[Allahabad High Court judgement delivered on May 15, 2026]

“A group of dacoits clad only in undergarments allegedly carried out multiple robberies in Mustafabad and Sithauli villages [Uttar Pradesh]…Armed intruders reportedly scaled the wall of farmer Nizakat’s house in the early hours of Wednesday [May 20, 2026] and held his family hostage… When resisted, they assaulted the inmates, critically injuring six people…According to the police, the robbers beat women also for keeping a chicken dish at home, and told them to eat only vegetables.”

[The New Indian Express, May 21, 2026]

With RSS cadres in full control of the Indian State, June 2014 onward, the country has become a laboratory for a major dietary fabrication:  that vegetarianism is Sanatan to Hinduism. It is not that prior to Modi’s coming to power the concept did not exist, a substantial and powerful section of the ruling elite including Gandhi were vociferous believers in it. However, it was not a project for which Indian State worked vehemently.

The neo-zealots of vegetarian Hinduism argue that diet was not just nourishment for the body. It was a matter of spiritual realm which shaped “our thoughts, emotions, and karmic vibrations… The Vedas say, ‘Yad annam, tad manas’ which means ‘As is the food, so is the mind’ …Vegetarian food is considered sattvik-pure, calm, and balanced. It nurtures peace, compassion, and mental clarity. Non-vegetarian food, on the other hand, is tamasic- heavy, aggressive, and rooted in destruction. It dulls our spiritual perception and increases lower (read base) tendencies like anger, fear, and restlessness.”

[https://www.adityavastu.in/post/eating-non-veg-and-its-impact-on-karmikta]

With the beginning of Modi era, it became normal to ban sale and consumption of non-veg eatables for long periods during many religious festivals and many areas permanently declared out of bound for selling/consuming it. The issue of food was weaponized and both seller as well as consumers of non-veg cuisine were declared to be evil elements, a threat to Hinduism and society. Another sinister dimension added was that meat consumers were also attacked for indulging in beef-eating. There are countless incidents in public domain when non-veg consumers were attacked, lynched, their houses bulldozed, even burnt.

The zeal of RSS-BJP rulers in enforcing vegetarian Hinduism is to be seen and believed in dealing with foreign dignitaries. President of Russia Vladimir Putin visiting India in 2025 was chief guest at a lavish dinner thrown by India President on December 6, 2025) where only vegetarian cuisines were served. It was no different when EU delegation was State Guest on January 29, 2026, Seychelles President Patrick Herminie was chief guest at State dinner on February 9, 2026 and Vietnamese PM To Lam on May 6, 2026).

Only vegetarian menu of the banquet hosted by President Murmu for Seychelles President. For other dignitaries too it was only vegetarian menu with different dishes. As per a report in NDTV.

Across India, across educational institutions, businesses, railways and social-religious gatherings non-veg food has been banned. Debarshi Dasgupta (Strait Times, May 18, 2026) lamented the fact that in “Uttar Pradesh, a state also governed by the BJP, curated a list of local cuisines from each of its 75 districts and released it in May. It is a list that includes over 200 dishes, but, again, not a single one of them is meat-based. What makes this ludicrous is that more than half of the state’s population (53.6 per cent), according to a government survey, confirmed eating fish, chicken or other kinds of meat. It is also a state celebrated for its meat-based cuisines, particularly its capital, Lucknow, whose kebabs are legendary.”

Interestingly, the kebab “even found specific praise from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), when it added Lucknow to its ‘Cities of Gastronomy’ list in 2025. But when Minister of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat feted this decision on social media, he disingenuously used a poster of food items that were – no surprise here – entirely vegetarian”.

Pushpesh Pant, a renowned Indian academic and food historian as quoted by Dasgupta stated: “It is also a thinly disguised persecution of Muslims, many of whom are perceived to be butchers and vendors of meat and who supposedly are the beef-eaters.” As per a report in Asia News Network.

Varanasi Iftar-on-Boat Arrests

If we want to understand the gravity of weaponization against non-veg consumers and surrender of the State including judiciary, the case known as Varanasi Iftar-on-Boat Arrests needs to be taken note of. According to a detailed report by Shinjinee Majumdar in The Wire (March 27, 2026), the controversy started with a video of March 15 “in which 14 men — Azad Ali, Aamir Kaiki, Danish Saifi, Mohd. Ahmad, Nehal Afridi, Mahfooz Alam, Mohd. Anas, Mohd. Awwal, Mohd. Tahseem, Mohd. Ahmad alias Raja, Mohd. Noor Ismail, Mohd. Tausif Ahmad, Mohd. Faizan, and Mohd. Sameer — were seen breaking their Ramzan-month fast on a boat, allegedly consuming chicken biryani”.

The video was uploaded by one of the group members and soon went viral.  According to The Wire report: “A complaint filed on March 16 by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM)’s Varanasi president Rajat Jaiswal accused them of hurting religious sentiments by consuming non-vegetarian food on the river and disposing of waste into it. The police subsequently arrested 14 men under multiple charges, including hurting religious sentiments, public nuisance and polluting water. Days later, more serious charges — including extortion — were added, significantly raising the legal stakes.”

Jaiswal’s complaint on which Varanasi police took immediate action stated that eating non-veg while riding a boat at Ganga Mother was a grave sin. Moreover, after eating they washed their hands, dumping the waste, thus hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

The initial charges against the accused included: Section 298 BNS — Defiling a place of worship with intent to insult a religion, Section 299 BNS — Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, Section 196(1)(B) BNS — Promoting enmity between groups on religious grounds, Section 270 BNS — Public nuisance, Section 279 BNS — Fouling water of a public spring or reservoir, Section 223(B) BNS — Disobedience of an order by a public servant and Section 24, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.

Later two more serious charges were added, Section 308(5) BNS — Extortion under threat of death or grievous hurt and Section 67, Information Technology Act — Publishing or transmitting obscene material (linked to the viral video).

With these additions, the potential punishment increased significantly — from a maximum of around six years (under the Water Act) to up to 10 years due to the extortion charge.

According to The Wire report, a Varanasi court had denied bail to the accused on March 23. They had earlier been remanded to 14 days of judicial custody on March 19, until April 1.

However, Allahabad High Court Single Bench of Justice of Rajiv Lochan Shukla granted bail with some conditions to the incarcerated Muslims on May 15. The Judge’s words in the judgement, however, amplified the majoritarian and politicized Hindutva construct of vegetarian Hinduism: “members of the Muslim community having a Roza Iftar party, and during the said Iftar party, while partaking of food, non-vegetarian food is said to have been consumed by the members of the Muslim community, who are then alleged to have thrown the remains into the River Ganges. This fact in the dispassionate opinion of the Court could rightly be said to hurt religious sentiments of the Hindu community.”

[]

The far right propaganda machine of “vegetarian Hinduism” is currently running amok in India belying contents of both scriptures and historical study.

Manusmriti for Meat-eating

According to Hindutva ideologue, VD Savarkar Manusmriti is the go-to scripture after the Vedas for Hindus.

[Savarkar, V.D., ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samagar (collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi) volume IV, Prabhat, Delhi, 2000, p. 416.]

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak sangh, an organisation that is the organizational and ideological fountainhead of the present regime ruling India, made demands that it is the Manusmriti that needs must be declared as the Constitution of India—this at a time when the Indian Constituent Assembly was enacting the Constitution.

[Editorial, RSS English organ, Organiser, ‘The Constitution, November 30, 1949.]

This scripture –Manusmriti–that has been substantively critiqued by Dr BR Ambedkar among many other scholars– glorifies the eating of flesh as we will see in the following.

*That land where the black antelope naturally roams, one must know to be fit for the performance of sacrifices; (the tract) different from that (is) the country of the Mlechas. (II/23)

*[A Brahmin should not eat] food given without due respect, nor (that which contains) meat eaten for no sacred purpose, nor (that given) by a female who has no male (relatives), nor the food of an enemy, nor that (given) by the lord of a town, nor that (given) by outcasts, nor that on which anybody has sneezed. (IV/213);

*‘The consumption of meat (is befitting) for sacrifices,’ that is declared to be a rule made by the gods; but to persist (in using it) on other (occasions) is said to be a proceeding worthy of Rakshasas. (V/31)

*He who eats meat, when he honours the gods and manes, commits no sin, whether he has bought it, or himself has killed (the animal), or has received it as a present from others. (V/32)

*A twice-born man who knows the law, must not eat meat except in conformity with the law; for if he has eaten it unlawfully, he will, unable to save himself, be eaten after death by his (victims). (V/33)

*After death the guilt of one who slays deer for gain is not as (great) as that of him who eats meat for no (sacred) purpose. (V/34)

*But a man who, being duly engaged (to officiate or to dine at a sacred rite), refuses to eat meat, becomes after death an animal during twenty-one existences. (V/35)

*A Brahmana must never eat (the flesh of animals unhallowed by Mantras; but, obedient to the primeval law, he may eat it, consecrated with Vedic texts. (V/36)

*A twice-born man who, knowing the true meaning of the Veda, slays an animal for these purposes, causes both himself and the animal to enter a most blessed state. (V/42)

[This selection of Manu’s Codes is from F. Max Muller, Laws of Manu (Delhi: LP Publications, 1996; first published in 1886). The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.]

Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Meat-Eating

The Arthsastra of Kautilya (Chanakya) is the second go-to book of governance for RSS-BJP rulers and cadres. How dear this treatise is to them can be gauged by the fact that the Modi 3.0 government while organising the Sadhna Saptah (April 2-8, 2026) and Mission Karmayogi declared it to be a basic book  for training Indian administrators along with the Vedas.

Interestingly, the Arthsastra has 67 references decreeing flesh eating. The amazing part is that it has a specific chapter titled ‘Superintendent of Slaughter House’.

[R Shamasastry (trans), Kautilya’s Arthsastra, Mysore Printing and Publishing house,     Mysore, 1915, Pgs 149-53]

According to the rules of the slaughter house, “of beasts of prey that have been captured, the Superintendent shall take one-sixth; of fish and birds (of similar nature), he shall take one-tenth or more than one-tenth; and of deer and other beasts (mrigapasu), one-tenth or more than one-tenth as toll…(Butchers) shall sell fresh and boneless flesh of beasts (mrigapasu deer or wild animal) just killed. If they sell bony flesh, they shall give an equivalent compensation (pratipákam)” [P. 138].

There is no ban on slaughter of cows, however, “cattle such as a calf, a bull, or a milch cow shall not be slaughtered…The flesh of animals which have been killed outside the slaughter-house (parisúnam), headless, legless and boneless flesh, rotten flesh, and the flesh of animals which have suddenly died shall not be sold. Otherwise, a fine of 12 panas shall be imposed [Pgs. 138-39]”.

People are allowed to keep stock of dried flesh, skins, tendons (snáyu)…in such quantities as can be enjoyed for years together without feeling any want. Of such collection, old things shall be replaced by new ones when received. [P. 55]

Referring to different kinds of animals, Arthsastra decrees: “When an animal dies a natural death, they shall surrender the skin with the brand mark, if it is a cow or a buffalo; the skin together with the ear (karnalakshanam) if it is a goat or sheep; the tail with the skin containing the brand mark, if it is an ass or a camel; the skin, if it is a young one; besides the above, (they shall also restore) the fat (vasti), bile, marrow (snáyu), teeth, hoofs, horns, and bones. They (the cowherds) may sell either fresh flesh or dried flesh.” [P. 147]

Kautilya’s cities were not inhabited by vegetarian folks as we find that the chapter ‘Building within the Fort’ allots sites for flesh traders; “To the south, the superintendents of the city, of commerce, of manufactories, and of the army as well as those who trade in cooked rice, liquor, and flesh, besides prostitutes, musicians, and the people of Vaisya caste shall live.” [P. 54]

The chapter titled ‘Superintendent of Store-House’ [p. 101] assigns a duty of collecting taxes/recovery of past arrears to the superintendent from dealers of ‟Clarified butter, oil, serum of flesh, and pith or sap (of plants, etc.)…Dried fish, bulbous roots (kándamúla), fruits and vegetables form the group of edibles (sakavarga)”. [Pgs. 102-103]

The same chapter while dealing with the contents of each meal of an ARYA, low Castes, women and children states: “For dressing twenty palas of flesh, [1000 palas make one tula] half a kutumba of oil, one pala of salt, one pala of sugar (kshára), two dharanas of pungent substances (katuka, spices), and half a prastha of curd (will be necessary). For dressing greater quantities of flesh, the same ingredients can be proportionally increased. For cooking sákas (dried fish and vegetables), the above substances are to be added one and a half times as much. For dressing dried fish, the above ingredients are to be added twice as much.” [P. 105]

Under the head ‘Superintendent of Cows’ the boss has the authority of classifying “cattle as calves, steers, tamable ones, draught oxen, bulls that are to be trained to yoke, bulls kept for crossing cows, cattle that are fit only for the supply of flesh…” [P. 146] According to Chanakya, “When an animal dies a natural death, they shall surrender the skin with the brand mark, if it is a cow or a buffalo; the skin together with the ear (karnalakshanam) if it is a goat or sheep; the tail with the skin containing the brand mark, if it is an ass or a camel; the skin, if it is a young one; besides the above, (they shall also restore) the fat (vasti), bile, marrow (snáyu), teeth, hoofs, horns, and bones. They (the cowherds) may sell either fresh flesh or dried flesh.” [P. 147]

It may be shocking for many animal lovers that the feed for bulls apart from including grass one tulá (100 palas) of oil cakes, 10 ádhakas of bran, 5 palas of salt (mukhalavanam), one kudumba of oil for rubbing over the nose (nasya), 1 prastha of drink (pána) added one tulá of flesh in the daily diet. [P. 148] Daily diet for horse included “50 palas of flesh”. [P. 150]

Likewise, the rations for an elephant (of a specific height) includes “50 palas of flesh” and elephant, watchmen, sweepers, cooks and others shall receive apart from cooked rice, a handful of oil, sugar and salt 10 palas of flesh. [Pgs. 155-158]

The chapter dealing with ‘Remedies against National Calamities’ prescribes a non-vegetarian remedy by stating “Persons acquainted with the rituals of the Atharvaveda, and experts in sacred magic and mysticism shall perform such ceremonials as ward off the danger from demons. On full-moon days the worship of Chaityas may be performed by placing on a verandah offerings such as an umbrella, the picture of an arm, a flag, and some goat’s flesh”. [P. 239]

The Arthashastra makes it clear that tax was collected on flesh. “They (the king’s employees) may demand of cultivators one-fourth of their grain, and one-sixth of forest produce (vanya) and of such commodities as cotton, wax, fabrics, barks of trees, hemp, wool, silk, medicines, sandal, flowers, fruits, vegetables, firewood, bamboos, flesh, and dried flesh.” [P. 274]

The animal flesh/serum was used as medicines/remedies also. “When the body of a man is smeared over with the serum of the flesh of a frog, it burns with fire (with no hurt)…When the body of a man is smeared over with the above serum as well as with the oil extracted from the fruits of kusa (ficus religiosa), and ámra (mango tree), and when the powder prepared from an ocean frog (samdura mandúki), phenaka (sea-foam), and sarjarasa (the juice of vatica robusta) is sprinkled over the body, it burns with fire (without being hurt). When the body of a man is smeared over with sesamum oil mixed with equal quantities of the serum of the flesh of a frog, crab, and other animals, it can burn with fire (without hurt)…paste prepared from the roots of páribhadraka (erythrina indica), pratibala , vanjula (a kind of ratan or tree), vajra (andropogon muricatum or euphorbia), and kadali (banana), mixed with the serum of the flesh of a frog, can walk over fire (without hurt). Oil should be extracted from the paste prepared from the roots of pratibala, vanjula and páribhadraka, all growing near water, the paste being mixed with the serum of the flesh of a frog. Having anointed one’s legs with this oil, one can walk over a white-hot mass of fire as though on a bed of roses. The paste prepared from the powder of the rib-bone of náraka (?), a donkey, kanka (a kind of vulture), and bhása (a bird), mixed with the juice of water-lily, is applied to the legs of bipeds and quadrupeds (while making a journey). The fat or serum derived from roasting a pregnant camel together with saptaparna (lechites scholaris) or from roasting dead children in cremation grounds, is applied to render a journey of a hundred yojanas easy. [Pgs. 458-60.]

Restrictions

“King should prohibit the slaughter of animals for half a month during the period of Cháturmásya (from July to September), for four nights during the full moon, and for a night on the day of the birth-star of the conqueror or of the national star. He should also prohibit the slaughter of females and young ones (yonibálavadham) as well as castration. Having abolished those customs or transactions which he might consider either as injurious to the growth of his revenue and army or as unrighteous, he should establish righteous transactions.” [P. 449.]

Beef Eating Essential for Brahmins in ancient (early) India

Swami Vivekananda, regarded as a philosopher of Hindutva by the RSS, while addressing a meeting at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, USA (February 2, 1900) on the theme of ‘Buddhistic India’, declared:

“You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.”

[Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3 (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997), P. 536.]

He further stated that without eating beef, “no Brahmin could remain a Brahmin; you read in the Vedas how, when a Sannyasin [a Hindu religious mendicant], a king, or a great man came into house, the best bullock was killed…” [Ibid., P. 174.]

This is corroborated by other research works sponsored by the Ramakrishna Mission established by Vivekananda. According to C. Kunhan Raja, a prominent authority on the history and culture of the Vedic period:

“The Vedic Aryans, including the Brahmanas, ate fish, meat and even beef. A distinguished guest was honoured with beef served at a meal. Although the Vedic Aryans ate beef, milch cows were not killed. One of the words that designated cow was aghnya (what shall not be killed). But a guest was a goghna (one for whom a cow is killed). It is only bulls, barren cows and calves that were killed.”

[Raja, C. Kunhan, Vedic Culture‟, cited in the series, Suniti Kumar Chatterji and others (eds.), The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. 1 (Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission, 1993), P. 217.]

Kunhan Raja countering the myth of vegetarian Hinduism stated:

“The Grhya Sutras prescribe different kinds of meat to be given to be given to children at the first feeding ceremony, for different results. Mutton, flesh of different kinds of birds, and other forms of meat were freely eaten by the higher Castes in those days, and still they were the most spiritual nation in the world.” [Ibid.]

One of the greatest researchers, scholar and an authority on Indian politics, religions and culture Dr. BR Ambedkar produced a brilliant essay on the subject titled ‘Did the Hindus Never Eat Beef?’

All those who are really interested in understanding the ‘Hindu Past’ must read this monumental work of Dr. Ambedkar. After studying a large number of Vedic and Hindu scriptures, he arrived at the conclusion that,

“when the learned Brahmins argue that the Hindus not only never ate beef but they always held the cow to be sacred and were always opposed to the killing of the cow, it is impossible to accept their view”.

[Ambedkar, B. R., ‘Did the Hindus never eat beef?’ in The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, vol. 7, (Government of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1990, first edition 1948) Pgs 323-328.]

Also see the scholarly work by Professor DN Jha, The Myth of the Holy Cow, link: https://archive.org/details/TheMythOfHolyCowJha]

Interestingly, the findings of Ambedkar were that cows were sacrificed and beef consumed because COWS were HOLY.

According to Ambedkar:

“It was not that the cow was not sacred in Vedic times, it was because of her sacredness that it is ordained in the Vajasaneyi Samhita that beef should be eaten.” (Dharma Shastra Vichar in Marathi, Pg. 180). That the Aryans of the Rig Veda did kill cows for purposes of food and ate beef is abundantly clear from the Rig Veda itself. In Rig Veda (X. 86.14) Indra says: ‘They cook for one 15 plus twenty oxen’. The Rig Veda (X.91.14) says that for Agni were sacrificed horses, bulls, oxen, barren cows and rams. From the Rig Veda (X.72.6) it appears that the cow was killed with a sword or axe.”

Ambedkar concluded this essay with the following words:

“With this evidence no one can doubt that there was a time when Hindus, both Brahmins and non-Brahmins, ate not only flesh but also beef.”

[Ibid., Pgs 323-328.]

Anandmath: Sanatan/Hindu Sena consuming flesh

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is also a Rishi (Holy Teacher) for the RSS-BJP combine. This writer’s otherwise his pro-British novel, Anandmath, is another important (read holy) treatise for votaries of Hindu nationalism. A leader of Santan or Hindu army, Jivananda comes to visit her sister, Nimi who serves him, “some clean, jasmine-white rice, some tasteful dal, a curry of wild figs, some fish netted  [sic] from her own tank and some milk”.

[Sen-Gupta, Nares Chandra (translator Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath), Abbey of Bliss, Padmini Mohan Neogi, Calcutta, P. 65.]

India as a global beef exporter/powerhouse under Modi

India has quietly emerged as global beef powerhouse. The country now ranks as the world’s second-largest beef exporter earning nearly 3.8 billion dollars or around 34,177 crore rupees worth of this meat, annually. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra,, and Andhra Pradesh account for the bulk of these exports with Uttar Pradesh alone contributing nearly 60% of India’s beef shipments.”

[“India Becomes World’s Second-Largest Beef Exporter Amid Cow Vigilante            Violence”, Jan 02, 2026, https://www.deshabhimani.com/deshabhimani-english -/national-76192/india-beef-exports-cow-vigilante-violence-48452]

Fisheries export

Vegetarian India is making great strides in exporting seafood too, to the world.

According to a Government of India (GOI) press release dated April 3, 2026

“India’s seafood exports have recorded strong and sustained growth, expanding at an average annual rate of 7% over the past 11 years. Marine product exports have more than doubled during the period, rising from ₹30,213 crore in 2013‑14 to ₹62,408 crore in 2024‑25, driven largely by shrimp exports valued at ₹43,334 crore. India’s seafood exports span a wide and diversified basket, with over 350 varieties of products shipped to nearly 130 global markets.” [https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2248721&reg=3&lang=1]

Unholy use of the waters of the Holy Ganga

Hindutva’s claim vis a vis Holy Mother Ganga must be taken not just with a pinch, but fistfuls of salt. According to Government of India data Ganga water is supplied to Delhi, Patna, Rajgir, Gaya, Bodhgaya, Bhagalpur, and Nawada (Bihar), Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and several cities in Western UP, Haridwar (Uttarakhand), and Kolkata (West Bengal). This supply is not for fulfilling some religious duties but for all kinds of cleaning, washing and sanitary purposes.

How is this tolerated? Is it not high time for the courts to intervene?

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

Related:

Rewriting NCERT school textbooks: ‘Muslim Raj’ is a mere excuse, the project is to conceal historical facts

Unity not Hate: Commemorating the 168th anniversary of 1857 War of Independence

How Hindutva forces colluded with both the British & Jinnah against the historic ‘Quit India’ movement: Archives

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Sadly, as a core cadre member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Modi’s avtar as a messiah of women is fraught with deceit.

Not delving into the glut of sex scandals involving RSS top cadres which were exposed by RSS leading ideologues like Balraj Madhok (Zindagi kaa Safar 3: Deendayal Upadhyay kee Hatya se Indira Gandhi kee Hatya Tak, 2003) and Hemendra Nath Pandit (The End of a Dream: An Inside View of the RSS Today, 1950) we today need to scrutinize the RSS archives to know the deep and core levels of this male chauvinistic anti-Hindu women ideology. This is also evident in their practice.

1. Inside the RSS: Males are Volunteers

RSS founded in 1925 was to be an exclusive male organisation, its cadres were to be known as swayamsevak or volunteers. The RSS top brass made its intentions clear of treating women as of lower status than males when it decided to start its women wing; Rashtra Sevika Samiti in 1936. Its nomenclature made it clear that women members were not called as swayamsevak or volunteers but Rashtr Sevika (servants for the nation) or female servants for the Hindu nation. This identity of women in the Rashtr Sevika Samiti as servants was not only a technical issue but outcome of RSS’ attitude towards Hindu women which glorifies the subservient role of women in the society.

These are Rashtr Sevika Samiti members [who according to its website number around three lakh] only who pledge to maintain ‘faithfulness/virginity’, remain ‘modest’, ‘steadfast’, and not fall prey to ‘immorality and evil habits’. The RSS male swayamsevaks make no such commitment.

RSS Demands Manusmriti as Constitution Of India

In fact, this anti-woman attitude of RSS was glaringly visible when on the eve of the ratification of the democratic secular constitution by the Indian Constituent Assembly [November 26, 1949] it rejected it and demanded promulgation of Manusmriti or Manu Code as the constitution of India. A perusal of chapters V and IX will show how Hindu women were to be treated as sub-human creatures.

Laws of Manu concerning women

1. Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control. (Chapter IX/sloka 2)
2. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (IX/3)
3. Considering that the highest duty of all castes, even weak husbands (must) strive to guard their wives. (IX/6)
4. Women, confined in the house under trustworthy and obedient servants, are not (well) guarded; but those who of their own accord keep guard over themselves, are well guarded. (IX/12)
5. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), ‘(It is enough that) he is a man,’ they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly. (IX/14)
6. Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this (world). (IX/15)
7. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their) bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. (IX/17)
8. For women no (sacramental) rite (is performed) with sacred texts, thus the law is settled; women (who are) destitute of strength and destitute of (the knowledge of) Vedic texts, (are as impure as) falsehood (itself), that is a fixed rule. (IX/18)

3. GANDHI PEACE PRIZE to GITA PRESS Which Denigrates Hindu Women

Gita Press, Gorakhpur was awarded the 2022 Gandhi Peace Prize, the prestigious international award instituted by Government of India in 1995 while commemorating 125^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It was to be conferred on those individuals/organisations which contributed to carrying forward the ideals espoused by him. The jury which conferred it to Gita Press was headed by PM Modi.

PM Modi congratulated Gita Press, “on being conferred the Gandhi Peace Prize 2021. They have done commendable work over the last 100 years towards furthering social and cultural transformations among the people,” Incidentally, Gita Press was also celebrating its centenary in 2022.

Award to Gita Press was not only shocking for all those who cherished Gandhian values, humanism and civilized norms but all those who opposed gender-based persecution. It was a sad day for the Indian democratic-secular Republic as that Modi government idolized Gita Press which publishes  ‘Hindu’ literature  propagating Sati  and beating  of  women.  It publishes “popular” religious, ‘Hindu’  literature  which opposes remarriage of widowed/divorced/discarded women, seeking employment by them and even reporting rape as we will find by the perusal of some of its publications. According to this literature, this is the way for Hindu women to end in swarg or paradise.

Gita Press has published more than a dozen titles on the subject, the most prominent of which are: Nari Shiksha (Education of Women) by Hanuman Prasad Poddar, Grahsth Mein Kaise Rahen [How to Lead a Household Life] by Swami Ramsukhdas, Striyon ke Liye Kartawya Shiksha (Education of Duties for Women) and Nari Dharm (Religion of Woman) by Jai Dayal Goindka and a special issue of magazine Kalyan on women. These are available in English and other Indian languages. The English titles are popular with the non-resident Indians.

Some glimpses of anti-Hindu women content of Gita Press publications:

‘What should the wife do if her husband beats her and troubles her?” Swami Ramsukhdas offers the following sagely advice to the battered wife and her parents:

“The wife should think that she is paying her debt of her previous life and thus her sins are being destroyed and she is becoming pure. When her parents come to know this, they can take her to their own house because they have not given their daughter to face this sort of bad behaviour.”

And there is another piece of heavenly advice for a rape victim and her husband.

“As far as possible, it is better for woman (rape victim) to keep mum. If her husband also comes to know of it, he too should keep mum. It is profitable for both of them to keep quiet.”

Can a woman remarry? The answer is very straight forward,

“When once a girl is given away in marriage as charity by her parents, she does not remain virgin any more. So how can she be offered as charity to anyone else? It is beastliness to remarry her.”

But can a man remarry? No problem,

“A man can have a second wife for an issue in order to be free from the debt which he owes to manes (pitr-rin) according to the ordinances of the scriptures, if there is no issue from the first wife.”

But this is not the only reason for which a man is allowed re- marriage. A man, “whose desire for pleasure has not been wiped out, can get remarried because if he does not get remarried, he will indulge in adultery and    go to prostitutes and will incur a badly sin. Therefore, in order to escape the sin and maintain the decorum he should get remarried according to the ordinance of scriptures.”

Of course, no widow is allowed to remarry. However, she may be allowed to choose to be some male’s concubine.

“If she cannot maintain her character, instead of indulging in adultery here and there, she should accept her affinity for a person and live under his protection.”

Is it proper for woman to demand equal rights? The sagely answer is quite unambiguous:

“No, it is not proper. In fact, a woman has not the right of equality with man…in fact it is ignorance or folly which impels a woman to have desire for the right of equality with man. A wise person is he/she who is satisfied with less rights and more duties.”

This literature about Hindu women openly preaches and glorifies the ghastly practice of Sati. To the question:

“Is ‘Sati Pratha’ (viz., the tradition of the wife being cremated with the dead body of the husband on the funeral pyre) proper or improper?”

The sagely answer is:

“A wife’s cremation with the dead body of her husband on the funeral pyre is not a tradition. She, in whose mind truth and enthusiasm come, burns even without fire and she does not suffer any pain while she burns. This is not a tradition that she should do so, but this is her truth, righteousness and faith in scriptural decorum…It means that it is not a tradition. It is her own religious enthusiasm. On this topic Prabhudatta Brahmachariji has written a book whose title is Cremation of a Wife with her Husband’s Dead Body is the Backbone of Hindu Religion, it should be studied.”

Apart from glorifying Sati, the Gita Press publication like Nari Dharm produces dozens of shlokas from ‘Hindu’ scriptures to establish that women are not capable of enjoying independence. This book begins with the chapter swatantarta ke liye striyon ki ayogeta (incapability of women for independence). Another notable facet of this literature is that long a list of rituals is laid down to be practiced by pregnant women so that ‘bright, talented, brave and religious inclined son’ is born.

Unfortunately, parliamentary opposition which intends to confront PM Modi on his hoax of love for women did not confront him with the above stated facts due to ignorance of the dehumanized ideology and practices of RSS. The moral of the story is that RSS-BJP government juggernaut led by PM Modi is able to befool the women specially Hindu women of India not due to its respect for women but because opponents are totally ignorant of the criminality of RSS. For Modi ignorance of his opponents is blessing!

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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The post Womens Reservation Bill 2026: Women’s Rights & the RSS appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”

Lenin stated this fact in context of Marxism but this has a universal connotation. Such whittling down has been common to the ideas, contribution and sacrifices of Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh. The latest contributor to this venture is a self-acclaimed liberal, Bhagwan Josh. He contributed an article, ‘Why Bhagat Singh was not a Marxist thinker’ (The Tribune, March 23, 2026).[1] He ended his derogatory piece with the words: “The fact remains that Bhagat Singh was hanged not for his revolutionary ideas but for committing a murder of a British officer.” It is notable that The Tribune chose to publish it on the 95^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. This act also reveals what has happened to even a publication, which had previously remained supportive of the revolutionaries when they were alive.

Bhagwan Josh, not confident of his current take on Bhagat Singh, goes hunting for names like Antonio Gramsci, Bipin Chandra and Harish Puri to add weight to his diatribe. Gramsci and Bipin Chandra are not alive to clarify but Professor Harish Puri needs to share with his fans like me whether he too believes that Bhagat Singh was not a revolutionary. Thanks to Harish Jain who responded by penning ‘Why Bhagat Singh defies easy labels’ (The Tribune, March 26, 2026) in which Bhagwan Josh in one of his earlier Punjabi works, (Bhagat Singh da Markasvad) located “Bhagat Singh within the distinct Leninist current that was emerging in Punjab between 1928 and 1931 an intellectual formation grounded in study, debate and ideological seriousness and set apart from what he saw as the more pragmatic and often anti-intellectual strands within Indian communism”.[2]

A serious problem with armchair Professors is that they live in ivory towers but believe that they and only they are authorised to explain ground realities. Bhagat Singh was not a thinker because he was unable to produce in his writings, “the perfunctory references to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken have left a rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source. That is, from which editions of which books, by which particular authors, were these taken?” They do not know that Bhagat Singh was not a doctoral candidate in some university but chose to work to liberate his motherland from the colonial subjugation. According to British official documents, he was in jail for 716 days, consulted/read approximately 302 books and was well versed in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi. When he was not in jail, he was both a researcher and a journalist. He followed the Gramscian dictum (without reading him) that “It is necessary to think and study even under the most difficult conditions…to keep the risk of intellectual degradation at bay”.

Bhagat Singh was not reading books for the purposes of writing a doctoral proposal for enrolling at Oxford or Cambridge but for understanding the world and India so that he could challenge the mightiest imperial power and replace it with a system in India where ‘men do not exploit men’. This is what a thinker does. I am sure if Bhagat Singh had met Professors like Bhagwan Josh there would have been no need commemorating his Martyrdom Day, he would have retired as a teacher-receiving pension from the British masters!

Bhagwan Josh makes another problematic claim: “But what sort of Marxism did Bhagat Singh imbibe from his readings? Did this Marxism help him in any way to get some insight into the contemporary politics of Indian nationalism, working class movements and the immediate historical social reality around him? A mastery of Marxism that is merely an exercise in the appropriation of textual discourse must remain a ‘Brahmanical Marxism’…”

This from a Professor who — we are told, has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)! Can such an armed academic be so ignorant of the written word, so oblivious of facts available in the public domain? This does not bode well for future of JNU. Bhagat Singh who died at the age of 23 years, authored the following major documents, Universal Love (Hindi 1924), Youth (Hindi 1925), Religious Riots and their Solution (Punjabi 1927), Religion and our Freedom Struggle (Punjabi 1928), The Issue of Untouchability (Punjabi 1928), Satyagrah and Strikes (Punjabi 1928), Students and Politics (Punjabi 1928), New leaders and their Duties (Punjabi 1928), Lala Lajpat Rai and the Youth (Punjabi 1928), What is Anarchism part 1, 2, 3 (Punjabi 1928), The Revolutionary Nihilist of Russia (Punjabi 1928), Ideal of Indian Revolution (English 1930), Why I am an Atheist (English 1930), The First Rise of Punjab in the Freedom Struggle (Urdu 1931), Introduction to Dreamland (English 1931), and Young Political Workers (English 1931).

The Manifesto of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the Manifesto of Hindustan Socialist Republican Army were written by Bhagwati Charan Vohra and finalised after consultation with Bhagat Singh.

Shame on those who call this ‘Brahmanical Marxism’. Bhagat Singh developed Marxism in the context of Indian realities. Marx said that future generations would come and prove us wrong; this is how Marxism as a science survives.

Bhagwan Josh also declares the Ghadar movement as a failed movement and declares that Bhagat singh “instead of learning a lesson from its tragic failure, he blindly followed the example of the Ghadarites”. This sweeping conclusion reveals on whose side Professor the worthy stands while evaluating two among the greatest milestones in the glorious anti-colonial history of Indian freedom struggle in the 20^th century. Failure does not mean that any resistance was faulty or not required. To hail the victor is, in fact, a typical Brahmanical characteristic. Bhagwan must be glad to know that he is not alone in holding such a debased idea. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar while denigrating the tradition of martyrdom had similarly, brazenly stated:

“There is no doubt that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” [‘Martyr, great but not ideal’, Bunch of Thoughts, the collection of writings of MS Golwalkar.]

Last but not the least, Bhagwan Josh indulges in peddling another falsehood when states that 1857 Mutiny (which in fact was a nation-wide liberation war which continued for more than 3 years), was defeated by British forces and Sikh troops. There are abundant contemporary documents which conclusively prove that Punjab and Sikhs played significant role in 1857 liberation war. These were not only Sikh ruling families in Punjab who supported the British but also well-known rich families amongst Hindus and Muslims who joined the British campaign against the 1857 rebellion. This reality was no different from the rest of India, where rulers of Gwalior, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Bhopal, Dhar and many more native states joined hands with the British in crushing the great War of Independence.

If Bhagat Singh is simply a murderer, Professor Bhagwan Josh why do you bother with him? The fact is that he with his comrades continue to be synonymous with Indian revolution, and this troubles those intellectually subservient to imperialism who then come forth to denigrate them.

Marxism survives as so will Bhagat Singh’s heritage.

March 27, 2026

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

[1] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/why-bhagat-singh-was-not-a-marxist-thinker/

[2] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/why-bhagat-singh-defies-easy-labels/

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The post Bhagat Singh sent to gallows once again! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Here is a passage from the chapter, ‘Martyr, great but not ideal’ of Bunch of Thoughts, the collection of writings of MS Golwalkar decrying the whole tradition of martyrs. After declaring that his objects of worship have always been successful lives and that ‘Bhartiya culture’ [which surely –for him –means RSS culture] does not adore and idealize martyrdom and do not treat “such martyrs as their heroes”, he went on to philosophise that,

“There is no doubt that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” [Bunch of Thoughts, p. 283.]

Could there be a statement more insulting and denigrating to the martyrs than this?

This will or should be shocking for any Indian who admires the martyrs of the Freedom Movement to know what Hedgewar, founder of RSS felt about the revolutionaries fighting against the British. According to his biography published by the RSS,

“Patriotism is not only going to prison. It is not correct to be carried away by such superficial patriotism. He used to urge that while remaining prepared to die for the country when the time came, it is very necessary to have a desire to live while organizing for the freedom of the country.”

[CP Bhishikar, Sanghavariksh Ke Beej: Dr. Keshavrao Hedgewar, p. 21.]

It is indeed a pity that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Ashfaqullah Khan and Chandrashekhar Azad did not come into contact with this contemporary great patriotic thinker. If they had the great opportunity to meet him, these martyrs could have been saved from giving their lives for ‘superficial patriotism’.

Even the word ‘shameful’ is not appropriate to describe the attitude of the RSS leadership towards those who had sacrificed everything in the struggle against the British. The last Mughal ruler of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar had emerged as the rallying point for patriotic Indians and symbol of the Great War of Independence of 1857.

Golwalkar wrote thus while mocking him:

“In 1857, the so-called last emperor of India had given the clarion call-Gazio mein bu rahegi jub talak eeman ki/takhte London tak chalegi tegh Hindustan ki (Till the warriors remain faithful to their commitment/Indian swords will reach throne of London.) But ultimately what happened? Everybody knows that. [Golwalkar, M.S., Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi)

Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd., volume 1, p. 121.]

What Golwalkar thought of the people sacrificing their lot for the country is obvious from other observations and recollections. He had the temerity to question the great revolutionaries who wished to lay down their lives for the freedom of the motherland the following question as if he was representing the British:

“But one should think whether complete national interest is accomplished by that? Sacrifice does not lead to increase in the thinking of the society of giving all for the interest of the nation. It is borne by the experience up to now that this fire in the heart is unbearable to the common people.”

[Ibid. pp. 61-62.]

Is this also the reason that RSS produced no fighters or martyrs during the Freedom Movement?

Is it not the duty of every patriotic Indian who respects these great martyrs to share these anti-national and degenerate ideas of the RSS against both the anti-colonial freedom struggle in general and martyrs in particular?

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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The post Denigration of martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev – a peep into RSS archives appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The gun-wielding terrorists and conspirators who assassinated Gandhiji not only shared the ideological world-view of the Hindu Mahasabha (HMS),  led by VD Savarkar and the RSS’ own brand of Hindu nationalism but were also closely connected with these organisations. Instead of being ashamed of such this heinous crime, the inheritors of this worldview resort to lies —the pot calling the kettle black!

Let us compare the RSS’ claim of innocence in Gandhiji’s assassination with the views of the first home minister and deputy Prime Minister (PM) of Independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the perpetrators of this crime. It needs no reminding that Sardar continues to be a favourite of both the RSS and the present prime minister, Narendra Modi. Modi got Patel’s statue erected in Gujarat, the tallest in the world. Modi did not ever think Gandhi befitting of such a monument. Though a vocal proponent of ‘atma-nirbhar Bharat’ (self-relying India, ‘Make in India’) Sardar Patel’s statue was moulded in an iron foundry of China!

Following is the compilation, in chronological order, of the communication between the Indian Home Ministry under Sardar Patel, to Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Syama Prasad Mookerjee (the then head of Hindu Mahasabha) and MS Golwalkar (the then Supremo of the RSS) on and after Gandhiji’s assassination.

This chronological presentation clearly reveals how Sardar Patel developed his understanding (based on facts supplied by his officials) on the Role of the Organisations Involved/Responsible for Gandhiji’s Assassination:

(1) February 4, 1948, Government of India Communique Banning the RSS

The order banning the RSS issued by Sardar’s Home Ministry was unequivocal in holding the former responsible for terror activities.

It read:

“Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried on by members of the Sangh. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the RSS have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunition. They have been found circulating leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and suborn the police and the military.”

[Cited in Justice on Trial, RSS, Bangalore, 1962, pp. 65-66.]

(2) February 27, 1948: Sardar Patel letter to Prime Minister Nehru

In the early days of investigation when not all facts were known Sardar told Nehru:

“All the main accused have given long and detailed statements of their activities. In one case, the statement extends to ninety typed pages. From their statements, it is quite clear that no part of the conspiracy took place in Delhi…It also clearly emerges from these statements that the RSS was not involved at all. It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that (hatched) the conspiracy and saw it through. It also appears that the conspiracy was limited to some ten men, of whom all except two have been got hold of.” [Bold for emphasis]

The RSS and its supporters quote a part of the above letter, which read: “It also clearly emerges from these statements that the RSS was not involved at all” but hides the following text of the same letter, which is very significant. The letter continues:

“In the case of secret organisation like the RSS which has no records, registers, etc. securing of authentic information whether a particular individual is active worker or not is rendered a very difficult task.”

[Shankar, V., Sardar Patel: Select Correspondence 1945-50, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1977, p. 283-85.]

How does one identify a member of the RSS?

Sardar Patel raised a highly significant question about knowing whether a criminal or terrorist is a member of RSS or not. Whenever a linkage between a criminal activity and RSS is exposed, the latter comes out with the patent answer that the criminal is not RSS member. How do we know it? Is there an authenticated list of RSS members, which can be perused for such an investigation by the State? If it is not there, how RSS can file cases against those who find RSS members indulging in the assassinations and terrorist activities.  In such cases, the police and judiciary should demand from RSS proof that such persons were not its members.

(3) July 18, 1948: Sardar Patel’s letter to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee

As investigation progressed, Sardar found that Hindu Mahasabha and RSS were jointly responsible for the murder of Gandhiji, which was corroborated by him in a letter to a prominent leader of Hindu Mahasabha, Syama Prasad Mookerjee. On July 18, 1948, Sardar wrote:

“As regards the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, the case relating to Gandhiji’s murder is sub judice and I should not like to say anything about the participation of the two organisations, but our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible. There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme section of the Hindu Mahasabha was involved in the conspiracy. The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of Government and the State. Our reports show that those activities, despite the ban, have not died down. Indeed, as time has marched on, the RSS circles are becoming more defiant and are indulging in their subversive activities in an increasing measure. ”

[Letter 64 in Sardar Patel: Select Correspondence1945-1950, volume 2, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1977, pp. 276-77.]

(4) September 19, 1948: sardar Patel letter to MS Golwalkar, RSS Sarsanghchalak

By September 19 (1948), exactly 214 days after the murder of Gandhiji when Sardar wrote this letter, the role of the organisations in the assassination of Gandhiji was clearer to him. Without mincing words, he told Golwalkar:

“Organising the Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing…Apart from this, their opposition to the Congress,that too of such virulence, disregarding all considerations of personality, decency or decorum, created a kind of unrest among the people. All their speeches were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government, or of the people, no more remained for the RSS. In fact opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions it became inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS…Since then, over six months have elapsed. We had hoped that after this lapse of time, with full and proper consideration the RSS persons would come to the right path.” But from the reports that come to me, it is evident that attempts to put fresh life into their same old activities are afoot.”

[Cited in Justice on Trial, RSS, Bangalore, 1962, pp. 26-28.]

Do we need more proof to prove the RSS involvement in the murder of Gandhiji?

Another contemporary, a senior member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS)–predecessor of IAS– who was the first home secretary of Uttar Pradesh corroborated the fact that RSS was involved in this anti-national heinous crime. According to him:

“Came January 30, 1948 when the Mahatma, that supreme apostle of peace, felt to a bullet fired by an RSS fanatic. The tragic episode left me sick at heart.”

[Rajeshwar Dayal, A Life of Our Times, Orient Longman, 94.]

Hatred for Gandhiji is a fundamental element in the Hindutva-RSS discourse

The RSS’ hatred for Gandhi is as old as the formation of the RSS itself. Dr K.B. Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, was a Congress leader but parted company with the latter in 1925. After meeting the Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar, he realised that Gandhi was the biggest hurdle in the Hindutva project of organising Hindus separately. According to an RSS publication, since Gandhi worked for Hindu-Muslim unity,

“Doctorji sensed danger in that move. In fact, he did not even relish the new-fangled slogan of ‘Hindu-Muslim unity”. Another RSS publication corroborates the fact that the main reason behind Hedgewar’s parting with the Congress and formation of the RSS was because the “Congress believed in Hindu-Muslim unity”.

[Seshadri, H.V. (ed.), Dr Hedgewar, the Epoch-Maker: A Biography, p. 61. & Pingle, H.V. (ed.), Smritikan: Parm Pujiye Dr Hedgewar ke Jeevan kee Vibhinn Ghatnaon kaa Sankalan, p. 93.]

The RSS launched its English organ, Organiser, in July 1947 and a perusal of its issues until the murder of Gandhi on January 30, 1948 shows a flood of articles and sketches full of hatred for Gandhiji. The RSS seemed to be competing with the Hindu Mahasabha leader, Savarkar, and the Muslim League English organ, The Dawn, in denigrating Gandhi.

Modi as Chief Minister, Gujarat sent congratulatory messages to Janajagruti Hindu Samiti, Goa Conference held with the Objective of turning India into a Hindu State. The Conference celebrated ‘Vadh’ –Killing of Gandhiji.

Modi was in Goa in June 2013 for the BJP executive committee meeting. He as Gujarat CM sent a message to the ‘All India Hindu Convention for Establishment of Hindu Nation’ organized by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) at Goa from June 7. Modi’s message lauding the conference for establishing a Hindu nation read:

“It is our tradition to remain alert and raise a voice against persecution…Only by protecting our culture, can the flag of ‘dharma’ and unity be kept intact. Organisations inspired by nationalism, patriotism and devotion for the Nation are true manifestations of people’s power.”

[ORIGINAL LETTER REPRODUCED AT THE END]

On the third day from the same podium in this convention from where Modi’s felicitation message was read, one of the prominent speakers, K.V. Sitaramiah, a seasoned RSS cadre declared that Gandhi was ‘terrible, wicked and most sinful’. Rejoicing the killing of M.K. Gandhi, he went on to declare,

“As Bhagwan Shri Krishna said in the Gita, Paritranaya SadhunamVinashaya Cha Dushkritam/ DharamasansthapnayaSambhavamiYuge-Yuge (For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I am born in every age) On…30th January 1948 evening, Shriram came in the form of Nathuram Godse and ended the life of Gandhi.”

[ORIGINAL DOCUMENT REPRODUCED AT THE END]

It is to be noted that K.V. Sitaramaiah has also authored two books titled ‘Gandhi was Dharma Drohi [anti-religion] and Desa Drohi [anti-religion]’ and ‘Gandhi was Murderer of Gandhi’ in which the back cover text of the first book, quoting from the epic Mahabharat, demands “Dharma Drohis must be killed“, “Not killing the deserved to be killed is great sin” and “where the members of Parliament seeing clearly allow to kill Dharma & truth as untruth, those members will be called dead“.

The death-knell of democratic-secular India, established after a rigorous and robust freedom struggle, is to be ruled by those very forces that militate against inclusive nationalism, values that Gandhiji lived, and eventually died for. The forces that rule today were born out of a hatred for him, many played a lead role in Gandhiji’s assassination and continue to celebrate his ‘vadh’; sacrifice done for a good cause.

Let us take a firm vow on the 78^th martyrdom anniversary of Gandhiji. That all of us will rise up to challenge this Hindutva juggernaut.

January 30, 2026

Documentary Evidence

Before Gandhi’s assassination, Hindutva organizations, in their publications, especially through cartoons, portrayed him as anti-Hindu and a stooge of Muslims. This created an atmosphere of hatred and violence against him, a fact Sardar Patel also mentioned in his letter mentioned above. Some examples of these cartoons:

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The post 78th Martyrdom Anniversary of Gandhi & Identity of his Assassins: Sardar Patel appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The latest outburst was on January 11, 2026, when inaugurating the Swabhiman Parv (self-respect event) in Somnath, he declared that “every particle of the soil of Prabhas Patan is a witness to valor, courage, and heroism, and that countless devotees of Shiva sacrificed their lives for the preservation of Somnath’s form. He said that on the occasion of Somnath Swabhiman Parv, he bows first to every brave man and woman who dedicated their lives to the protection and reconstruction of Somnath, offering everything to Lord Mahadeva.”[1]

Shri Modi further stated that “when invaders from Ghazni to Aurangzeb attacked Somnath, they believed their swords were conquering eternal Somnath, but those fanatics failed to understand that the very name ‘Som’ carries the essence of nectar, the idea of remaining immortal even after consuming poison. He added that within Somnath resides the conscious power of Sadashiva Mahadev, who is both benevolent and the fierce ‘Prachanda Tandava Shiva’.”

[‘PM addresses the Somnath Swabhiman Parv in Somnath, Gujarat’, 11 Jan, 2026, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pm-addresses-the-somnath-swabhiman-parv-in-somnath-gujarat/?comment=disable]

The senior most security advisor of the RSS-BJP government and close confidant of PM Modi, Ajit Doval was at his best seeking revenge for the religious crimes of Muslim rulers.  Speaking at the opening ceremony of Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue, at Delhi on January 9, 2026, Doval said, “This independent India wasn’t always as free as it appears now. Our ancestors made great sacrifices for it. They endured great humiliation and experienced periods of profound helplessness. Many people faced the gallows… Our villages were burned. Our civilisation was destroyed. Our temples were looted, and we watched helplessly as silent spectators. This history presents us with a challenge that every young person in India today should have the fire within them. The word ‘revenge’ isn’t ideal, but revenge itself is a powerful force. We have to take revenge for our history. We have to take this country back to where we can build a great India based on our rights, our ideas, and our beliefs.”[2]

[‘NSA Ajit Doval urges youth to learn from history, rebuild a strong India’ 10 Jan-2026, https://firstindia.co.in/news/delhi/nsa-ajit-doval-urges-youth-to-learn-from-history-rebuild-a-strong-india]

The gist of the speeches of both Modi and Doval was that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples. The revenge has to be taken from Indian Muslims who are necessarily children of the Muslim rulers. These calls were nothing but brazen demonizing the largest religious minority of India. PM Modi and NSA chief, in fact, were dog-whistling for cleansing of Muslims. However, we need to compare the above-mentioned claims with the ‘Hindu’ narratives of destruction of Somnath Temple.

No sane person can deny that Somnath Temple in Gujarat was desecrated, looted and razed by an army led by Mahmud Ghazi (Mahmud Ghaznavi) in 1026. But a crucial fact remains buried that it was done with the active help and participation of local Hindu chieftains. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar while referring to the desecration and destruction of Somnath Temple by Mahmud Ghazi in the RSS English organ, Organizer (January 4, 1950) stated:

“He crossed the Khyber Pass and set foot in Bharat to plunder the wealth of Somnath. He had to cross the great desert of Rajasthan. There was a time when he had no food, and no water for his army, and even for himself left to his fate, he would have perished…But no, Mahmud Ghazi made the local chieftains to believe that Saurashtra had expansionist designs against them. In their folly and pettiness, they believed him. And they joined him. When Mahmud Ghazi launched his assault on the great temple, it was the Hindu, blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh, soul of our soul-who stood in the vanguard of his army. Somnath was desecrated with the active help of the Hindus. These are facts of history.”

[Organizer, January 4, 1950.]

So far as valour of defenders of Somnath Temple against ‘idol-breaker’ Ghazni was concerned founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayananda Sarswati in his fundamental work, Satyarth Prakash, a Bible for Arya Samajists, stated that instead of resisting the army of defilers, the then priests, “made offering, called on gods and prayed: ‘O Mahadeva kill this infidel and protect us!’ They advised their royal followers to have patience as Mahadeva would send Bhairava or Bhadra who would kill all the infidels (mlechhas) or blinden them…Many popish astrologers said that it was not astrologically proper for their advance…Thus the warriors were misled and delayed.  The army of infidels soon came and surrounded them. They fled in disgrace.”  [Swami Dayananda Sarswati, Light of Truth (English translation of Satyarth Prakash), Dayanand Sansthan, Delhi, 1908, p. 328.]

PM, Ajit Doval and the entire Hindutva tribe instead of calling for revenge against Muslims need to do a serious introspection about the guilty-men responsible for the desecration of Somnath Temple. It is generally accepted that Mahmud entered India as aggressor seventeen times between 1000 AD and 1027 AD. He travelled approximately 2000 kilometres from Ghazni to reach Somnath Temple in 1025, covering almost 1000 kilometres in the region which fell in India. According to ‘Hindu’ narrative after destroying the Temple he travelled back with huge precious booty laden on hundreds of camels and horses. Those who are telling stories of valour at Somnath need to tell the nation: Who allowed his journey back? Why were he and his gang of robbers not liquidated despite destroying one of the holiest temples of India? The horrendous reality is that our ancestors miserably failed in resisting one of the meanest aggressors in Indian history.

Desecration of Buddhist and Jain Temples by ‘Hindus’

These were not ‘Muslim’ rulers only who were defiling Hindu temples. Swami Vivekananda shared the fact that, “Temple of Jagannath is an old Buddhistic temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised them. We shall have to do many things like that yet”.

[The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3, 264.]

It has been corroborated by another darling of the Hindutva fraternity, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. According to him the Rath Yatra, an integral part of the rituals connected with Jagganath Temple was originally a Buddhist ritual. Bankim Chndra Chatterjee wrote:

“I am aware that another and a very reasonable, account of the origin of the festival of Rath [at Jagganath Temple] has been given by General Cunningham in his work on the Bhilsa Topes. He there traces it to a similar festival of the Buddhists, in which the three symbols of the Buddhist faith, Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, were drawn in a car in the same fashion, and I believe about the same season as the Rath. It is a fact greatly in support of the theory, that the images of Jagannath, Balaram, and Subhadra, which now figure in the Rath, are near copies of the representations of Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, and appear to have been modelled upon them.”[Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, ‘On the origin of Hindu festivals’ in Essays & Letters, Rupa, Delhi, 2010, pp. 8-9.]

Conversion of Buddhist monasteries into Hindu temples was a common occurrence after Buddhist rulers were gradually overthrown by Brahmins. This process began when the last of Maurya dynasty’s Buddhist king (Ashoka being one), Brihadratha was assassinated by Pushyamitra Shunga, a Brahmin in 184 BCE thus ending the rule of a renowned Buddhist dynasty and establishing the rule of Brahman Shunga dynasty. It was corroborated by Bankim in his controversial novel Anandmath, Bible of the Hindu nationalism. He described the scene of a temple used by Hindu army in the following words:

“Within this wood there stood a large monastery on a large piece of land with broken stones all around. Antiquarians would perhaps say that it was a Buddhist monastery in old days and was subsequently converted into a Hindu one.” [Sen-Gupta, Nares Chandra (translator Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath), Abbey of Bliss, Padmini Mohan Neogi, Calcutta, nd, 16]

Many of Jain temples too met the same tragic fate. Swami Dayanand Saraswati regarded as a Prophet of Hindutva while dealing with the contribution of Adi Shankaracharya (8^TH CENTURY) in his tome, Satyarth Prakash wrote:

“For ten years he toured all over the country, refuted Jainism and advocated the Vedic religion. All the broken images that are now-a-days dug out of the earth were broken in the time of Shankar, whilst those that are found whole (unbroken) here and there under the ground had been buried by the Jainis for fear of their being broken.” [Swami Dayananda Sarswati, Light of Truth (English translation of Satyarth Prakash), Dayanand Sansthan, Delhi, 1908, p. 294.]

Crimes of Maratha ‘Hindu’ armies against Hindus

Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), a renowned historian, held no brief for Islam or Muslim rulers in India. In fact, he is regarded as a Hindu historian, narrator of the history of India from a Hindu point of view. His description of the Maratha invasion of Bengal in early 1740s, makes it clear that this army of ‘Hindu nation’ cared least about honour and property of Hindus of Bengal. According to Sarkar, “the roving Maratha bands committed wanton destruction and unspeakable outrage”. [Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The History of Bengal-Volume II Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D. (Delhi: BR Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), p. 457.]

Sarkar, in his monumental work on the history of Bengal, reproduced eyewitness accounts of the sufferings of Bengali Hindus at the hands of Marathas. According to one such eyewitness, Gangaram,

“The Marathas snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they cut off the hands, of some the nose and ear; some they killed outright. They dragged away the beautiful women and freed them only after raping them”. [Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The History of Bengal-Volume II Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D. (Delhi: BR Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), 457.]

Another eyewitness, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar, the court Pandit of the Maharaja of Bardwan, narrated the horrifying tales of atrocities committed by the Marathas against Hindus in the following words:

“Shahu Raja’s troops are niggard of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor, fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of everyone and committing every kind of sinful act.” [Ibid., 458.]

Another crucial fact which is consciously kept under wrap is that despite more than 500 hundred years of ‘Muslim’/Mughal rule which according to Hindutva historians was nothing but a project of annihilating Hindus or forcibly converting the latter to Islam, India remained a nation with an almost 2/3 majority of Hindus at the historical juncture when even ceremonial ‘Muslim’ rule was over. The British rulers held first census in 1871-72. According to the Census report:

“The population of British India is, in round numbers, divided into 140½ millions [sic] of Hindoos (including Sikhs), or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Mahomedans, or 21½ per cent. And 9¼ millions of others, or barely 5 per cent., including under this title Buddhists and Jains, Christians, Jews, Parsees, Brahmoes…”

This happened because Hindu dominent Castes with few exceptions decided to serve the Muslim rulers for hundreds of years which is known as a relationship of roti-beti (bread and daughter).

[Memorandum on the Census of British India of 1871-72: Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty London, George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office 1875, 16.]

The linking of crimes committed by rulers with Muslim names in the pre-modern India to their religion is going to create serious unthinkable consequences even for ‘Hindu’ history as narrated by the RSS.

Take for example, Ravana, the king of Lanka who according to again ‘Hindu’ narrative committed unspeakable crimes against Sita, her husband Lord Rama and his companions for 14 years long vanvaas or exile. This Ravana, according to the same narrative, was a learned Brahman who also happened to be one of the greatest worshippers of Lord Shiva.

The epic Mahabharata is a story of a great war between two families known as Pandavas and Kauravas (both Kashtriyas) not between Hindus and Muslims but between two ‘Hindu’ armies in which, if you go by the ‘Hindu’ version 1.2 billion (120 crore) people, all Hindus are stated to have been slaughtered. Draupadi joint wife of Pandavas was disrobed by Kauravas, all Hindus. Modi and Doval must be aware that if the crimes of Ravana and Kauravas, are linked to their religion then India country will lose 80% of the population. And if revenge is to be taken from the present descendants of the past perpetrators then beginning must be made from the beginning of the Indian civilization; turn of the Indian Muslims will come far later!

[1] ‘PM addresses the Somnath Swabhiman Parv in Somnath, Gujarat’, 11 Jan, 2026, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pm-addresses-the-somnath-swabhiman-parv-in-somnath-gujarat/?comment=disable

[2] ‘NSA Ajit Doval urges youth to learn from history, rebuild a strong India’ 10 Jan-2026, https://firstindia.co.in/news/delhi/nsa-ajit-doval-urges-youth-to-learn-from-history-rebuild-a-strong-india

Related:

Babri Mosque Demolition: When the Indian State succumbed to majoritarian propaganda

November 26: How RSS mourned the passage of India’s Constitution by the Constituent Assembly

NCERT’s ‘Partition Horrors’: A brazen exercise in white-washing the ‘crimes’ of the Hindu Mahasabha & RSS

The post Busted: ‘Hindu’ Narratives of Desecration of Somnath, Buddhist & Jain Temples in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Friends in India and abroad wished to have a compilation of documentary evidence of how both the Indian State and Supreme Court succumbed to a majoritarian project of obliterating a historic mosque at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The following description and timeline examines the Hindutva propaganda falsehood with irrefutable facts which were conspicuously overlooked by the most crucial institutions of the Indian state.

Falsehood 1: Babri mosque built after destroying Ram birthplace temple

The supremacist Hindutva lot claimed that the new Ram temple was built on an ancient site of Hindu worship; the Ram birthplace temple which was destroyed in the early 16th century (1528-29) during the reign of the first Mughal emperor, Babar by one of his commanders, Mir Baqi. Archaeological evidence proves the mosque had no foundations of its own and was built upon a Hindu temple. They even identified the exact place of birth of Ram; under the central dome (approximately measuring 150 cm x 150 cm) of the Babri Mosque.

This falsehood has been repeated by none less than Narendra Modi several times since 2014 when he took over as Prime Minister of India, the latest pccasion being at Ayodhya on November 25, 2025, when he stated: “The wounds of centuries are healing, the pain of centuries is finding an end today, the resolution of centuries is achieving success today. Today marks the final offering of a yajna whose fire burned for 500 years.”[1]

Truth 1: This is a brazen falsehood propagated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with no historical or legal proof, nor any corroboration even in the ‘Hindu’ narratives of history. There is no mention of the destruction of Ram Temple even in the writings of the most prominent Ram worshiper to date, Goswami Tulsidas (1511-1623), who penned the Epic Ramcharitmanas (Lake of the Deeds of Ram) in the Avadhi language in 1575-76. It was this work which made Ram the most popular God in Northern India. According to the Hindutva version, Ram’s birthplace temple was destroyed in the period 1528-1529. It would be surprising indeed if the Ramcharitmanas, written almost 48 years after the so-called destruction of Ram’s birthplace temple, did not mention such a momentous event. Does the Hindutva lot mean to argue that the revered Saint, Goswami Tulsidas was a coward?!

For the RSS, Aurobindo Ghosh, Swami Vivekananda, and Swami Dayanand Saraswati were the saints who contributed immensely to the cause of Vedic religion and the growth of the Hindu nation. None of these Vedic saints ever referred to this destruction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya by Mughal King Babar or his agents in any of their writings.

Today, Ayodhya is referred to as one of the oldest and holiest places for Hindus. It is interesting to note that Adi Shankaracharya (788-820), who toured India preaching Vedas and refuting Buddhism and Jainism for more than a decade, who established 5 Peetams [main centres of Sanatan Hinduism] at Badrinath in the North, Puri in the East, Dwarka in the West and Sringeri and Kanchi in the South for the revival of the Vedic religion but did not consider Ayodhya as one.

It is true that traditionally, Hindus believe that Ram was born in the city of Ayodhya, but the issue is whether he was born exactly under the central dome (approximately measuring 150 cm x 150 cm) of the Babri Mosque as is claimed now by Hindutva’s flag-bearers.

Moreover, the Indian Supreme Court, in its 1,045-page Ayodhya Judgment (November 9, 2019), has, nowhere in the Judgment agreed with the claim that the Babri Mosque was constructed after destroying any temple.

Indian Supreme Court, in the said judgment made two other observations demolishing the RSS claim on the Mosque. Firstly, the SC stated: “The exclusion of the Muslims from worship and possession took place on the intervening night between 22/23 December 1949 when the mosque was desecrated by the installation of Hindu idols. The ouster of the Muslims on that occasion was not through any lawful authority but through an act which was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship.” [Supreme Court Judgment dated November 9, 2019, pp. 921-22]

Secondly, at pages 913-14, the SC stated that “On 6 December 1992, the structure of the mosque was brought down and the mosque was destroyed. The destruction of the mosque took place in breach of the order of status quo and an assurance given to this Court. The destruction of the mosque and the obliteration of the Islamic structure was an egregious violation of the rule of law.”

However, Mother India ought to be aghast to find Indian Supreme Court, despite all the above findings in its own verdict handed over a historic building which was a protected monument under Article 49 of Indian Constitution to supremacists. Arguably, what a supremacist mob could not achieve on December 6, 1992, the Supreme Court of India handed them on November 9, 2019.

It is worth mentioning here that the RSS—which initiated the bloody, violent campaign to build the Ram Temple at the end of the decade of the 1980s, never advanced this demand during the period of its founding (1925) until India attained Independence. Even after Independence, it was only in 1989 that the political appendage of the RSS, the BJP, began to focus on this issue.

The views of two RSS luminaries who initiated the Ram Temple movement reveal the preposterousness of the claim that Ram himself was born under the dome.

Rama Vilas Vedanti, a prominent Hindu clergyman of the Ram Birthplace Trust (an RSS front), stated, “We will build a temple at Ramjanam Bhoomi even if Lord Rama says he was not born there” [Outlook, Delhi, 7 July 2003). Similarly, L. K. Advani, who rode a chariot (Rath Yatra) as part of an aggressive Ram Temple campaign in 1990 said, “It did not matter whether the historical Rama was actually born at the spot in Ayodhya. What mattered was that Hindus believed that he was born there. Faith took precedence over history” [The Hindustan Times, Delhi, 20 July 2003.]

Falsehood 2: Ram Temple at the site of the Babri Mosque was essential to seek ‘restorative justice’

According to RSS the Ram Mandir has great symbolic and emotional resonance for Hindus in contemporary times and that the trauma that this destruction brought has been passed down through generations and continues to impact the psyche of Hindus and contributed historically and continues to contribute to Hindu-Muslim tensions in India to this day.

Truth 2: According to this logic, the rule by rulers with Muslim names in India was the Islamic rule of idol-breakers. This narrative of Muslim history developed only at the beginning of the 19^th century is in absolute contradiction with historical facts and even common sense. To understand the lies behind this fabricated Medieval past, one needs to examine the nature of this ‘Muslim’ rule.

Despite ‘Muslim’ rule of almost one thousand years, approximately 75% of Indians did not convert to Islam, as was made clear by the first Census held by the British in 1871-72 when even ceremonial ‘Muslim’ rule was over. Hindus and Sikhs constituted 73.5 percent of the population, and Muslims numbered 21.5 percent only. [Memorandum on the Census Of British India of 1871-72: Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty London, George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office 1875, 16.]

In fact, this period of ‘Muslim rule’ was also the rule of the Hindu High Castes. According to contemporary ‘Hindu’ narratives, Aurangzeb never faced Shivaji in the battlefield; these were his two Rajput commanders, Jay Singh I and Jai Singh II, who fought against Shivaji on Aurangzeb’s behalf. Akbar personally never fought any battle against Rana Pratap of Mewar; Man Singh, brother-in-law of Akbar fought all battles against Rana. The Deewan Ala (prime minister) of both Shahjahan and Aurangzeb was Raghunath Bahadur, a Kayasth Hindu.[2]

It is nobody’s argument that Aurangzeb or many other ‘Muslim’ rulers were not religious bigots or tolerant. Aurangzeb did not spare his father, brothers, and many smaller ‘Muslim’ kingdoms of his times. There are also contemporary records that prove that Aurangzeb donated lands, money, and resources to many temples throughout India. Anybody who has visited Delhi’s Red Fort must have seen two temples; Jain Lal Mandir [Red Temple] and Gauri Shanker Temple, just across the Red Fort towards Chandni Chowk side. These temples were built before the rule of Aurangzeb and continued to function during his time and later.

Falsehood 3: According to RSS building of the Ram Temple was an important event for Hindus of all traditions 

Truth 3: They did not explain to the Nation why 4 Shankaracharyas of the Peetams (out of 5) established by Adi Shankaracharya boycotted the inauguration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The most revered living Hindu saints of the Sanatan Dharm declared Ayodhya’s inauguration to be in contravention of Vedic scriptures, calling it Hinduism done for petty electoral gains.

It was sad to see the RSS run roughshod over the diversity of Hinduism. In its attempt to prove the homogenous character of Hindus, it turned a debate on the nature of the Ayodhya inauguration into Hindus versus others. The founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824-83), is glorified by RSS as a pillar of the Hindu nation. But Swami was an ardent opponent of the Brahmanical rituals like Pran Pratishtha, putting life into a lifeless idol (in Ayodhya case by Prime Minister Modi) and did not mince words in decrying this very ritual. He stated (in Satyarth Prakash or Light of Truth, chapter 11), “The fact of the matter is that the All-pervading Spirit [God] can neither come into an idol, nor, leave it. If your mantras are efficacious that you can summon God, why can you not infuse life into your dead son by the force of the very same mantras? Again why can you not bide the soul depart from the body of your enemy? There is not a single verse in the Vedas to sanction the invocation of the Deity and vitalization of the idol, likewise, there is nothing to indicate that it is right to invoke idols, to bathe them, install them in temples, and apply sandal paste to them.” 

Falsehood 4: According to the Hindutva narrative Ayodhya represents a five hundred years long war between Hindus and Muslims of India

Those who defend the demolition of Babri mosque argue that though sometimes presented as being a recent conflict, the fact is that this site has a long history of Hindus and Sikhs attempting to reclaim it, dating back to the early 19th century. Furthermore, the conflict has been ongoing regardless of the political party in power following India’s independence.

Truth 4: Ayodhya is presented as a place of perennial war between Hindus and Muslims, and the central dome of the Babri Mosque claimed to be the exact place where Ram was born, are modern ‘constructs’ as we will see in the following.

There cannot be a shoddier lie than this that Ayodhya was a place of perpetual war between Hindus against Muslims. During India’s War of Independence 1857, Ayodhya was the place where Maulvis and Mahants and ordinary Hindus and Muslims stood united in rebelling against the British rule and kissed the hangman’s noose together. Maulana Ameer Ali was a famous Maulvi of Ayodhya, and when Ayodhya’s well-known Hanuman Garhi’s (Hanuman Temple) priest, Baba Ramcharan Das, took the lead in organising the armed resistance to the British rule. Both of them were captured and hanged together on the same tree. In another instance of the glorious unity of Hindus and Muslims against the colonial rule at Ayodhya, Acchhan Khan and Shambhu Prasad Shukla led the army of Raja Devibaksh Singh in the area. Due to the treachery of Hindu and Muslim lackeys of the British, they were captured and killed together. The British rulers hated this unity and created narratives of perennial Hindu-Muslim conflict not only in Ayodhya but the whole of India.

Iqbal a renowned poet much maligned by the Hindutva ideologues whose poetry has been removed from textbooks wrote a peerless poem in praise of Ram in 1908 titled “Imam-e-Hind”. For Iqbal, Ram was not merely a Hindu God but “Imam-e-Hind” (spiritual leader of India). The first two lines of the poem read: Hai Raam ke wajood pe Hindustaan ko naaz/
Ahl-e-Nazar samajhte hain us ko Imam-e-Hind
(India is proud of the existence of Ram
Spiritual people consider him prelate of India).

The flag-bearers of Hindutva working overtime to undo a composite and all-inclusive India are using the Sikh factor as a bluff to legitimize its illegal project. Sikhs who do not believe in idol worship of Ram or any other Hindu God/Goddesses; we are told that on 28 November 1858, a Nihang Sikh [member of a warrior order within Sikhism] organized Pooja [worship] and havan [a Brahmanical ritual offering of grains, pure ghee and other such items to fire] in the Babri Mosque. It is unbelievable for a Sikh to perform Brahmanical rituals and would invite immediate ex-communication. Why Hindus at that time did not enter the Mosque is a mystery!

Aggrieved Muslims chose legal recourse and not community mobilisation, were they betrayed by the Judiciary?

Supremacist forces within Hindutva must understand that Ram was never the cause of perpetual conflict between Hindus and Muslims until RSS invented it as a convenient tool for religious polarization. Muslims of Ayodhya stopped going to Babri Mosque once the idol of Ram Lalla (child Ram) was smuggled into the Babri Mosque on the night of December 22/23 1949 with the connivance of local senior officials. Local Muslims did not try to break into the usurped Mosque, and there was no bloodshed engineered by Muslims of Ayodhya who were in substantial numbers in Faizabad, now rechristened as Ayodhya Dham despite the Indian Supreme Court declaring that “the mosque was desecrated by the installation of Hindu idols.”

The RSS and its affiliates instead of being ashamed of the carnage celebrate the demolition on December 6 as Shauriya Divas, day of bravery. These criminals have succeeded since 1990, RSS and its appendages had organized an aggressive campaign for demolishing the Babri Mosque, targeting Indian Muslims as Baber-zade/Haram-zade (children of Babar/illegitimate children). For more than two years, Hindus in India and abroad were asked to come to Ayodhya to tear down the mosque as kar-sevaks.

Babri mosque demolition was not a Hindu-Muslim battle but a seminal conflict between the RSS and the Secular Indian State

Did Muslims call for counter-mobilisation to save the mosque or reach the site on December 6 to confront the Hindutva mobs? Never! In fact, they trusted the RSS to honor the commitment made to the then-Indian Prime Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao and the Indian Supreme Court that its appendages and cadres would not harm the mosque. RSS reneged on all commitments shamelessly. Indian State and judiciary remained silent spectators. How critically and fundamentally Indian Muslims were let down and even betrayed would be evident by the fact that Rao promised to rebuild Babri Mosque at its original place twice (once in Parliament and second time while addressing the nation from Red Fort on August 15, 1993), which were both promises that stand reneged on!

A detailed Video Narration of the sordid Ram Temple saga may be viewed here and here.

[1] PM’s speech during the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Dhwajarohan Utsav, November 25, 2025, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pms-speech-during-the-shri-ram-janmabhoomi-mandir-dhwajarohan-utsav/

[2] ‘Fallacy of the Hindutva project’ May 4, 2022, Chennai, link: https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/fallacy-of-the-hindutva-project-aurangzeb-mughals-islamophobia/article38484103.ece

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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The post Babri Mosque Demolition: When the Indian State succumbed to majoritarian propaganda appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute   India into a      SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all;

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this 26th day of November 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.”

RSS demanded Manu Smruti as the Constitution

The two underlined ideals merely formally added in 1977, ‘Socialist and Secular’, only strengthened the resolve of the Constitution of India would apply to a non-sectarian polity with only the people of India, all of its people, sovereign. How many Indians however know that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that has today affected a stranglehold on Indian politics and democracy, through its political appendage, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had, at the time, mourned the birth (coming into effect) of the Indian Constitution? Outraged when the Indian Constituent Assembly (CA) adopted a democratic- Secular Constitution under the supervision of Dr. BR Ambedkar, their organs protested.

We know that when the Constituent Assembly of India passed the Constitution on November 26, 1949, the RSS organ Organizer came out with an editorial on November 30, 1949 titled ‘Constitution’ declaring its firm rejection of Constitutional Values:

“The worst about the new Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bhartiya about it…There is no trace of ancient Bhartiya constitutional laws, institutions, nomenclatures and phraseology in it…Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.”

How fundamentally, the RSS denigrates the Constitution of India can be gleaned through the following statement of the most prominent ideologue of the RSS, Golwalkar:

“Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of the Western countries. It has absolutely nothing which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No!”

[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 238.]

By demanding Manusmriti as “constitution of India”, RSS, in fact was following the belief of its darling Hindutva icon, VD Savarkar who had declared long back:

“Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worship-able after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law”.

[VD Savarkar, ‘Women in Manusmriti‘ in Savarkar Samagar (collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi), vol. 4, Prabhat, Delhi, p. 416.]

The faith of RSS brass in Manusmriti, naturally, leads them to believe in Casteism too which gave birth to the debased practice of Untouchability. For RSS Casteism is the essence of Hindu Nationalism. Golwalkar did not mince words in declaring that Casteism was synonymous with the Hindu Nation. According to him, the Hindu people are no one but,

“The Hindu People, they said, is the Virat Purusha, the Almighty manifesting Himself. Though they did not use the word „Hindu‟, it is clear from the following description of the Almighty in Purusha-Sukta [in the 10th book of Rig Ved] wherein it is stated that the sun & the moon are His eyes, the stars and the skies are created from his nabhi [navel] and Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. [Italics as in the original text] This means that the people who have this fourfold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu People, is [sic] our God. This supreme vision of Godhead is the very core of our concept of „nation‟ and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique concepts of our cultural heritage.”

[Golwalkar, M. S., Bunch of Thoughts, collection of writings/speeches of Golwalkar published by RSS, p.36-37.]

What kind of a Hindutva civilization the RSS wants to build by enforcing the laws of Manu, can be known by having a glimpse of the laws prescribed by Manu for the lower castes, Untouchables and women. Some of these dehumanizing and degenerated laws, which are presented here, are self-explanatory.

A selection of Laws of Manu denigrating Dalits/Untouchables

1. For the sake of the prosperity of the worlds (the divine one) caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thighs and his feet. (I/31)
2. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Sudras, to serve meekly even these (other) three castes. (I/91)
3. Once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of ‘low origin’. (VIII/270)
4. If he mentions the names and castes (jati) of the (twice-born) with contumely, an iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-hot into his mouth. (VIII/271)
5. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears. (VIII/272)
6. He who raises his hand or a stick, shall have his hand cut off; he who in anger kicks with his foot, shall have his foot cut off. (VIII/280)
7. A ‘low-caste’ man who tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of a high caste, shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or (the king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed. (VIII/281)

As per the Manu Code if Sudras are to be given most stringent punishments for even petty violations/actions, the same Code of Manu is very lenient towards Brahmins. Shloka 380 in Chapter VIII bestowing profound love on Brahmins decrees:

“Let him never slay a Brahmana, though he has committed all (possible) crimes; let him banish such an (offender), leaving all his property (to him) and (his body) unhurt.”

A selection of Laws of Manu demeaning Hindu women

1. Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control. (IX/2)
2. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (IX/3)
3. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), (It is enough that) he is a man, ‟ they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly. (IX/14)
4. Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this (world). (IX/15)
5. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their) bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. (IX/17)

[The above selection of Manu’s Codes is from F. Max Muller, Laws of Manu, LP Publications, Delhi, 1996; first published in 1886. The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.]

The reproduced parts of the Manu Code above need no further elaboration and commentary. They are too glaringly venomous, fascist and derogatory of marginalized sections, the Untouchables who are referred to as Sudras by Manu. Perhaps this was the reason that the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche who contributed immensely to the growth of totalitarian ideas in Europe in the 20th century, fell in love with this work.

It is to be noted here that a copy of Manusmriti was burnt as a protest in the presence of Dr. BR Ambedkar during the historic Mahad agitation on December 25, 1927. Dr Ambedkar called upon Dalits to commemorate each December 25 as the Manusmriti Dehen Diwas (Manusmriti burning day) in future. In fact, Brahmanism as basis of the RSS world-view is the original Fascism in the history of human civilization.

[https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/manusmriti-dahan-divas-protest-staged-at-collectorate/article30396588.ece]

RSS’ deep hatred for democracy

It is true that when RSS faced the wrath of the Indian State when Sardar Patel was the home minister of India it criticised the detention laws without trial. In an editorial in Organizer it wrote:

“Section 21 and 22 providing for detention without trial reduce all the wordy assurances about liberty, equality and fraternity to just near meaningless verbiage.”[Organizer, November 30, 1949]

But once in power the RSS-BJP rulers led by the present leadership have returned to Hindutva’s Fascist and Nazi heritage. They have converted Indian democratic-secular polity into a totalitarian Hindutva oligarchy where any kind of dissent is treated as anti-national and anti-Hindu. It is the continuation of hatred for democracy as decreed by Golwalkar as early as 1940. Golwalkar while addressing the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS declared:

“RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology are lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.”

[Golwalkar, M.S., Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi), Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd., volume 1, p. 11.]

November 26, 2025

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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The post November 26: How RSS mourned the passage of India’s Constitution by the Constituent Assembly appeared first on SabrangIndia.

There is a popular proverb related to education which says that if an incompetent person is appointed as teacher, the academic lives of generations of students are doomed. And when there are many such ‘teachers’ whose only qualification is having been trained in the far right, Hindutva wisdom appointed at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), what pray shall be the future of school social science education?

Recently, the NCERT released a ‘Special Module’ (for text/teaching) titled ‘Partition Horrors’. This module is described as a ‘supplementary resource’ for Classes 6 to 8 (middle to senior school) – not part of regular textbooks – and is meant to be used for ‘projects, posters, discussions and debates.’ The contents of this module, in fact, is supplementary resource material to pinpoint or understand those men/organisations responsible (read guilty) for the Partition of India as claimed but, in fact, presents an altogether a sectarian narrative driven by the body’s RSS masters.

The Module was released on August 14, 2025 as part of “Partition Horrors Remembrance Day” following PM Modi’s 2021 directive which stated that “Partition’s pains can never be forgotten. Millions of our sisters and brothers were displaced, and many lost their lives due to mindless hate and violence. In memory of the struggles and sacrifices of our people, August 14, will be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day.”

On detailed perusal, `The whole document is full of manipulation, contradictions, and untruths aiming   to hide more than it tries to convey about the Partition. We can divide the NCERT truths into following sections.

Falsehood 1: Muslim League leader Jinnah and political Islam founded two-nation theory

The document states that “Partition was primarily the result of flawed ideas, misconceptions, and erroneous decisions.” The party of Indian Muslims, the Muslim League [ML], held a conference in Lahore in 1940. Its leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, said that Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literatures”. [page 5]

The module also traces Partition to Muslim leaders’ belief in a separate identity rooted in “political Islam”. It goes on to stress that “on the basis of religion, culture, customs, history, sources of inspiration, and worldviews, Muslim leaders called themselves as fundamentally separate from Hindus. The root of this lay in the ideology of political Islam, which denies the possibility of any permanent or equal relationship with non-Muslims.” [page 6].

It is true that ML under the leadership of MA Jinnah declared his firm faith in India being not one nation. His argument was that,

“The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither intermarry nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their views on life, and of life, are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Musalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise their victories and defeats overlap.” 

Facts concealed

This statement of Jinnah in defence of two-nation theory is reproduced twice in the short document (pages 4 & 6) but the authors shamelessly hide what Hindu nationalists aligned with Hindu Mahasabha and RSS had been arrogantly arguing for decades preceding Jinnah’s statement.

Privileged Caste Hindu nationalists of Bengal propounded the two-nation theory

Long-long before the appearance of Muslim advocates of the two-nation theory, the ball was set rolling by High Caste Hindu nationalists at the end of the 19^th century in Bengal. Raj Narain Basu (1826–1899), the maternal grandfather of Aurobindo Ghosh, and his close associate Nabha Gopal Mitra (1840-94) were the co-fathers of two-nation theory and Hindu nationalism in India. Basu established a society for the promotion of national feelings among the educated natives which in fact stood for preaching the superiority of Hinduism. He organized meetings proclaiming that Hinduism despite its Casteism presented a much higher social idealism than ever reached by the Christian or Islamic civilization.

Basu was the first person to conceive the idea of a Maha Hindu Samiti (All India Hindu Association) and helped in the formation of Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, a precursor of Hindu Mahasabha. He believed that through this organization Hindus would be able to establish an Aryan nation in India. He visualized a powerful Hindu nation not only overtaking India but the whole world. He also saw,

“[The] noble and puissant Hindu nation rousing herself after sleep and rushing headlong towards progress with divine prowess. I see this rejuvenated nation again illumining the world by her knowledge, spirituality and culture, and the glory of Hindu nation again spreading over the whole world.”

[Cited in Majumdar, R. C., History of the Freedom Movement in India, Vol. I (Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhpadhyay, 1971), 295–296.]

Nabha Gopal Mitra started organising an annual Hindu Mela (fête). It used to be a gathering on the last day of every Bengali year and highlighted the Hindu nature of all aspects of Hindu Bengali life and continued uninterrupted between 1867 and 1880. Mitra also started a National Society and a National Paper for promoting unity and feelings of nationalism among Hindus. Mitra argued in his paper that the Hindus positively formed a nation by themselves. According to him,

“[The] basis of national unity in India is the Hindu religion. Hindu nationality embraces all the Hindus of India irrespective of their locality or language.”

[Cited in Majumdar, R. C., Three Phases of India’s Struggle for Freedom (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1961), p. 8.]

1. C. Majumdar, a favourite of Hindutva intellectuals and a prominent researcher of the rise of Hindu nationalism in Bengal, had no difficulty in arriving at the truth that

“Nabha Gopal forestalled Jinnah’s theory of two nations by more than half a century… [And since then] consciously or unconsciously, the Hindu character was deeply imprinted on nationalism all over India.” [Ibid.] 

Role of Arya Samaj 

The Arya Samaj in northern India aggressively preached that Hindu and Muslim communities in India were, in fact, two different nations. Bhai Parmanand (1876–1947), a leading light of the Arya Samaj in northern India who was also a leader of Hindu Mahasabha, declared Hindus and Muslims as two nations. The following words of his seems to have been borrowed by Jinnah in his March 1940 speech at Lahore quoted in the NCERT module.

“In history the Hindus revere the memory of Prithvi Raj, Partap, Shivaji and, Beragi Bir, who fought for the honour and freedom of this land (against the Muslims), while the Mahomedans look upon the invaders of India, like Muhammad Bin Qasim and rulers like Aurangzeb as their national heroes…[whereas] in the religious field, the Hindus draw their inspiration from the Ramayan, the Mahabharat, and the Geeta. The Musalmans, on the other hand, derive their inspiration from the Quran and the Hadis. Thus, the things that divide are far more vital than the things which unite.”

[Parmanand, Bhai in pamphlet titled, ‘The Hindu National Movement’, cited in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1990), 35–36, first Published December 1940, Thackers Publishers, Bombay.]

Parmanand as early as 1908–9, called for the total exchange of Hindu and Muslim populations in two specific areas. According to his plan, elaborated in his autobiography,

“The territory beyond Sind should be united with Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province into a great Musalman kingdom. The Hindus of the region should come away, while at the same time Mussalman in the rest of India should go and settle in this territory.”

[Parmanand, Bhai, The Story of My Life, S. Chand, Delhi, 1982, p. 36.]

Another Arya Samaj luminary Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) in 1924 proposed partition of India into Muslim India and non-Muslim India. He articulated his two-nation theory in the following words:

     “Under my scheme the Muslims will have four Muslim States: (1) The Pathan Province of the North Western Frontier (2) Western Punjab (3) Sindh and (4) Eastern Bengal. If there are compact Muslim communities in any other part of India, sufficiently large to form a Province, they should be similarly constituted. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not a united India. It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Muslim India.”

[Rai, Lala Lajpat, ‘Hindu-Muslim Problem XI’, The Tribune, Lahore, December 14, 1924, p. 8.] 

Hindu nationalist (supremacist) Moonje, Lala Har Dayal, Savarkar and Golwalkar as pioneers of two-nation theory

Dr. B. S. Moonje was another Hindu Mahasabha and RSS leader who carried forward the flag of Hindu Separatism long before Muslim League’s Pakistan resolution of March 1940. While addressing the third session of the Oudh Hindu Mahasabha in 1923, he declared: 

“Just as England belongs to the English, France to the French, and Germany to the Germans, India belongs to the Hindus. If Hindus get organized, they can humble the English and their stooges, the Muslims…The Hindus henceforth create their own world which will prosper through shuddhi [literally meaning purification, the term was used for conversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism]and sangathan [organization].“

[Cited in Dhanki, J. S., Lala Lajpat Rai and Indian Nationalism, S Publications, Jullundur, 1990, p. 378.]

Lala Har Dayal (1884–1938), a well-known name in the Ghadar Party circles, too, long before the Muslim League’s demand for a separate homeland for Muslims, not only demanded the formation of a Hindu nation in India but also urged the conquest and Hinduisation of Afghanistan. In a significant political statement in 1925, published in the Pratap of Kanpur, he stated:

“I declare that the future of the Hindu race, of Hindustan and of the Punjab, rests on these four pillars: (1) Hindu Sangathan, (2) Hindu Raj, (3) Shuddhi of Muslims, and (4) Conquest and Shuddhi of Afghanistan and the Frontiers. So long as the Hindu Nation does not accomplish these four things, the safety of our children and great grandchildren will be ever in danger, and the safety of Hindu race will be impossible. The Hindu race has but one history, and its institutions are homogenous. But the Musalman and Christians are far removed from the confines of Hindustan, for their religions are alien and they love Persian, Arab, and European institutions. Thus, just as one removes foreign matter from the eye, Shuddhi must be made of these two religions. Afghanistan and the hilly regions of the frontier were formerly part of India, but are at present under the domination of Islam […] Just as there is Hindu religion in Nepal, so there must be Hindu institutions in Afghanistan and the frontier territory; otherwise, it is useless to win Swaraj.”

[Cited in Ambedkar, B. R., Pakistan or the Partition of India, Maharashtra Government, Bombay, 1990, p. 129.]

It was RSS’ ‘Veer’ V. D. Savarkar (1883-1966), the originator of the politics of Hindutva, who developed the most elaborate two-nation theory. The fact should not be missed that Muslim League passed its Pakistan resolution in 1940, but Savarkar propagated the two-nation theory long before it. While delivering the presidential address to the 19th session Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937, Savarkar declared unequivocally,

“As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India. Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so…Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary, there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.”

[Samagar Savarkar Wangmaya (Collected Works of Savarkar), Hindu Mahasabha, Poona, 1963, p.296.]

It was no abrupt belief of Muslims (and Christians) being separate nations. Savarkar in his controversial book Hindutva as early as 1923 decreed:

“Christians and Mohamedan [sic] communities…cannot be recognized as Hindus as since their adoption of the new cult they had ceased to own Hindu Sanskriti [culture] as a whole. They belong, or feel that they belong, to a cultural unit altogether different from the Hindu one. Their heroes and their hero worship their fairs and their festivals, their ideals and their outlook on-life, have now ceased to be common with ours.”

[Maratha [V. D. Savarkar], Hindutva, VV Kelkar, Nagpur, 1923, p. 88.]

[1] How religiously RSS believed in two-nation theory even after the birth of a democratic-secular India was made clear when the English organ of the RSS, Organiser, on the very eve of Independence (August 14, 1947) editorially reaffirmed its faith in two-nation theory in the following words:

“Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation…the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations.” 

The ‘Hindu’ narratives make it clear that two-nation theory was the product of Hindu nationalists and Partition was a primary holy task which Hindu nationalists took upon themselves. The module does not bother to tell us that it was borrowed by Jinnah only in late 1930s. A leading English daily of India editorially stated:

“It was a theory which long preceded Jinnah, having been expounded by such names as Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya in the late nineteenth-century Bengal and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in the early part of the twentieth, among countless others.”

[Editorial: ‘Two-nation Gujarat’, The Times of India, April 18, 2002.]

Despite all the above-mentioned facts available in the RSS/Hindu Mahasabha archives the authors of the module continue the tirade that “Muslim leaders called themselves as fundamentally separate from Hindus. The root of this lay in the ideology of political Islam, which denies the possibility of any permanent [sic] or equal relationship with non-Muslims.”

Falsehood 2: Muslim League as party of all Indian Muslims

The module attempts to create a narrative that Muslim League represented all Muslims of India since it “won 73 out of 78 seats reserved for Muslims” in March 1946 elections to the Constituent Assembly. The authors do not disclose that Muslim League won due to highly restricted system of franchise in which a tiny minority of Muslims voted. The Muslim League was able to secure most of the Muslim seats due to the advantage it enjoyed under the prevalent restricted franchise at that time. The elections were held under the Sixth Schedule of the 1935 Act, which excluded the mass of peasants, most small shopkeepers and traders, and countless others from the rolls through tax, property and educational qualifications. According to Granville Austin, a renowned authority on making of Indian constitution, “Only 28.5 percent, of the adult population of the provinces could vote in the provincial assembly elections of early 1946…Economically and socially depressed portions of the population were virtually disenfranchised by the terms of the 1935 Act.”

[Austin, Granville, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, OUP, Delhi, 2014. pp. 12-13.]

Amongst Muslims it was far less due to prevalent poverty and want of education. For example, in Bihar where Muslim League secured 34 out of 40 Muslim seats in Provincial Assembly elections, the eligible Muslim electorate consisted only of 7.8 percent of the total population. It could win as Muslim elite/High Caste backed it whereas 92.2% Muslims of Bihar remained disenfranchised. It was the case in almost all other provinces.   [Ghosh, Papiya, Muhajirs and the Nation: Bihar in the 40s, Routledge, Delhi, 2010, 79.]

Savarkar led Hindu Mahasabha ran coalition governments with Jinnah led Muslim League

The Module describes Jinnah led ML as party of Indian Muslims but fails to take note of the fact that it was this party of Muslims with which Hindu Mahasabha led by Savarkar entered into alliances in order to break the united freedom struggle, specially, the 1942 Quit India Movement against the British rulers. While delivering Presidential address to the 24th session of Hindu Mahasabha at Cawnpore (Kanpur) in 1942, he defended hobnobbing with the Muslim League in the following words,

“In practical politics also the Mahasabha knows that we must advance through reasonable compromises. Witness the fact that only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha on invitation had taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running coalition Government. The case of Bengal is well known. Wild Leaguers whom even the Congress with all its submissiveness could not placate grew quite reasonably compromising and sociable as soon as they came in contact with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Coalition Government, under the premiership of Mr. Fazlul Huq and the able lead of our esteemed Mahasabha leader Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerji, functioned successfully for a year or so to the benefit of both the communities. Moreover, further events also proved demonstratively that the Hindu Mahasabhaits endeavoured to capture the centres of political power only in the public interests and not for the leaves and fishes of the office.” [Ibid, pp. 479-480.]

Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League formed a coalition government in NWFP also.

The module, not surprisingly, attempts to defend Jinnah, a co-traveller two-nation theorist. Jinnah is quoted to have said “I never thought it would happen. I never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime” [page 9]. The message module wants to convey is Jinnah did not expect it, but Congress got Pakistan delivered to Jinnah!

Falsehood 3: Congress Guilty of Partition

In a section titled “Who was responsible for Partition” [page 6], the NCERT module reads: “Ultimately, on August 15, 1947, India was divided. But this was not the doing of any one person. There were three elements responsible for the Partition of India: Jinnah, who demanded it; second, the Congress, which accepted it; and third, Mountbatten, who implemented it. But Mountbatten proved to be guilty of a major blunder.” [page 8]

However, according to the module Congress was primarily responsible for Partition because in 1947 “for the first time Indian leaders themselves willingly handed over vast part of the country permanently outside the national fold-along with tens of crores of its citizens-without even their consent. This was a unique event in human history, when a nation’s own leaders, without a war, peacefully and in closed meetings, suddenly severed crores of their people from the country”. [page 10]

When the present bosses at NCERT trained in RSS ‘boudhik shivirs’ (ideological orientation camps) blame Congress for Partition it is the pot calling the kettle black. It is a highly questionable claim which even facts mentioned in the module do not corroborate. We are told, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel called it “bitter medicine,” while Jawaharlal Nehru described it as “bad” but “unavoidable” [page 5]. Elsewhere, the module reads: “Nehru and Patel accepted Partition to avert civil war and anarchy. Once they did, Gandhi too gave up his opposition”. [page 8] It is interesting to note that for concurring to Partition both wavering Nehru and Iron Man Patel are depicted on the same page!

If the authors of NCERT module had cared to read history honestly, Rammanohar Lohia, a renowned freedom fighter and Socialist leader, the truth would not have been crucified. He was unambiguous in holding that the Hindu communalist who shouted loudest for Akhand or united Bharat, “helped Britain and the Muslim League partition the country…They did nothing whatever, to bring the Muslim close to the Hindu within a single nation. They did almost everything to estrange them from each other. Such estrangement is the root cause of partition.”

[Lohia, Rammanohar, Guilty Men of India’s Partition, BR Publishing, Delhi, 2012, p. 2.]

Falsehood 4: British Rulers Did Not Want Partition

The module reflects the combined Hindu Mahasabha and RSS dilemma of how to navigate the issue of their loyalty to the colonial masters in independent India. Though it declares “Mountbatten proved to be guilty of a major blunder”, the defence of this monster is not far away. Giving him a character certificate, the document goes to declare that “he was not the cause of it” [page 8] Instead of presenting testimonies of the victims (of all religions) of Partition which are available in abundance, the module presents indefensible defence of Mountbatten. It prominently displays the following statement of his: “I did not Partition India. The plan for partition had been accepted by the Indian leaders themselves. My role was to execute it in the most peaceful way possible…I accept the blame for haste…But I do not accept the blame for the violence which followed. That was the responsibility of Indians themselves”. [page 6]”

The document brazenly attempts to belittle the role of British colonial rulers in partitioning India as part of its imperialist project. It is bone chilling to read that it “had long been the known position of the British government that it was against Partition, Congress leaders underestimated Jinnah. Also, Viceroy Lord Wavell repeatedly made it clear, ever since 1940 up to March 1947, that Partition would not resolve the Hindu-Muslim problem. It would only lead to mass violence, administrative collapse, and long-term hostility. His words proved prophetic”. [page 10] There could not have been more shameless defence of colonial masters’ project of ‘Divide and Rule’.

Shockingly, NCERT, appears to be working overtime to de-colonize Indian education resorts to a hardened Anglophile, Nirad C. Chaudhuri in support of the lie that British did not want Partition. Nirad’s quote reads: “I assert with confidence that not even at the end of 1946 did anybody in India believe in the possibility of a partition in the country…The Hindus and the British alike foreswore the principle of unity of India which they had always professed.”

The authors of this document, in fact, borrowed defence of the British rulers from Golwalkar. The most prominent ideologue of RSS did not believe that colonial rule was an injustice or unnatural. In a speech on 8 June 1942, at a time when freedom struggle was rearing to rise to the call of the Quit India movement, Golwalkar declared:

“[the] Sangh does not want to blame anybody else for the present degraded state of the society. When the people start blaming others, then there is weakness in them. It is futile to blame the strong for the injustice done to the weak … [The] Sangh does not want to waste its invaluable time in abusing or criticizing others. If we know that large fish eat the smaller ones, it is outright madness to blame the big fish. Law of nature, whether good or bad, is true all the time. This rule does not change by terming it unjust.”

[Golwalkar, M. S., Shri Guruji Samagr Darshan [Collected Works of Golwalkar in Hindi] vol. 1 (Nagpur: Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, 1974), pp. 11-12.]

Soft on culpability of Sir Cyril Radcliff

Authors of the module appear as apologists for the crimes of Sir Cyril Radcliff who supervised the land division between India and Pakistan. Radcliff was the person who caused additional blood bath as maps of both the countries were not available even after two days of Partition. The module rightly stated that

“The demarcation of borders was hastily done. Sir Cyril Radcliff was given only five weeks to draw the boundaries. In Punjab, even two days after 15 August 1947, millions of people did not know whether they were in India or in Pakistan…This recklessness and disregard for the fate of crores of people, and all critical matters was a grave act of negligence”. [pages 8-9]

NCERT shies away from censuring him and decided to print his photograph with the following apology of his: “I had no alternative, the time at my disposal was so short that I could not do a better job. I was given a job to do and I did my best, though it may not have been very good.” [page 10]

Falsehood 5: Silence on Partition violence by RSS

The module gives details of horrendous communal violence during Partition. “Nearly1.5 crores were forced to cross the new borders…Communal hostility spread between India’s major religious communities…Another horrifying aspect was the large-scale sexual violence against women and girls. In many places, women jumped into wells to protect themselves”. [page 2]

We know that Muslim National Guards (MNG) created by Muslim League as storm-troopers to maim and kill the opponents played a nefarious role in the partition violence, but they were not the only one. Sardar Patel, the first home minister of independent India in a letter to Golwalkar who was then Supremo of RSS, dated 11 September 1948 corroborated the fact that RSS also had killer gangs. He stated: “Organizing the Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing…It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji.”

Cited in Justice on Trial, RSS, Bangalore, 1962, pp.26-28.

Truth: It was an AXIS OF HINDU MAHASABHA-RSS-JINNAH which got India Partitioned

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, a peerless researcher of the communal politics in pre-independence India, underlying the close affinity and camaraderie between Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League on the issue of the Two-nation theory wrote:

“Strange it may appear, Mr. Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue are in complete agreement about it. Both agree, not only agree but insist that there are two nations in India—one the Muslim nation and the other Hindu nation.”[i] 

[Ambedkar, B. R., Pakistan or the Partition of India, Govt. of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1990 [Reprint of 1940 edition], p. 142.]

Ambedkar agonized by the evil designs of Savarkar regarding the Two-nation theory and Hindutva rhetoric over it, wrote, as early as 1940, that,

“Hindu nation will be enabled to occupy a predominant position that is due to it and the Muslim nation made to live in the position of subordinate co-operation with the Hindu nation”. [Ibid., 143.]

The Hindutva lies about Partition of India presented as facts in Partition Horrors would not have been otherwise as the whole project is supervised by a specialist who specializes in historical negationism (denying the truths of the past which simultaneously means presenting false history), Michel Danino, an Indian writer of French origin. He secured Indian citizenship only in 2003. Modi government conferred on him Padma Shri award, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, in 2017.  He is a vocal supporter of Hindutva who enjoys, “[historical] controversies in a kind of perverse way”. [https://indianexpress.com/article/education/academia-margins-to-ncert-row-french-born-scholars-tryst-with-indias-past-10197438/] He is there to undo history and, in the process, undoing the glorious history of making of democratic-secular-egalitarian India. The irony is that it is happening in PM Modi declared Immortality Period (Amrit Kal) of the nation!

Related:

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NCERT drops Preamble of the Constitution from Class III and VI textbooks

The post NCERT’s ‘Partition Horrors’: A brazen exercise in white-washing the ‘crimes’ of the Hindu Mahasabha & RSS appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Patriotic Indians must not forget that majoritarian far right rulers are using the Indian Tricolour to camouflage their questionable, anti-national project of converting democratic-secular-egalitarian polity of India into a theocratic Hindu state. It is not difficult to understand their ultimate motive or “real project” if we go back in history to when India attained Independence from colonial rule.

On the very eve of independence, the English organ of the RSS, Organiser, in its issue dated August 14, 1947, expressed brazen hatred against our Tricolour in the following words:

“The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”

Even after independence it was the far right, RSS which refused to accept it as the National Flag. Golwalkar while denouncing the choice of Tricolour as National Flag in an essay titled ‘Drifting and Drifting’ [penned around 1970 which appeared in Bunch of Thoughts, collection of writings of Golwalkar], wrote:

“Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating….Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these” thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds?

[Golwalkar, M.S., Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore (RSS publication), 1996,    pp. 237-238.]

So the RSS hatred for Tricolour has been, is perennial. If it was denigrated on the eve of Independence, this Guru of the Hindutva gang continued spreading venom against it even after many decades. RSS has never withdrawn this anti-national article, it is available in the latest edition of Bunch of Thoughts printed in 2022.

RSS despite the use of all dirty tricks against Indian polity has not been able to turn patriotic Indians against this symbol of joint sacrifices and struggle. RSS as master demagogue and fraudster is using the Tricolour till the time Indians fall prey to its anti-national game of undoing democratic-secular-egalitarian polity of India.

On a more serious vein, on Saturday August 16, 2025, this tweet (on X) from Maharashtra has so far not elicited any criminal action from the police. Denigrating the national flag is a felony under Indian law.

Take a closer look at the White colour, it is evident that SOMEONE HAS STEPPED ON THE NATIONAL FLAG pic.twitter.com/PJHOrTBjeN

— Raju Parulekar (@rajuparulekar) August 16, 2025

Related:

100 yrs of RSS as seen by global media house: Power, controversy, push for Hindu-first India

The RSS Doublespeak: Bhagwa for Itself, Tricolour for the ‘Others’

Did Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mukherjee and RSS betray the Quit India Movement?

The post Indian tricolour & the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh appeared first on SabrangIndia.