Opinion: Is the end of the Indian democratic-secular polity here?

The President and PM don’t talk to the media and talk about the burning issues faced by the nation. However, RSS boss, Mohan Bhagwat as the ideologue of the ruling Hindutva group, makes statements about the direction of the government. He has become the de-facto ruler of India.

RSS Chief
 
India, sadly, is witnessing the Hindutva juggernaut running amok crushing whatever was democratic, liberal and egalitarian in the Indian polity. The RSS as the charioteer is not ashamed of this vicious campaign, and is instead, taking credit for it. It was not long back that it used to claim the apolitical status. Even when its cadres like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani became rulers of India, it would assure the nation that RSS was a socio-cultural organization and had nothing to do with politics. Organiser, the mouthpiece of the RSS, in its editorial of February 6, 2000, went on to declare that, “the RSS is not a political party. It does not take part in elections nor its office bearers are supposed to become office bearers of any political party. The RSS has no election symbol nor its leadership or members have ever endeavoured to seek political office. It is a social-cultural organization trying to inspire all national activity.” In fact, it was the pledge RSS made to the first home minister of India, Sardar Patel as a condition for withdrawal of ban on it for playing a role in the assassination of Father of the Nation, MK Gandhi.
 
But since Modi became PM of India on March 2014, who described himself as a Hindu nationalist, the situation has deteriorated for the worst. Now, RSS sets the agenda and executes Hindutva politics which keeps democratic-secular India on the ventilator. Even the ventilators, which include an independent judiciary, neutral bureaucracy, Parliament and office of the President of the Republic have faltered in fulfilling their task of safeguarding our polity.
 
The President and PM don’t talk to the media and talk about the burning issues faced by the nation. However, RSS boss, Mohan Bhagwat as the ideologue of the ruling Hindutva group, makes statements about the direction of the government. He has become the de-facto ruler of India. He is allowed to hold conclaves, as the only speaker, outlining the Hindu nationalist polarizing agenda at institutions like Vigyan Bhawan which were meant to deliberate on the strengthening of our democratic polity. The latest pravachan or sermon was delivered at the RSS headquarters on the eve of Vijaydashmi, also the foundation day of RSS in 1925.

Abandoning any façade of respecting Indian constitutional polity and its processes, he demanded that an ordinance should be brought in by the government to build the temple in Ayodhya at the demolished Babri mosque site. It looked as if his chelas or cadres of RSS governing India had solved all critical problems like, violence against Dalits, hunger, poverty, unemployment, violence against women, absence of health and educational facilities and only issues like Ram temple were left to be solved! 

According to RSS, this mosque was built after demolishing the temple at the birthplace of Ram at Ayodhya in 1528-29 by a military commander of Babar (1483-1530). It is to be noted that this mosque was razed to the ground by Hindutva goons despite RSS leaders’ undertaking to the then Parliament, the Supreme Court and the PM (Narasimha Rao) that the mosque would not be touched. According to him, “the construction of the temple is necessary from the self-esteem point of view; it will also pave the way for an atmosphere of goodwill and oneness in the country.”
Interestingly, the issue of destruction of Ram temple was never raised before 1881. RSS raised the issue of Ram temple only after 1949 and never during the British rule since its birth in 1925. Moreover, Tulsidas (1532–1623 during the times of Akbar) who penned Ramcharitmanas, the epic which popularized the story of Ram as a God in northern India. Nowhere in his work in the Avadhi language, mentioned this destruction. Bhagwat’s call for a law for the temple is an open denigration of the Supreme Court of India which is presently hearing the mosque-temple dispute.    
How RSS and its current boss, Bhagwat, are out to undo the constitutional proprieties will be clear from their brazen opposition to the Supreme Court judgment on allowing women of all ages to visit the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Interestingly, the judgment was delivered by the Chief Justice of India who enjoys respect in the Hindutva circles. His argument was that “We [he meant Supreme Court] should have built consensus. The devotees should have been consulted…the premise of the tradition that has been accepted by society and continuously followed for years together was not taken into consideration. The version of heads of religious denominations and faith of crores of devotees was not taken into account.”

Interestingly, RSS always wanted the strict execution of the Judiciary’s judgment whenever practices of minority communities, especially when Muslim and Christian practices are judicially outlawed. According to Bhagwat’s logic, a tradition that has been accepted by society and continuously followed for years together should not be violated. Sati, widow-remarriage, untouchability, child marriages and slavery would never have been banned in history according to his logic. It showed what side the RSS is on.

Unfortunately, the RSS opposition to the entry of women in the Sabarimala temple has not been verbal only. RSS, BJP and its open, hidden and fringe organizations have been involved in organizing aggressive protests against the Supreme Court judgment. These organizations have declared CPM led Kerala government as anti-Hindu and working overtime to turn Kerala into another Ayodhya.

BJP president, Amit Shah, the perennial source of spitting communal venom criticized the verdict as ‘impractical’. Thus, he indirectly declared that ‘Hindus’ would not accept the Sabarimala verdict of the Supreme Court and turned this issue into Communists versus ‘Hindus’. According to NDTV, “BJP President Amit Shah’s speech in Kerala using, typical of his style, the language of a school bully, should be seen as a direct assault on the Supreme Court of India.” This call completely disregarded the fact that the Kerala government was simply trying to implement a judgment of the highest courts of India, delivered by a Bench headed by a known ‘Hindu’ chief justice, Dipak Mishra. The Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan has rightly commented that
 

“It is obvious that both BJP and RSS want political capital out of it, and are instigating devotees. Their only intention is to polarize the society for a few votes…These forces have a long history of adopting such diabolical political games. Their only intention is to polarize society on communal lines. For this, they have gone to the extent of indulging in violence and creating strife. Even the abode of Ayyappa was used as a camp for anti-social elements and criminals. We have maintained restraint, considering the sanctity of the place. Let me make it very clear that the Government of Kerala will not tolerate any such acts henceforth. We will ensure that the Supreme Court verdict is implemented in letter and spirit.”

This exposure comes from a CM who has not wilted under the mass frenzy of Hindutva organizations and vowed to implement the judgment.

The RSS, which talks about the sensibilities and beliefs of the Kerala Hindu devotees of Sabarimala is a genetic believer of gender discrimination. It does not allow women in RSS. It has a separate women’s wing which is known as Mahila sevika samiti (society of women servants.) The male RSS body is known as swayamsevak or a volunteer force. Women RSS cadres are identified as servants, not volunteers.

Where RSS’ love for Keralite Hindus is concerned, we must compare it with the wretched ideas of, MS Golwalkar, the second top boss at RSS, who also remains the most prominent RSS ideologue till date. Golwalkar was invited to address the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history. He said:
 

“In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding, the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.” [M. S. Golwalkar cited in Organizer, January 2, 1961, p. 5.]

The above statement of Golwalkar is highly worrying in many respects. Firstly, it proves that Golwalkar believed that India had a superior race or breed and also an inferior race which needed to be improved through cross-breeding. Secondly, a more worrying aspect was his belief that Brahmans of the North (India) and specially Namboodri Brahamans, belonged to a superior race. Namboodri Brahamanas were sent from North India to Kerala to improve the breed of inferior Hindus there. Interestingly, this was being argued by a person who claimed to uphold the unity of Hindus world over. Thirdly, as a male chauvinist, Golwalkar believed that only a Namboodri Brahman male belonging to a superior race from the North could improve the inferior human race from the South. For him, wombs of Kerala’s Hindu women enjoyed no sanctity and were simply objects to be used for the improvement of a breed through intercourse with Namboodri Brahamanas, who were not related to them in any way. Nobody on this earth can beat RSS in hypocrisy and double-talk.

The unshackled Hindutva zealots are doing in the largest state of the Indian union would know what is happening to the minorities in UP, led by a Hindutva zealot who hates secularism and democracy. The state is witnessing the highest number of violent incidents against Christians in history. According to a press report from ground zero, “Uttar Pradesh, a most populous state in north India, considered to be the most populous country subdivision in the world and led by a sitting high priest of Gorakhpur temple, Chief Minister, Yogi Aditya Nath is witnessing the highest number of violence against Christians. What’s noteworthy is, it is happening in a district headquarters located to the northwest of the district of Varanasi, which is a parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. In September [2018] alone, UP has witnessed 25 incidents, out of which 20 were in Jaunpur. Overall, since January 2018, the state has witnessed 59 out of 190 incidents of violence against Christians in India. In these 190 incidents of violence against Christians in 2018 from January to September, 135 women and 115 children were either physically injured or mentally disturbed.”

Sadly, Nobel Peace Prize winner and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi was the chief guest at an RSS event. He took his wife along and told the RSS gathering that the future belonged to RSS. It is like Malala Yousafzai, who was co-recipient of the Nobel with Satyarthi going as the chief guest to the foundation day programme of Lashkar-e-Taiba led by Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan. Some analyst thought that Satyarthi went to the RSS program, as the RSS/BJP government has ‘files’ on him. It may not be the only reason. He has been a member of the ‘sleeping cell’ of RSS and when Hindutva politics is losing support, all such characters are being asked to come out in the open and help the organization. Earlier, Pranab Mukherjee was asked to come to RSS graduation ceremony (June 7, 2018) for the same reason.

 

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