl Jones provide a more sinister, malevolent voice for the character. Prowse stated he was originally told he would be seen and heard at the end of "Return of the Jedi" when Vader's mask was removed. Instead, actor Sebastian Shaw was used. Upon Prowse's death, Lucas stated that:David brought a physicality to Darth Vader that was essential for the character. He made Vader leap off the page and on to the big screen, with an imposing stature and movement performance to match the intensity and undercurrent of Vader’s presence. David was up for anything and contributed to the success of what would become a memorable, tragic figure.In the 2004 documentary "Empire of Dreams", actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the original trilogy films, quipped that they nicknamed Prowse "Darth Farmer" (a jibe regarding his West Country accent). In the lightsaber fight scenes between Vader and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Prowse, who was not a very skilled swordsman and kept breaking the staffs used as the lightsabers, was replaced by the scene's fight choreographer, the stuntman and fencing coach Bob Anderson. Prowse felt sidelined by Anderson during the making of "Return of the Jedi" in particular, and said he was only able to persuade director Richard Marquand that he should be the one to throw the Emperor down the shaft after Marquand had tried and failed for a week to film the scene successfully without him.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse reprised his role of Darth Vader for the video games "" (1996) and "Monopoly Star Wars" (1997).


title: David Prowse

text: From 2002 Prowse was an honorary member and honorary leader of the 501st Legion, a fan group dedicated to "Star Wars" costuming.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse continued to associate himself with his role in the "Star Wars" films and was involved in the convention circuit. Despite this, he was not included in some reunions of the original cast, such as those for the "Empire of Dreams" documentary and the 2005 "Vanity Fair" cover. While being interviewed by Kevin Moore of "The Moore Show Prime Time", he admitted his dislike of the prequel trilogy and said the new films were "out of context" in terms of special effects in comparison to the original trilogy.


title: David Prowse

text: In July 2007, Prowse joined many others from the "Star Wars" films for the first ever "Star Wars" Celebration event held outside the United States. It was run by Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cards Inc. Group, at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London. The occasion was to mark the 30th anniversary of "Star Wars".


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse played a cameo role in the "Star Wars" fan films "Order of the Sith: Vengeance" and its sequel "Downfall" – "Order of the Sith", alongside Jeremy Bulloch and Michael Sheard. These fan films were made in Britain in support of the charity Save the Children.


title: David Prowse

text: In 2008, he was one of the cast members featured on Justin Lee Collins's "Bring Back...Star Wars". In the episode, Prowse commented that he had a dispute with Lucas after he allegedly leaked reports of Darth Vader's death to the press. Prowse had previously suggested that Darth Vader could be Luke Skywalker's father in a speech he gave to University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. However, this was shortly after the release of "Star Wars" and nearly two years before "The Empire Strikes Back" was released, and the script had not even been written at the time. Gary Kurtz, the producer of "The Empire Strikes Back", said in the 2015 documentary "I Am Your Father" that Prowse's apparent plot spoiler was simply "a good guess."


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse stated his contract for "Return of the Jedi" included a share of profits on the film, and although it grossed $475 million on a $32 million budget, Prowse explained in an interview in 2009 that he never received residuals for his performance. Due to "Hollywood accounting", the actual profits are sent as "distribution fees" to the studio, leaving nothing to distribute to others.


title: David Prowse

text: In July 2010, Prowse was banned by Lucas from attending official "Star Wars" fan conventions. Lucas had given Prowse no reason, other than stating that Prowse "burnt too many bridges" between Lucasfilm and himself.


title: David Prowse

text: A 2015 Spanish documentary by filmmaker Marcos Cabotá, entitled "I Am Your Father", detailed Prowse's then life and his blackballing by Lucasfilm, which the documentary suggested was unjustified. The leaks featured in the documentary originated from a technician working on the films.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse became friends with Welsh musician Jayce Lewis when the latter was a teenager, after they met at a science fiction convention. At the convention, Lewis recalled learning that Prowse's son, whom he later met after a performance, was also a drummer. On their shared musical interest, Prowse identified himself as "a music fan for years, going from big band jazz, trad jazz, modern and progressive."


title: David Prowse

text: The two became business partners with Prowse taking on a management and public relations role. He was also featured in the music video for "Shields" on the album "Orderart". On 1 October 2015, Lewis created a mini-documentary entitled "The Force's Mouth", which gave Prowse the opportunity to hear himself voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse was married from 1963 to Norma Scammell and was the father of three children. He was a supporter of Bristol Rugby Club. He lived in Addiscombe, Croydon, in south London from 1963.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse publicly declared his support for the United Kingdom Independence Party in the 2009 European Parliament election: "I've looked right and left and right again and the only party I can safely vote for is UKIP."


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse suffered from arthritis for much of his life. This led to replacements of both hips, and to his ankle being fused, as well as several revisionary surgeries on his hip replacements. His arthritic symptoms first appeared when he was 13. Though they seemingly disappeared after he took up competitive weightlifting, they reappeared in 1990.


title: David Prowse

text: In 2000, Prowse's left arm became paralysed, followed by his right. He was diagnosed with septic arthritis caused by an infection which nearly killed him. The amount of surgery he had was stated to have reduced his height from the of his younger days.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse worked with multiple arthritis organisations in Britain and was vice-president of the Physically Handicapped and Able-bodied Association.


title: David Prowse

text: In March 2009, Prowse revealed that he was suffering from prostate cancer. From early 2009, he underwent radiation therapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South London. In 2009, he was said to be in remission.


title: David Prowse

text: In November 2014, the "Daily Mirror" reported that he had dementia. Prowse denied this, but admitted that he had problems with his memory, which he put down to age.


title: David Prowse

text: In October 2016, Prowse retired from all public appearances and events, out of ill health and the wishes of his family. His final onscreen appearance was filmed with the Welsh musician and his long-time friend Jayce Lewis in a sci-fi music video titled "Shields".


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse died at a hospital in London, England, on 28 November 2020, aged 85, after a short, unspecified illness.


title: David Prowse

text: Prowse was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to charity and road safety at the New Year Honours in 2000.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. The treaty was signed at German-controlled Brest-Litovsk (; since 1945, Brest, now in modern Belarus), after two months of negotiations. The treaty was agreed upon by the Russians to stop further invasion. As a result of the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia's commitments to the Allies and eleven nations became independent in eastern Europe and western Asia. Under the treaty, Russia lost all of Ukraine and most of Belarus, as well as its three Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (so-called Baltic governorates in the Russian Empire), and these three regions became German vassal states under German princelings. Russia also ceded its province of Kars in the South Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire. According to historian Spencer Tucker, "The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator." Congress Poland was not mentioned in the treaty. When Germans later complained that the 1919 Treaty of Versailles against Germany was too harsh on them, the Allied Powers responded that it was more benign than the terms imposed by the Brest-Litovsk treaty.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The treaty was annulled by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when Germany surrendered to the western Allied Powers. However, in the meantime it did provide some relief to the Bolsheviks, already fighting the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) following the Russian Revolutions of 1917, by the renunciation of Russia's claims on Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: By 1917, Germany and Imperial Russia were stuck in a stalemate on the Eastern Front of World War I and the Russian economy had nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort. The large numbers of war casualties and persistent food shortages in the major urban centers brought about civil unrest, known as the February Revolution, that forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The Russian Provisional Government that replaced the Tsar in early 1917 continued the war. Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov sent the Entente Powers a telegram, known as the Milyukov note, affirming to them that the Provisional Government would continue the war with the same war aims that the former Russian Empire had. The pro-war Provisional Government was opposed by the self-proclaimed Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, dominated by leftist parties. Its Order No. 1 called for an overriding mandate to soldier committees rather than army officers. The Soviet started to form its own paramilitary power, the Red Guards, in March 1917.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The continuing war led the German Government to agree to a suggestion that they should favour the opposition Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who were proponents of Russia's withdrawal from the war. Therefore, in April 1917, Germany transported Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and thirty-one supporters in a sealed train from exile in Switzerland to Finland Station, Petrograd. Upon his arrival in Petrograd, Lenin proclaimed his April Theses, which included a call for turning all political power over to workers' and soldiers' soviets (councils) and an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. At around the same time, the United States entered the war, potentially shifting the balance of the war against the Central Powers. Throughout 1917, Bolsheviks called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and an end to the war. Following the disastrous failure of the Kerensky offensive, discipline in the Russian army deteriorated completely. Soldiers would disobey orders, often under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, and set up soldiers' committees to take control of their units after deposing the officers.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The defeat and ongoing hardships of war led to anti-government riots in Petrograd, the "July Days" of 1917. Several months later, on 7 November (25 October old style), Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government in what is known as the October Revolution.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: A top priority of the newly established Soviet government was to end the war. On 8 November 1917 (26 October 1917 O.S) Vladimir Lenin signed the Decree on Peace, which was approved by the Second Congress of the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. The Decree called "upon all the belligerent nations and their governments to start immediate negotiations for peace" and proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from World War I. Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the new Bolshevik government. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and the representatives of the other Central Powers, Leon Trotsky appointed his good friend Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks at the peace conference.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: On 15 December 1917, an armistice between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers was concluded. On 22 December, peace negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Arrangements for the conference were the responsibility of General Max Hoffmann, the chief of staff of the Central Powers' forces on the Eastern Front ("Oberkommando-Ostfront, Ober Ost"). The delegations that had negotiated the armistice were made stronger. Prominent additions on the Central Powers' side were the foreign ministers of Germany, Richard von Kühlmann, and Austria-Hungary, Count Ottokar Czernin, both the Ottoman grand vizier Talaat Pasha and Foreign Minister Nassimy Bey. The Bulgarians were headed by Minister of Justice Popoff, who was later joined by Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The Soviet delegation was led by Adolph Joffe, who had already led their armistice negotiators, but his group was made more cohesive by eliminating most of the representatives of social groups, like peasants and sailors, and the addition of tsarist general Aleksandr Samoilo and the noted Marxist historian Mikhail Pokrovsky. It still included Anastasia Bitsenko, a former assassin, representing the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who were at odds with the Bolsheviks. Again, the negotiators met in the fortress in Brest-Litovsk, and the delegates were housed in temporary wooden structures in its courtyards because the city had been burnt to the ground in 1915 by the retreating Russian army. They were cordially welcomed by the German commander of the Eastern Front, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who sat with Joffe on the head table at the opening banquet with one hundred guests. As they had during the armistice negotiations, both sides continued to eat dinner and supper together amicably intermingled in the officers' mess.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: When the conference convened Kühlmann asked Joffe to present the Russian conditions for peace. He made six points, all variations of the Bolshevik slogan of peace with "no annexations or indemnities". The Central Powers accepted the principles "but only in case all belligerents [including the nations of the Entente] without exception pledge themselves to do the same". They did not intend to annex territories occupied by force. Joffe telegraphed the marvelous news to Petrograd. Thanks to informal chatting in the mess, one of Hoffmann's aides, Colonel Friedrich Brinckmann, realized that the Russians had optimistically misinterpreted the Central Powers' meaning. It fell to Hoffmann to set matters straight at dinner on 27 December: Poland, Lithuania and Courland, already occupied by the Central Powers, were determined to separate from Russia on the principle of self-determination that the Bolsheviks themselves espoused. Joffe "looked as if he had received a blow on the head". Pokrovsky wept as he asked how they could speak of "peace without annexations when Germany was tearing eighteen provinces away from the Russian state". The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians planned to annex slices of Polish territory and to set up a rump Polish state with what remained. The Baltic provinces were to become client states ruled by German princes. Czernin was beside himself that this hitch that was slowing the negotiations; self-determination was anathema to his government and they urgently needed grain from the east because Vienna was on the verge of starvation. He proposed to make a separate peace. Kühlmann warned that if they negotiated separately, Germany would immediately withdraw all its divisions from the Austrian front; Czernin dropped that threat. The food crisis in Vienna was eventually eased by "forced drafts of grain from Hungary, Poland, and Romania and by a last moment contribution from Germany of 450 truck-loads of flour". At Russian request, they agreed to recess the talks for twelve days.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The Soviets' only hopes were that time would make their allies agree to join the negotiations or that the western European proletariat would revolt and so their best strategy was to prolong the negotiations. As Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky wrote, "To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying". Therefore, Trotsky replaced Joffe as the leader.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: On the other side were significant political realignments. On New Year's Day in Berlin, the Kaiser insisted that Hoffmann reveal his views on the future German-Polish border. He advocated taking a small slice of Poland; Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted much more. They were furious with Hoffmann for breaching the chain of command and wanted him to be dismissed and sent to command a division. The Kaiser refused, but Ludendorff no longer spoke with Hoffmann on the telephone since the communication was now through an intermediary.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The German Supreme Commanders were also furious at ruling out of annexations, contending that the peace "must increase Germany's material power". They denigrated Kühlmann and pressed for additional territorial acquisitions. When Hindenburg was asked why they needed the Baltic provinces he replied, "To secure my left flank for when the next war happens." However, the most profound transformation was that a delegation from the Ukrainian Rada, which had declared independence from Russia, had arrived at Brest-Litovsk. They would make peace if they were given the Polish city of Cholm and its surroundings, and they would provide desperately needed grain. Czernin no longer was desperate for a prompt settlement with the Russians.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: When they reconvened, Trotsky declined the invitation to meet Prince Leopold and terminated shared meals and other sociable interactions with the representatives of the Central Powers. Day after day, Trotsky "engaged Kühlmann in debate, rising to subtle discussion of first principles that ranged far beyond the concrete territorial issues that divided them". The Central Powers signed a peace treaty with Ukraine during the night of 8–9 February even though the Russians had retaken Kiev. German and Austro-Hungarian troops entered Ukraine to prop up the Rada. Finally, Hoffmann broke the impasse with the Russians by focusing the discussion on maps of the future boundaries. Trotsky summarised their situation "Germany and Austria-Hungary are cutting off from the domains of the former Russian Empire territories more than 150,000 square kilometers in size". He was granted a nine-day recess for the Russians to decide whether to sign.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: In Petrograd, Trotsky argued passionately against signing and proposed that instead, "they should announce the termination of the war and demobilization without signing any peace." Lenin was for signing rather than having an even more ruinous treaty forced on them after a few more weeks of military humiliation. The "Left Communists", led by Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek, were sure that Germany, Austria, Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria were all on the verge of revolution. They wanted to continue the war with a newly-raised revolutionary force while awaiting for these upheavals. Consequently, Lenin agreed to Trotsky's formula—a position summed up as "no war – no peace"—which was announced when the negotiators reconvened on 10 February 1918. The Soviets thought that their stalling was succeeding until 16 February when Hoffmann notified them that the war would resume in two days, when fifty-three divisions advanced against the near-empty Soviet trenches. On the night of 18 February, the Central Committee supported Lenin's resolution that they sign the treaty by a margin of seven to five. Hoffmann kept advancing until 23 February when he presented new terms that included the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Ukraine and Finland. The Soviets were given 48 hours to open negotiations with the Germans, and another 72 to conclude them. Lenin told the Central Committee that "you must sign this shameful peace in order to save the world revolution". If they did not agree, he would resign. He was supported by six Central Committee members, opposed by three, with Trotsky and three others abstaining. Debate in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was intense, with Left SRs jeering Lenin as a traitor. The measure passed 116 to 85.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: When Sokolnikov arrived at Brest-Litovsk, he declared "we are going to sign immediately the treaty presented to us as an ultimatum but at the same time refuse to enter into any discussion of its terms". The treaty was signed at 17:50 on 3 March 1918.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918. The signatories were Soviet Russia signed by Grigori Sokolnikov on the one side and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Empire on the other.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The treaty marked Russia's final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co-signatories, on severe terms. In all, the treaty took away territory that included a quarter of the population and the industry of the former Russian Empire and nine tenths of its coal mines.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Russia renounced all territorial claims in Finland (whose independence it had already recognized), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, most of Belarus, and Ukraine. The territory of the Kingdom of Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, as the Germans refused to recognize the existence of any Polish representatives, which in turn led to Polish protests. The treaty stated that "Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their populations." Most of the territories were in effect ceded to Germany, which intended to have them become economic and political dependencies, where the local German-speaking minority would be the ruling elite. New monarchies were to be created in Lithuania and the proposed "United Baltic Duchy" (which was planned to comprise Latvia and Estonia). Later in 1918, German aristocrats Wilhelm Karl, Duke of Urach (for Lithuania), and Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (for the planned United Baltic Duchy), were nominally appointed, however in reality never became, rulers of these envisaged new pro-German countries.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: This plan was detailed by German Colonel General Erich Ludendorff, who wrote, "German prestige demands that we should hold a strong protecting hand, not only over German citizens, but over all Germans."


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The occupation of the western part of former Russian Empire ultimately proved a costly blunder for Berlin, as over one million German troops lay sprawled out from Poland nearly to the Caspian Sea, all idle and depriving Germany of badly needed manpower in France. The hopes of using Ukraine's grain and coal proved abortive; in addition, the local population became increasingly hostile to the occupation. Revolts and guerrilla warfare began breaking out all over the occupied territory, many of them inspired by Bolshevik agents. German troops also had to intervene in the Finnish Civil War, and Ludendorff became increasingly concerned that his troops were being affected by propaganda emanating from Moscow, which was one of the reasons he was reluctant to transfer divisions to the Western Front. The attempt at establishing an independent Ukrainian state under German guidance was unsuccessful as well. However, Ludendorff completely ruled out the idea of marching on Moscow and Petrograd to remove the Bolshevik government from power.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Germany transferred hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to the Western Front for the 1918 Spring Offensive, which shocked the Allied Powers but ultimately failed. Some Germans later blamed the occupation for significantly weakening the Spring Offensive.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine became independent, while Bessarabia united with Romania.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Russia lost 34% of its population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways. Russia was also fined 300 million gold marks.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: At the insistence of Talaat Pasha, the treaty declared that the territory Russia took from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), specifically Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi, were to be returned. At the time of the treaty, this territory was under the effective control of Armenian and Georgian forces.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia rejected the treaty and instead declared independence. They formed the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: In the wake of Soviet repudiation of Tsarist bonds, the nationalisation of foreign-owned property and confiscation of foreign assets, and Entente forces landing on Russian territory, the Soviets and Germany signed an additional agreement on 27 August 1918. The Soviets agreed to pay six billion marks in compensation for German losses.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The amount was equal to 300 million rubles. The Soviets additionally agreed to sell Germany 25% of the output of the Baku oil fields.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Three secret clauses provided for German military action against Entente forces on Russian soil, as well as the expulsion of British troops from Baku.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The treaty meant that Russia now was helping Germany win the war by freeing up a million German soldiers for the Western Front and by "relinquishing much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, fuel supplies, and communications with Western Europe". According to historian Spencer Tucker, the Allied Powers felt that"The treaty was the ultimate betrayal of the Allied cause and sowed the seeds for the Cold War. With Brest-Litovsk, the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention [in Russia]."For the Western Allied Powers, the terms that Germany had imposed on Russia were interpreted as a warning of what to expect if the Central Powers won the war. Between Brest-Litovsk and the point when the situation in the Western Front became dire, some officials in the German government and the high command began to favour offering more lenient terms to the Allied Powers in exchange for their recognition of German gains in the east.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The treaty marked a significant contraction of the territory controlled by the Bolsheviks or that they could lay claim to as effective successors of the Russian Empire. While the independence of Poland was already accepted by them in principle, and Lenin had signed a document accepting the Finnish independence, the loss of Ukraine and the Baltics created, from the Bolshevik perspective, dangerous bases of anti-Bolshevik military activity in the subsequent Russian Civil War (1917–1923). However, Bolshevik control of Ukraine and Transcaucasia was at the time fragile or non-existent.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Many Russian nationalists and some revolutionaries were furious at the Bolsheviks' acceptance of the treaty and joined forces to fight them. Non-Russians who inhabited the lands lost by Bolshevik Russia in the treaty saw the changes as an opportunity to set up independent states.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Immediately after the signing of the treaty, Lenin moved the Soviet government from Petrograd to Moscow. Trotsky blamed the peace treaty on the bourgeoisie, the social revolutionaries, Tsarist diplomats, Tsarist bureaucrats, "the Kerenskys, Tseretelis and Chernovs"., the Tsarist regime, and the "petty-bourgeois compromisers".


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The treaty opened a permanent rift between the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries. In July 1918 the Left SRs assassinated German Ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach in the hopes that it would induce Germany to annul the treaty, leading to the Left SR Uprising.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Relations between Russia and the Central Powers did not go smoothly. The Ottoman Empire broke the treaty by invading the newly created First Republic of Armenia in May 1918. Joffe became the Russian ambassador to Germany. His priority was distributing propaganda to trigger the German revolution. On 4 November 1918, "the Soviet courier's packing-case had 'come to pieces in a Berlin railway station; it was filled with insurrectionary documents. Joffe and his staff were ejected from Germany in a sealed train on 5 November 1918. In the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended World War I, one clause abrogated the Brest-Litovsk treaty. Next, the Bolshevik legislature (VTsIK) annulled the treaty on 13 November 1918, and the text of the VTsIK Decision was printed in the newspaper "Pravda" the next day. In the year after the armistice following a timetable set by the victors, the German Army withdrew its occupying forces from the lands gained in Brest-Litovsk. However, relations between Russia and the Allied Powers were also bad due to the Allied Powers' intervention in the Russian Civil War against the Soviet government of Russia and its allies. The fate of the region, and the location of the eventual western border of the Soviet Union, was settled in violent and chaotic struggles over the course of the next three and a half years. The Polish–Soviet War was particularly bitter; it ended with the Treaty of Riga in 1921. Although most of Ukraine and Belarus fell under Bolshevik control and eventually became one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic states re-emerged as independent nations. In the Treaty of Rapallo, concluded in April 1922, Germany accepted the Treaty's nullification, and the two powers agreed to abandon all war-related territorial and financial claims against each other. This state of affairs lasted until 1939, when after signing the secret protocol to the Nazi-Soviet pact, the Soviet Union was able to advance its borders westward by invading Poland in September 1939, by conquering parts of eastern Finland in the 1939-1940 Winter War, and by invading and occupying Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia and northern Bukovina) in 1940. During World War II the Soviet leadership was thus able to overturn the majority of the territorial losses incurred at Brest-Litovsk, except for the larger part of Finland, western Congress Poland, and western Armenia.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: The Russian borders established by the treaty bear an almost exact similarity to the post-1991 borders established after the fall of the Soviet Union.


title: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

text: Emil Orlik, the Viennese Secessionist artist, attended the conference, at the invitation of Richard von Kühlmann. He drew portraits of all the participants, along with a series of smaller caricatures. These were gathered together into a book, "Brest-Litovsk," a copy of which was given to each of the participants.


title: Emirates fleet

text: The Emirates fleet is composed of two wide-bodied aircraft families, the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777. The airline also has the Airbus A350-900, Boeing 777X and Boeing 787-9 aircraft on order.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates was conceived in March 1985 with backing from Dubai's royal family, whose Dubai Air Wing provided two of the airline's first aircraft, used Boeing 727-200/Advs. It also leased a new Boeing 737-300 as well as an Airbus A300B4-200, both from Pakistan International Airlines, Emirates then launched daily nonstop service to London Gatwick on 6 July 1987 with two new Airbus A310s. By 1994 the airline had a fleet of 18 Airbus aircraft. Seven new Boeing 777s worth over US$1 billion were ordered in 1992, which began to arrive in summer 1996.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates' Airbus A300B4-200 fleet was retired from service by the end of 1987. Emirates' Airbus A300-600Rs were retired in 2002 and replaced by Airbus A330-200s. The Boeing 727-200/Advs remained in service with the airline for nine years, and were sold in 1995. The Boeing 737-300 remained in service for two years from 1985 to 1987. The last pax Airbus A310-300 was retired after operating its final flight on 29 July 2007 from Alexandria, Egypt to Dubai, UAE and was sold to Qatar Amiri Flight in 2008. Emirates SkyCargo Airbus A310s were retired in 2009. The planned phaseout of Emirates' older large Airbus widebodies started in February 2011, starting with the retirement of two Airbus A330-200s from its fleet. The last Airbus A340-500 was withdrawn from service on 31 March 2016 after operating a final flight from Kabul to Dubai.


title: Emirates fleet

text: The first Boeing 777-300ER was withdrawn from use on 27 March 2017 after performing its final flight for Emirates as Flight 724 from Addis Ababa.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates started retiring 777-300 from its fleet in 2016, retiring its last 777-300 on 26 September 2019.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 29 and 30 October 2016, Emirates retired three aircraft types from its operating fleet, namely the Airbus A330-200, A340-300 and Boeing 777-200ER. This simplification of aircraft reduced the airline's current fleet to just two aircraft families for passenger service until the addition of the Airbus A350-900 in 2023: the Airbus A380-800 and three models from the Boeing 777 family.


title: Emirates fleet

text: The airline made history at the Paris Air Show in June 2003 when it announced the biggest order ever in civil aviation at that time. The order comprised 71 aircraft list-priced at a combined US$19 billion and included firm purchase orders for 21 Airbus A380-800s and leasing orders for two A380-800s. Emirates also announced operating lease orders for 26 Boeing 777-300ERs. On 16 November 2003, Emirates ordered 41 Airbus aircraft, comprising two A340-500s, 18 A340-600s and 21 A380-800s.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 20 November 2005, Emirates announced firm orders for 42 Boeing 777 aircraft, in a deal worth Dhs 35.7 billion (US$9.7 billion) at list prices. This was the largest-ever order for the Boeing 777 family of aircraft and consisted of 24 Boeing 777-300ERs, 10 Boeing 777-200LR Worldliners and eight Boeing 777F cargo aircraft, with the first aircraft scheduled for delivery in 2007. In addition, Emirates took purchase rights for 20 more 777 aircraft.


title: Emirates fleet

text: During the Farnborough Air Show in July 2006, Emirates signed a Heads of Agreement for ten Boeing 747-8F aircraft, in a deal worth US$3.3 billion. On 31 October 2006, Emirates cancelled an order for 20 Airbus A340-600 aircraft, ending a delay in the delivery of the aircraft pending enhancements.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 7 May 2007, Emirates reaffirmed its order for 43 A380-800s and committed to another four which brought its order to 47. On 18 June 2007, during the Paris Air Show, Emirates ordered eight additional A380-800s, bringing its total ordered to 55.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates, which was deciding between the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350, also stated it would decide on an order worth as much as US$20 billion for mid-sized aircraft by October 2007, and that the design of the Airbus A350 was closing in on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. On 11 November 2007, during the Dubai Airshow, Emirates ordered 70 Airbus A350 XWBs, with the first delivery set for 2014. A firm $16.1bn order for 50 A350-900s and 20 A350-1000s was made with an option for 50 more aircraft, at an additional cost of $11.5bn; the airline planned to use the A350s on its European, African and Asian routes. On the same day Emirates also ordered nine Airbus A380-800s, bringing its total orders for the type to 58 aircraft. The airline also ordered 12 Boeing 777-300ERs. In total the deals were worth an estimated $34.9bn at list prices.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 28 July 2008, Emirates signed a letter of intent for 60 Airbus aircraft: 30 Airbus A350s plus 30 A330-300s. The agreement was signed between Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates and Group and Tom Enders, Airbus president and CEO on the occasion of the airline's first A380-800 delivery in Hamburg, Germany. However, in June 2010 the airline confirmed it had decided not to proceed with the order for 30 A330-300s and 30 A350-1000s announced in July 2008; and was in talks with Boeing for a smaller wide-body aircraft.


title: Emirates fleet

text: The airline converted an order for A380Fs that were due for delivery in 2009 into the passenger version. In place of the A380Fs the airline ordered ten Boeing 747-8 freighters for its SkyCargo subsidiary. Emirates chose the Boeing 747-8 "derivative" freighter over the all-new Airbus A380F for its nose-loading capability, something the rival Airbus freighter would have lacked.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 8 June 2010, at the Berlin Air show, Emirates ordered an additional 32 A380s worth $11.5 billion; this brought the total ordered by the airline to 90. Emirates expected all 90 superjumbos to be delivered by 2017. None of the additional 32 jets were to replace existing A380s; although Emirates received its first A380 in 2008 it did not expect to retire these early airframes before 2020. Later in June 2010, Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, hinted at further orders for A380s.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 19 July 2010, at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK, Emirates ordered 30 Boeing 777-300ERs worth $9.1 billion.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 17 November 2013, Emirates announced at a press conference at the Dubai Airshow that it was placing an order for an additional 50 Airbus A380-800s, bringing the overall order total to 140.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 11 June 2014, Emirates and Airbus announced that Emirates had opted to cancel its orders for 70 A350 XWBs.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 28 July 2008, Emirates received its first Airbus A380-800, and in August 2008 it became the second airline to fly the A380-800, after Singapore Airlines. The airline currently uses its A380-800s for service to over 40 destinations.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates is the largest operator of the A380. Its 100th A380 was delivered in October 2017. Furthermore, the airline had 41 more A380s on order, which would have increased the number of A380s in service to 142. It considered buying an additional 100 to 200 Airbus A380s if the four-engined superjumbo had been revamped with more fuel-efficient engines by 2020.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates' A380s were originally all powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 engines. In a deal worth US$9.2 billion, Rolls Royce announced in April 2015 that it would supply engines for 50 new Airbus A380s (termed A380CEO), with first delivery due in mid-2016. On 29 December 2016, the first Emirates Rolls Royce-powered A380 landed at Dubai airport.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 18 January 2018, Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire additional Airbus A380 aircraft. The commitment was for 20 A380s, with an option for 16 more; deliveries were to start in 2020. The aircraft were valued at US$16 billion.


title: Emirates fleet

text: In February 2019, following a review of its operations, Emirates cancelled most of the A380s it had on order, bringing to 14 the number of Airbus A380s remaining to be delivered to the airline. The first A380 delivered to the airline was one of twelve aircraft delivered on 12-year leases, resulting in the A380 fleet being retired from service from July 2020 onwards, with the last scheduled to be delivered the following year. Given the lack of orders from other airlines, Airbus will cease production of the A380 the same year.


title: Emirates fleet

text: As of September 2019, Emirates initiated its A380 retirement planwhich will see the type remain in service until at least 2035by retiring two aircraft that were due for a major overhaul, and using them as parts donors for the rest of the fleet. As further aircraft are retired, Emirates-owned airframes will continue to be used for parts, while leased airframes will be returned to the lessors.


title: Emirates fleet

text: On 23 February 2020, Emirates retired its first Airbus A380 (registration A6-EDB) after nearly 12 years of service.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates has the world's largest fleet of Boeing 777s, and plans to start phasing out older first generation "classic" 777s (777-200ER, 777-300) in favour of new 777Xs. In October 2014, Emirates retired its first Boeing 777 after 18 years of service, and the same month took delivery of its 100th Boeing 777-300ER. Emirates retired one 777-300ER in 2017, followed by two more as of May 2018. Emirates received its last 777-300ER on 13 December 2018. Deliveries of the 777X will start in 2024, with 115 aircraft on order.


title: Emirates fleet

text: Emirates Chairman and CEO, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said the carrier would decide between the Airbus A350 XWB and Boeing 787 Dreamliner as to which type to order by the end of 2017.


title: Emirates fleet

text: At the start of the November 2017 Dubai Air Show, Emirates announced a commitment for forty Boeing 787-10s worth a total of US$15.1 billion at list prices.


title: Emirates fleet

text: As Boeing had 171 orders for the variant, these would be delivered from 2018 in two- and three-class cabins for 240 to 300 passengers, with conversion rights to the smaller 787-9. However, by early 2019 it was considering cancelling this order because engine performance margins were insufficient for the prevailing hot weather conditions in Dubai, in favour of the A350.


title: Emirates fleet

text: In February 2019, almost five years after cancelling orders for 70 Airbus A350s in favour of ordering more A380s, Emirates decided to order Airbus' newest generation widebody aircraft, namely the Airbus A330neo and Airbus A350-900; and reduce its orders for the Airbus A380. The memorandum of understanding was for 40 A330-900 aircraft and 30 A350-900s, worth US$21.4 billion at list prices. The order for 40 Boeing 787s announced in 2017 had not been formalised by the time of the order for the A330neos and A350s, and although Emirates' 2018-2019 results dropped all mention of the 787, the airline subsequently confirmed that discussions regarding the 787 were ongoing. During the 2019 Dubai Airshow, a firm order for 50 A350-900s was announced replacing the earlier memorandum of understanding. The deal is worth US$16 billion at list prices with deliveries set to start in 2023. Emirates also announced a firm order for 30 Boeing 787-9s for US$8.8 billion at list prices with deliveries expected to start in 2023. With this deal however, Emirates reduced its Boeing 777X order to 126 aircraft from the previous deal of 150 aircraft. Emirates also cancelled its Airbus A330-900 orders placed in February 2019 in favor of the new aircraft order for 30 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.