जाति और दलितों पर संघ परिवार और उसके समर्थकों के नजरिये को समझने कि लिए इस हिंदूवादी कट्टरपंथी संगठन के शीर्ष पुरुष गुरु गोलवलकर के बंच ऑफ थॉट्स (हिंदी में विचार गुच्छ) को पढ़ना बेहद जरूरी है।

बीजेपी और संघ को राह दिखाने वाली विचारधारा की इतिहास में पड़ताल की जाए तो इस पर ब्राह्मणवादी वर्चस्व का असर साफ दिख जाएगा।

प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने अपने रेडियो कार्यक्रम मन की बात में जैसे ही उना की घटना की निंदा की वैसे ही राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ ने भी दलितों की बर्बर पिटाई की इस घटना की आलोचना कर डाली। लगभग एक ही वक्त इस घटना की निंदा किए जाने से उनके नजरिये का खोखलापन खुल कर सामने आ गया है।

गुजरात में दलितों पर हमला 11 जुलाई को हुआ था और प्रधानमंत्री ने 6 अगस्त को इस पर अपना मुंह खोला। संघ और प्रधानमंत्री दोनों की ओर से लगभग एक महीने बाद इस पर बयान जारी किया।  

दलितों पर हमले को लेकर संघ की यह कथित गंभीरता कितनी खरी है यह इसी बात से उजागर हो जाती है कि अपने बयान के साथ उसने यह भी जोड़ा कि प्रधानमंत्री को 80 फीसदी गोरक्षकों को फर्जी नहीं कहना चाहिए था। इस बात पर भी गौर करना चाहिए कि आरएसएस के सहयोगी संगठन विश्व हिंदू परिषद ने इस मामले पर चुप रहना ही ठीक समझा, वहीं दूसरे सहयोगी संगठन बजरंग दल ने ट्वीट किया- गर्व से कहो हम गोरक्षक हैं। उनके जाने-माने नारे गर्व से कहो हम हिंदू हैं की पैरोडी।

गर्व से कहो हम हिंदू है का नारा 1990 के दशक में बाबरी मस्जिद को गिराने के लिए हथियारबंद होने की अपील थी।

बहरहाल, यह सवाल पूछना लाजिम है कि क्या संघ और बीजेपी सचमुच दलितों पर हो रहे अत्याचारों पर गंभीर हैं। इसका जवाब जानने के लिए अगर हम इतिहास में थोड़ा पीछे जाकर संघ और बीजेपी की मार्गदर्शक विचारधारा की पड़ताल करें तो पाएंगे तो इन पर ब्राह्मणवादी विचारधारा का कितना वर्चस्व है। यह सवाल पूछा जाना चाहिए कि संघ का नेतृत्व सिर्फ ऊंची जातियों के हाथों में क्यों रहा है।

मौजूदा संघ प्रमुख मोहन भागवत के साथ-साथ संघ के सभी सर्वोच्च नेता ब्राह्मण क्यों रहे हैं। हां, इनमें राजेंद्र सिंह जरूर शामिल थे। लेकिन वे भी ऊंची जाति के यानी ठाकुर थे। संघ ने हमेशा वर्णाश्रम व्यवस्था में विश्वास किया है, जो हिंदू जाति को चार वर्गों में बांटने में विश्वास करती है।

संघ के दूसरे प्रमुख रहे गोलवलकर ने वर्णाश्रम व्यवस्था का जोरदार ढंग से समर्थन किया था। उन्होंने विभिन्न जातियों की ओर अपनाए गए पेशों को निःस्वार्थ सेवा कहा था। जाति भेद को उन्होंने ब्रिटिश शासन का नतीजा माना था- बंच ऑफ थॉट्स में वह लिखते हैं-
समाज में यह जो ऊंच और नीच जैसी असमानता का भाव वर्णाश्रम व्यवस्था में घर कर गया है, वह हाल बात है। अंग्रेजों ने इसमें और जहर घोला है। बांटो और राज करो की अपनी नीति के तहत अंग्रेजों ने इस जाति भेद को बढ़ावा दिया है। लेकिन वर्णाश्रम व्यवस्था में मूल रूप से कोई भेदभाव नहीं है। वास्तव में गीता में तो यह कहा गया है कि जो व्यक्ति अपना निर्धारित काम (जो उसे सुपुर्द किया गया है) निस्वार्थ भावना से करता है, वह ऐसा करके ईश्वर की पूजा करता है ( बंच ऑफ थॉट्स – वन्स द ग्लोरी – पेज-98)।

कथित निचली जातियों पर अत्याचारों पर बोलने के बावजूद आरएसएस इस किताब की हजारों प्रतियां छापता है और इसकी एक-एक लाइन का पालन करता है।

संघ परिवार का यह दोमुंहापन इसी से जाहिर हो जाता है कि एक तरफ तो यह मनुस्मृति को अपना सबसे पवित्र धर्मग्रंथ मानता है तो दूसरी ओर जाति भेद मिटाने की बात करता है।   

मनुस्मृति के प्रति उसके प्रेम को अगर देखना हो तो उस दौर में जाना होगा, जब संविधान को अंतिम रूप दिया जा रहा था।

यहां इन पंक्तियों पर गौर करें-  आज भी उनके कानून (मनुस्मृति में वर्णित) को दुनिया भर में सम्मान की निगाह से देखा जाता है। कई जगह उनके कानून का अनुपालन होता है लेकिन संविधान के हमारे पंडितों के लिए ये कुछ भी नहीं हैं।  (एपांयर एंड नियोलिबरलिज्म इन एशिया, पेज 252 पर ऑर्गेनाइजर के हवाले से दिया गया उद्धरण)।

इस संदर्भ में मनुस्मृति का जिक्र जरूरी है क्योंकि यही वह ग्रंथ है, जिसने अन्यायपूर्ण जाति व्यवस्था की नींव रखी है। इसी ग्रंथ ने हरेक जाति के लिए काम निर्धारित किए हैं- ब्राह्मणों के लिए मनु ने पढ़ाने और वेद पढ़ने का काम निर्धारित किया। अपने लिए और दूसरों के लिए बलि देने और दान लेने-देने का काम सौंपा। क्षत्रियों को मनु ने लोगों की रक्षा करने, दान देने, वेद पढ़ने, बलि देने और सांसारिक आनंद से दूर रहने को कहा है। वैश्यों को पशुपालन, दान देने, वेद पढ़ने, व्यापार करने और पैसों का लेनदेन और खेती करने को कहा गया। शूद्रों को सिर्फ एक काम दिया और वह यह कि वह चुपचाप बगैर कष्ट जाहिर किए इन तीनों वर्णों के लोगों की सेवा करे। ( द लॉज ऑफ मनु, अनु. -जी.व्हलर पृष्ठ संख्या -3)।

आरएसएस के गुरुजी (गोलवलकर) ने अपने ग्रंथों में मनु को बड़े ही श्रद्धा भाव से भगवान कहा है और उसे महान कानून निर्माता कहा है। उन्होंने मनु को सबसे बड़ा विधि निर्माता कहा और ब्राह्मणों का वर्चस्व स्थापित करने के लिए कई जगहों पर उसका जिक्र किया है-
यह वास्तविकता है कि मनु ने अपने कानूनो को तैयार करने के समय सभी लोगों का आह्वान किया और कहा कि वे आएं और इस संसार में सबसे पहले ब्राह्मणों के चरणों में बैठ कर अपने कर्तव्यों की जानकारी ली। (वी अवर नेशनहुड डिफाइंड, पेज 117) ।

मनुस्मृति ही वह ग्रंथ है, जिसने निचली जातियों के लिए शारीरिक दंड निर्धारित किए हैं। वीएचपी की ओर से समर्थित गोरक्षक दल इसी ब्राह्मणवादी व्यवस्था को लागू करना चाहते हैं। उना, लातेहार, दादरी और हाल में आंध्रप्रदेश की घटनाएं इसका उदाहरण हैं।

मनुस्मृति में कहा गया है-
 ब्राह्मण की गाय चुराने, बांझ गाय के नथुनों में नकेल डालने और ब्राह्मणों की मवेशियों को चुराने वालों का पैर घुटने से काट दिया जाए। (  द लॉज ऑफ मनु, अनु. -जी.व्हलर पृष्ठ संख्या -53)

संघ परिवार दलितों पर होने वाले अत्याचारों में हमेशा विदेशी हाथ देखता आया है। आजादी के बाद ज्यादातर अत्याचार की इन घटनाओं को इसने मीडिया की करतूत करार दिया है। प्लेइंग द ओल्ड गेम शीर्षक से लिखे अपने अध्याय में गोलवलकर कहते हैं-

 अपने कड़वे अनुभव से हमें यह अहसास है कि अंग्रेजों ने किस तरह एक जाति को दूसरी जाति और एक पंथ को दूसरे पंथ के साथ लड़ाया। उदाहरण के लिए उन्होंने ब्राह्मणों और गैर ब्राह्मणों में लड़ाई करवाई और फूट डालो और राज करो की नीति सफलतापूर्वक लागू की। जबकि हमारे लोग यहां तक तक कि तथाकथित नेता तक इसका शिकार बनते गए। हमें अंग्रेजों की इस साजिश से सबक सीखना चाहिए और अपनी धरती पर विदेशी ताकत या उनके एजेंटों की ऐसी किसी भी साजिश से सावधान रहना चाहिए ( बंच ऑफ थॉट्स) ।

अगर हम दलितों के खिलाफ हिंसा की इन घटनाओं को छोड़ दें तो भी संघ परिवार ने हमेशा से हिंसा के अपने सिद्धांत पर विश्वास किया है। मनुस्मृति में साफ कहा गया है कि राष्ट्र की श्रेष्ठता प्रमाणित करने के लिए हिंसा ही एक मात्र औजार है। संघ ने अपनी इस समझ को बार-बार देश के अंदर लागू किया है। जब भी इस्लामी आतंकवाद पर कोई चर्चा होती है तो इस दक्षिपंथी संगठन को इसे खत्म करने के लिए हिंसा ही एक मात्र रास्ता नजर आता है। कर्नल पुरोहित, असीमानंद और साध्वी प्रज्ञा जैसे कई संघ कार्यकर्ता आतंकी वारदातों को अंजाम देने के आरोपी रहे हैं। हां, यह अलग बात है कि संघ इन वारदातों में इनके शामिल होने के आरोपों को सिरे से नकारता रहा है। लेकिन हिंसा एक आदर्श के तौर पर संघ की विचारधारा में गहरे समाया हुआ है।

गोलवलकर ने बंच ऑफ थॉट्स में कथित तौर पर शांति स्थापना के लिए हिंसा अपनाने पर भी चर्चा की है। इसमें कहा गया है-
हमारा अतीत शौर्य और नायकत्व के मानक स्थापित करने का रहा है। हमारे देश में एक से एक सेनापति और विजेता हुए हैं, जिन्हें पूरी दुनिया जानती है। इन सेनापतियों और विजेताओं ने धर्म की स्थापना के लिए एक से एक भयंकर युद्ध लड़े।

संविधान से आरएसएस की असहमति जगजाहिर है। देश में आरक्षण की नीति की समीक्षा की मांग में इसकी छाप देखी जा सकती है। आरएसएस और बीजेपी दोनों ने ओबीसी को प्रतिनिधित्व देने के लिए की गई मंडल आयोग की सिफारिशों का विरोध किया था।
 
लिहाजा अब यह सवाल उठता है कि अचानक आरएसएस या बीजेपी में यह दलित प्रेम कहां से उमड़ आया। इसका एक मात्र जवाब है- उत्तर प्रदेश में होने वाले विधानसभा चुनाव। अगर भाजपा यूपी में चुनाव हारती है तो यह राज्य सभा में बहुमत हासिल नहीं कर पाएगी। ऐसा हुआ तो  मोदी के अच्छे दिनों के नारे का गुब्बारा फट जाएगा।

यूपी में दलितों की आबादी  20.5 फीसदी है। यह आबादी पारंपरिक तौर पर बहुजन समाज पार्टी को वोट देती है। 2014 के लोकसभा चुनाव में 66 आरक्षित सीटों में से बीजेपी ने 40 सीटें जीती थी। उत्तर प्रदेश की सभी 17 आरक्षित सीटों पर बीजेपी ने जीत हासिल की थी।

केंद्र में मोदी सरकार के आने के बाद दलितों के खिलाफ अत्याचार के मामले बढ़े हैं लेकिन सरकार की ओर से इसे रोकने की पहल ढुलमुल ही रही है। लिहाजा दलितों के बीच मोदी और उनकी सरकार की छवि धक्का लगा है।

हैदराबाद में रोहित वेमुला की आत्महत्या, ऊना कांड और मायावती पर व्यक्तिगत हमला और संघ की ओर से आरक्षण की समीक्षा की मांग ने यूपी में बीजेपी की स्थिति कमजोर कर दी है। बीजेपी और संघ, दोनों अब दलितों का गुस्सा शांत करने की जीतोड़ कोशिश में लगे हैं। लेकिन इस तथ्य को भूलना नहीं चाहिए कि संघ और बीजेपी की विचारधारा में दलित विरोध गहरे समाया हुआ है।

साभार  – न्यूजक्लिक

(इस लेख में हल्का संपादन किया गया है ताकि संक्षिप्त शब्दों को पूरा लिखा जा सके या इसका मतलब समझाया जा सके )
 

The post दलितों पर संघ के दोमुंहेपन की पोल खोलता बंच ऑफ थॉट्स appeared first on SabrangIndia.

All this rests on a basis that is obvious unstated by the BJP. But its ideologue V.D. Savarkar spelt it out boldly. It is that Hindus constitute a separate “nation”. Hindutva is another name for the two-nation theory — a “Hindu nation”, as distinct from other Indians, over whom it rules to promote “Hindu interests”. Savarkar was also the author of both Hindutva and the two-nation theory. 

This is the very basis that underlies Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s insidious ventures. A secular Constitution is being silently chipped away by executive acts to establish a Hindu Raj. The shell will remain. The kernel will be gone. Its architect, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, would have fought against it. So must we — Indians who reject the two-nation theory and value our secular credo.

If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.” (Dr B.R. Ambedkar; Pakistan or the Partition of India, 354-55.)

Image courtesy http://www.columbia.edu

With an eye to the Assembly elections, the BJP has once again launched a menacing campaign for the establishment of Hindu Raj in India and thus effectuate V.D. Savarkar’s concept of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, in short. The opening salvo was fired by its president, Amit Shah. But it was left to Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, to let the cat out of the bag when, on March 26, 2016, he lauded “the nationalism of Savarkar”: “This is a huge challenge for us. This is a big ideological challenge. We should consider this an ideological battle” (Hindustan Times, March 27, 2016). Why now, nearly two years after the BJP regime came to power? The answer is obvious. Having concealed the Hindutva card cleverly and touted “development” instead in 2014, the BJP has now reverted to its original faith and to its mentor, Savarkar, author of Hindutva: Who is a Hindu. He was judicially indicted by Justice J.L. Kapur of the Supreme Court as a participant in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi.

On February 8 this year, Amit Shah acknowledged with pride that Modi “has been working to the true traditions andculture of this country and this is a proud moment for Hinduism (Sanatan dharma)”. By performing aarti at Kashi, Modi had aroused hopes in the hearts of millions of people that he would protect “our” culture. The context lends added significance. He was speaking at Vrindavan after visiting the Banke Bihari Mandir “to seek blessings” and inaugurating the Priya Kantju temple. The Times of India’s correspondent Anuja Jaiswal, who reported the speech (February 9), correctly sized up what Shah was up to:

Setting the tone and tenor for the BJP’s ‘Mission UP 2017’, the party’s president, Amit Shah, played the Hindutva card by portraying Narendra Modi as a true Hindu nationalist… whose idea of governance was not limited only to material (bhautik) development of the country but also spiritual (adhyatmik).

One has reason for disquiet when men in power profess to look after the people’s spiritual needs (emphasis added, throughout).
The plans had evidently been made earlier. The incident at the Jawaharlal Nehru University on February 9 came in handy, as did the Member of Parliament, Asaduddin Owaisi’s justified refusal to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. The symbolism of the Mother in Hindutva’s credo deserves greater notice than it has received so far.

Secularism has ever been an integral part of Indian nationalism ever since the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. These swadeshi McCarthyites prescribe their own loyalty oaths to the rest of the countrymen. Joseph McCarthy did not wield governmental power. His Swadeshi followers are in the driving seat of power. He did not pretend religious sanction. They do. It is one thing to refer to one’s country as a motherland in common parlance; another as Mother (with a capital M). The former is an object of love and loyalty. The latter is an object of worship. Politics merges with religion.

When, on March 17, 2016, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale declared that “anyone who refuses to say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ is anti-national for us”, he was proclaiming the Sangh Parivar’s version of nationalism; namely Hindu, not Indian, nationalism.

Two days later, Amit Shah raised the pitch. The BJP “will not” tolerate “criticism [sic] of the nation”; “will not tolerate criticism of the country”. Besides “anti-national activity cannot be justified on the plea of freedom of expression” (Asian Age, March 20). How will the BJP and the RSS express their refusal to “tolerate”? By acts of violence? Whatever constitutes “criticism” of the country or the nation as distinct from that of the state’s acts and policies? Clearly, the Sangh Parivar sets itself up as an umpire of what constitutes “anti-national” activity, very much as Joseph McCarthy took it upon himself to decide what constituted “Un-American” activity.

The BJP’s assertion of right and power is a menace to democracy. No one has a right to take the law in his own hands, define the offence by himself and exert himself to express his refusal to “tolerate” it. Even the state cannot wield executive power without the sanction of the law laid down by the legislature.

But Amit Shah is not deterred by legalities. “BJP workers should launch a campaign against anti-national activitiesacross the country,” he said on March 19 (DNA, March 20). The BJP’s national executive went one better with an even vaguer resolution on March 20 (“will firmly oppose any attempt to disrespect Bharat [sic]” (The Hindu, March 21).

To Jaitley the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” was above debate. “The ideology of nationalism guides own beliefs and philosophy” (Hindustan Times, March 21). Confusion of thought is coupled with clumsiness of expression. Nationalism is a concept, not an “ideology”. What part of the BJP’s “philosophy” does it guide? But, of course, Jaitley’s nationalism is Hindutva, not Indian nationalism. 

During this entire debate Modi never spoke up, not even when intolerance began to rage over the land. He has his Dev Kant Barooahs. If on February 8 Amit Shah praised him to the skies, on March 20, Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu called him “God’s gift to India”, citing two clinching bits of evidence — his wax statute at Madame Tussauds museum in London and a place on Time magazine’s list of 100 most important persons in 2015 with a deserved elevation this year to the top 30 (Hindustan Times, March 21).

Coming as it does from a man of such high sophistication as Venkaiah Naidu, the testimonial acquires great weight. Not long ago, he had called L.K. Advani Loha Purush (iron man), and A.B. Vajpayee a distant second Vikas Purush(development man). He can be trusted to shower equally offensive encomiums on Modi’s successor, should the wheel of his fortune turn for the worse. Modi’s Cabinet is stuffed with persons of impressive sophistication such as Uma Bharati, Smriti Irani and Ravi Shankar Prasad.

It is unlikely that such praise by Amit Shah or Venkaiah Naidu offends Modi. The 18th century English poet Alexander Pope’s immortal lines fit him to perfection in "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot": 

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,            
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,    
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,    
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;    
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,    
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;    
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,    
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;    
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,    
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;    
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,    
And so obliging that he ne’er obliged;    
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,    
And sit attentive to his own applause    

Modi’s silence
The Economist foresaw this trend five months ago. The BJP had “made a naked appeal to Hindu unity. Mr. Modi himself intervened to hint that its opponents were planning to take affirmative action privileges away from lower-caste Hindus in favour of Muslims.

The BJP’s election victory last year was attributed to its promise of competence and good governance. It persuaded enough voters that the Hindu-nationalist part of its agenda and the shadow over Mr Modi’s past — allegations of his complicity in anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002 — were marginal. Now many worry that Hindu nationalism is a pillar of Mr. Modi’s vision after all. During its previous stint in power the BJP ruled with a parliamentary minority and had to ditch some of its Hindu aims, such as a federal ban on cow slaughter. Now, although it has a majority on its own, with a coalition as an optional extra, many hoped its emphasis on economic progress would nevertheless serve as a constraint.

Mr Modi’s willingness to play communal politics in Bihar, and his failure to take a firm stand against those perpetrating crimes in the name of Hinduism, cast doubt on that. Perhaps, with his eye already on re-election at the end of his term by 2019, he feels that he cannot alienate the BJP’s Hindu activists, who are an essential part of his support and electoral machine. This is a disturbing notion, implying that defeat as well as victory in Bihar might make Mr. Modi more beholden to the extremists. Worse, however, is the thought that perhaps he agrees with them” (November 7, 2015).

The assault on an Indo-Canadian, Supinder Singh Khehra, in Quebec City in the last weekend of March by four men drew instant condemnation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was then in the United States. He said that such “hateful acts” had “no place in Canada.

We stand clearly against the kind of discrimination and intolerance that it represents” (Hindustan Times, April 3, 2016). Modi’s silence on graver outrages against the minorities in the country reveals him in his true colours. It is the duty of the Prime Minister of a country to condemn outrages against the minorities. He sets the tone and conveys a message. The British Prime Minister David Cameron does so repeatedly as a matter of course. Modi prefers to convey by his silence a different message to his followers. The BJP’s leaders’ ravings about “nationalism” and “anti-nationalism” serve only to invite attention to their own cover-up. The Hindutva which they so ardently believe in is only a wrapping for the two-nation theory. Both were espoused by the same man, their hero — Savarkar. He had inherited a poisoned legacy and injected his own added poison.

Lajpat Rai’s Ideas
In 1899, Lajpat Rai published an article in Hindustan Review in which he declared that “Hindus are a nation in themselves, because they represent a civilisation all their own”. This was not a new idea even then. Lajpat Rai was directly influenced by a conception of Hindu nationalism in the aftermath of the “purification” of Hinduism by the Arya Samaj. In 1902, Lajpat Rai entered into a debate in the pages of Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar with an anonymous “Hindu Nationalist” and Pandit Madhao Ram, about the basis for initiating a discussion on Hindu nationalism.

“In several key passages of his response, Lajpat Rai expressed a series of gestatory ideas, many of which were to find their way virtually unchanged in Savarkar’s definitive Hindutva” (Chetan Bhatt, Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths, 50). In 1917 he proclaimed that he was “a Hindu nationalist”. 

In 1923, Lajpat Rai argued that Muslims should have four States (the Pathan Province, western Punjab, the Sind and eastern Bengal). But he added: “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.” Lajpat Rai is credited with being “the first major leader of the national movement to propose the theory of two exclusive nations in India and is said to have proposed this from the late nineteenth century” (ibid., page 73).

Dr Ambedkar quoted another Sangh Parivar luminary, Lala Hardayal’s statement in Pratap of Lahore in 1925, which he called his political testament. 

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 Moslems, 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 the Hindu race will be impossible. The Hindu race has but one history, and its institutions are homogeneous. But the Musalmans and Christians are far removed from the confines of Hindustan, for their religions are alien and they love Persian, Arab and European institutions (Pakistan or Partition of India, 117).

As president of the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar repeatedly espoused the two-nation theory well before M.A. Jinnah did. It flowed logically from his Hindutva, in which Hindus alone constituted a nation. At the Mahasabha’s annual session in Ahmedabad in 1937, he said, 
Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation or that it could be welded for the mere wish to do so. These, our well-meaning but unthinking friends, take their dreams for realities… 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 these are two nations in the main, the Hindus and the Muslims in India (ibid, 131). 

He said later in 1939: “We Hindus are marked out as an abiding Nation by ourselves.” It must shun “territorial nationalism” which implies that all who are born in India belong to the Indian nation. He opts for “cultural nationalism” — only they are nationalists who subscribe to Hindu “culture” (read: religion). This is the “cultural nationalism” which Savarkar propounded. Golwalkar supported it, as did L.K. Advani and the BJP’s election manifestos. Are those people Indian nationalists or Hindu nationalists?

Savarkar urged: 
Let us Hindu Sanghathnists first correct the original mistake, the original political sin which our Hindu Congressites most unwillingly committed at the beginning of the Indian National Congress movement and are persistently committing still of running after the mirage of a territorial Indian Nation and of seeking to kill as an impediment in that fruitless pursuit the life growth of an organic Hindu Nation. (L.G. Khare (Ed.); Hindu Rashtra Darshan, 63)

Golwalkar’s theory
Savarkar’s ideology is writ large in Golwalkar’s book We or Our Nationhood Defined (1938). The book was cited in a formal legal document filed in 1978 before the District Judge of Nagpur by the RSS as an organisation. In a speech in Mumbai on May 15, 1963, Golwalkar said that “he found the principles of nationalism scientifically explained in Savarkar’s great work Hindutva. To him it was a textbook, a scientific book”. He publicly acknowledged his debt to the book Rashtra Meemansa by Savarkar’s elder brother Babarao (G.D.) Savarkar. Golwalkar’s own Bunch of Thoughtsreflects a deep impress of Savarkar’s Hindutva.

In his essay of 1939, "We or Our Nationhood Defined", Golwalkar gave free rein to his emulation of Savarkar. He wrote: 
Guided by this Religion in all walks of life, individual, social, political, the Race evolved a culture, which despite the degenerating contact with the debased ‘civilisations’ of the Mussalmans and the Europeans, for the last ten centuries, is still the noblest in the world.

He elaborated: 
Applying the modern understanding of ‘Nation’ to our present conditions, the conclusion is unquestionably forced upon us that in this country, Hindusthan, the Hindu Race with its Hindu Religion, Hindu Culture and Hindu Language, (the natural family of Sanskrit and her offsprings) complete the Nation concept; that, in fine, in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu Nation. All those not belonging to the national i.e. Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real ‘National’ life.

We repeat; in Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation — satisfying all the five essential requirements of the scientific nation concept of the modern world. Consequently only those movements are truly ‘National’ as aim at re-building, re-vitalising and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Notion. Those only are nationalist patriots, who, with the aspiration to glorify the Hindus race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are either traitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots. (43-44)

His bluntness of speech was much admired by his followers. Read this: 

There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities problem. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the Nation safe from the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic of the creation of a state within the state. From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen’s rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country. (47-48) 

This is the ideology that inspires the Ghar Wapsi programme. 

Rejecting “territorial nationalism”, Golwalkar said that the "amazing theory was propounded that the Nation is composed of all those who, for one reason or the other, happen to live at the time in the country":

… But as we have seen we Hindus have been living, thousands of years, a full National life in Hindusthan. How can we be ‘communal’ having, as we do, no other interests but those relating to our Country, our Nation?… Let us rouse ourselves to our true nationality, let us follow the lead of our race-spirit, and fill the heavens with the clarion call of the Vedic seers ‘from sea to sea over all the land — One Nation’, one glorious, splendorous Hindu Nation benignly shedding peace and plenty over the whole world. (59, 63 and 67)

Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts (1968) was avidly devoured by the Parivar’s men and ran into several impressions. It is to the Sangh Parivar what Hitler’s Mein Kampf was to the Nazis. The chapter headings reveal the author’s mindset — “Territorial Nationalism” (which he rejects); “Internal Threats”, which are “the Muslims, the Christians” and “the Communists”. 

These gems reflect Golwalkar’s brilliance:

In fact, we are Hindus even before we emerge from the womb of our mother. We are therefore born as Hindus. About the others, they are born to this world as simple unnamed human beings and later on, either circumcised or baptised, they become Muslims or Christians…
Everybody knows that only a handful of Muslims came here as enemies and invaders. So also only a few foreign Christian missionaries came here. Now the Muslims and Christians have enormously grown in number. They did not grow just by multiplication as in the case of fishes.

They converted the local population. We can trace our ancestry to a common source, from where one portion was taken away from the Hindu fold and became Muslim and another became Christian. The rest could not be converted and they have remained as Hindus…
It is our duty to call these our forlorn brothers, suffering under religious slavery for centuries, back to their ancestral home. As honest freedom-loving men, let them overthrow all signs of slavery and domination and follow the ancestral ways of devotion and national life. All types of slavery are repugnant to our nature and should be given up. This is a call for all those brothers to take their original place in our national life.

And let us all celebrate a great Diwali on the return of those prodigal sons of our society. There is no compulsion here. This is only a call and request to them to understand things properly and come back and identify themselves with their ancestral Hindu way of life in dress, customs, performing marriage ceremonies and funeral rites and such other things. (130-131).

By now we know the name for this. It is “Operation Ghar Wapsi”:

Here was already a full-fledged ancient nation of the Hindus and the various communities which were living in the country were here either as guests, the Jews and Parsis, or as invaders, the Muslims and Christians. They never faced the question how all such heterogeneous groups could be called as children of the soil merely because, by an accident, they happened to reside in a common territory under the rule of a common enemy…

The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis for our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the ‘freedom movements’ virtually anti-British movements. Anti-Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom struggle, its leaders and the common people. (142-143)

…Then came the question of Muslims. They had come here as invaders. They were conceiving themselves as conquerors and rulers here for the last twelve hundred years. That complex was still in their mind. History has recorded that their antagonism was not merely political. Had it been so, they could have been won over in a very short time. But it was so deep-rooted that whatever we believed in, the Muslim was wholly hostile to it. If we worship in the temple, he would desecrate it. If we carry on bhajans and car festivals, that would irritate him. If we worship cow, he would like to eat it. If we glorify woman as a symbol of sacred motherhood, he would like to molest her. He was tooth and nail opposed to our way of life in all aspects — religious, cultural, social, etc. He had imbibed that hostility to the very core. (147-148) 

Those “twelve hundred years” are exactly what Modi talked about in his first speech to the Lok Sabha as Prime Minister.

“The name ‘India’ given by the British was accepted. Taking that name, the ‘new nation’ was called the ‘Indian Nation’.And the Hindu was asked to rename himself as ‘Indian’” (150). This is the “nationalism” that Savarkar, Golwalkar and the BJP espouse — not Indian nationalism. In 1969, the BJP’s ancestor, the Jana Sangh, revived the cry in the name of “Indianisation”. A resolution passed at its Patna Session on December 30, 1969, exhorted: 

Every effort should be made to revive and strengthen the sense of nationalism which is the sum total of cohesive forces in any country. This requires a clear understanding of the concept of nationalism and its main-springs… With the lapse of Preventive Detention Act, the need for enacting a law of treason has become an imperative necessity. This law should define treason and treasonable activities.

In BJP’s Manifestos
That explains the formulations on “cultural nationalism” in the BJP’s election manifestos, some of which have been quoted above. The one of 1998 was headed “Our National Identity: Cultural Nationalism”. It said in plain language: 

Our nationalist vision is not merely bound by the geographical or political identity of Bharat but it is referred by our timeless cultural heritage. This cultural heritage, which is central to all regions, religions and languages, is a civilisational identity and constitutes the cultural nationalism of India, which is the core of Hindutva. This we believe is the identity of our ancient nation ‘Bharatvarsha’…

The BJP is convinced that Hindutva has immense potentiality to re-energise this nation and strengthen and discipline it to undertake the arduous task of nation-building. This can and does trigger a higher level of patriotism that can transform the country to greater levels of efficiency and performance. It is with such integrative ideas in mind the BJP joined the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for the construction of
Shri Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.

The 2004 manifesto was as explicit:
Cultural Nationalism: The BJP draws its inspiration from the history and civilisation of India. We believe that Indian nationhood stems from a deep cultural bonding of the people that overrides differences of caste, region, religion and language. We believe in the Cultural Nationalism for which Indianness, Bharatiyata and Hindutva are synonyms — is the basis of our national identity.

This stark conflict between Indian and Hindu nationalism has been noted by all. Dr. D.R. Purohit’s analysis (in Hindu Revivalism and Indian Nationalism 1990) is incisive:

The two nationalisms, as Dr Beni Prasad puts it — the Hindu and the Indian — were fundamentally in opposition to each other with respect to their ideals. The former was exclusive, narrowly-based, mixed with religion and partial: it considered the Hindus the only nationals of Hindusthan and did not include other communities living in India within its scope; it had grown even militant and aggressive towards other religions. The latter believed in a composite culture of India, and viewed India as a nation composed of all the communities living therein. It was broad-based, pacifist, secular, democratic and liberal in temperament. One exalted a community over other communities while the other emphasised unity in the diversity of various communities. The one had great belief in centralised leadership and in militancy; the other was wedded to liberal and democratic traditions…

Thus the forces of Hindu nationalism defended by the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh presented a formidable challenge to the growing forces of Indian nationalism during the thirties and the forties of the twentieth century. It was, so to say, a struggle for existence between two ideologies, and as such there could be little room for cooperation between the rival ideologies. Its positive qualities apart, in so far as Hindu nationalism clung to its limited ideal and lost sight of the comprehensive national ideal, it did hinder the steady growth of the Indian national movement. (174-175)

It continues to perform this nefarious role even in this day and age in 2016 by passing off Hindutva or Hindu nationalism as the real nationalism and arrogating to itself a right to denounce Indian nationalists as “anti-nationals”. Hindutva, a euphemism for the two-nation theory, exposes these bogus nationalists.

A blight has descended on our great land with these “anti-nationals” — incompetent in governance; rapacious for power; intolerant of dissent; hostile to minorities; repressive of autonomous cultural and educational institutions, especially universities; and betrayers of Indian nationalism. This is a government that openly proclaims that it rules only in the interests of the majority community — as Advani had urged. 

With Narendra Modi as Prime Minister; an Arun Jaitley as the Finance Minister; a Rajnath Singh as the Home Minister; a Smriti Irani as the HRD Minister; a Ravi Shankar Prasad as the Telecom Minister; a Sadananda Gowda as the Law Minister; and others of the same kind, too numerous and inconsequential to deserve mention, what the celebrated Junius wrote in a letter, on January 21, 1769, on the misgovernance of the regime of the day, is all too true of the Ministry that rules India today: 

If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom: they will not believe it possible, that their ancestors could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition.
(The author is an Indian lawyer, historian and author. He has practiced as an advocate in the Supreme Court of India and in the Bombay High Court.The publication of this essay has been possible due to the permission extended by the EMS Smrithi Organizing Committee, Ayaanthole from Idea of India, Background Papers, EMS Smrithi Series compiled by M.N. Sudhakaran et al, Thrissur, June 2016).

Courtsey: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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Image Courtesy: Ganesh Dhamodkar Wikimedia Commons

'Bunch of Thoughts' by 'Guru' M.S. Golwalkar needs to be re-visited to understand where the Sangh and Its Votaries Stand on Caste, and Dalits

If one historically traces the ideology guiding the BJP and the Sangh, one can notice the deep impact of Brahmanical hegemony on them.

Soon after the PM’s condemnation of the Una incident in his post “Mann Ki Baat” address, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also criticised the attack on Dalits. The timing of the two statements, expose the hollowness of the condemnations expressed. The attack on Dalit youth in Una (Gujarat) took place on July 11 and the Prime Minister spoke against it only on August 6.

Both the statements were made almost a month after the Una incident. The “seriousness” of the RSS is also evident from the fact that, along with condemnation, it added that the “Prime Minister should have not called 80 percent Gau Rakshaks fake”. It must also be noted that while the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an offshoot of the RSS, chose to remain officially silent, functionaries of both the VHP and Bajrang Dal (BD), another sister outfit, tweeted “Garv se kaho hum gorakshaks hai” (We are proud to be Cow Protectors), a play on their trademark slogan “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai” (We are proud to be Hindus). The latter slogan was a call to arms, virtually in the 1990s as the campaign for the demolition of the Babri masjid built up.

Timing apart, the question that needs to be asked is, are the Sangh and BJP actually concerned about the atrocities on Dalits? Are they serious about the question of caste? One needs to look back a bit to find the answers.

If one historically traces the ideology guiding the BJP and the Sangh, one can notice the deep impact of Brahmanical hegemony on them. One must ask why the leadership of the Sangh has always been in the hands of the upper castes. Five of its six sarsanghchalaks (chiefs/supremos), including the present incumbent Mohan Bhagwat, are Brahmins. The only exception was Rajendra Singh, but he too was an upper-caste (Thakur). The Sangh has always believed in the idea of Varna system i.e. the four fold division of the society.

Golwalkar, their second head, had staunchly defended it and had called the tasks performed by these Varnas as “selfless service”. Terming caste discrimination as phenomenon attributed to the British rule, he wrote:

“The feeling of inequality, of high and low, which has crept into the Varna system, is comparatively of recent origin. The perversion was given a further fillip by the scheming Britisher in line with his 'divide and rule' policy. But in its original form, the distinctions in that social order did not imply any discrimination such as big and small, high and low, among its constituents. On the other hand, the Gita tells us that the individual who does his assigned duties in life in a spirit of selfless service only worships God through such performance.” (Bunch of Thoughts; Once the Glory, PP 98)

Despite speaking against caste atrocities, RSS has published thousands of copies of this book and follows it line by line.The doublespeak of Sangh is evident from the fact that on one hand, they treat Manusmriti as their holy book and on the other, talk about discontinuation of caste atrocities. RSS’s love for Manusmriti is evident from the fact that, when the constitution of India was being finalised, the RSS complained:

“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" (Organiser quoted in Empire and Neoliberalism in Asia, pp 252).

The Manusmriti is important in this context because it is the book which lays down the foundation of the oppressive caste system. This ancient text goes on to define the duties assigned to each caste:

“To Brahmanas he assigned teaching and studying (the Veda), sacrificing for their own benefit and for others, giving and accepting (of alms). The Kshatriya he commanded to protect the people, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study (the Veda), and to abstain from attaching himself to sensual pleasures; The Vaisya to tend cattle, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study (the Veda), to trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Sudra, to serve meekly even these (other) three castes”. (The Laws of Manu, Translated by G.Buhler, PP 3)

The “Guru Ji” of RSS (Golwalkar) had fondly quoted Manu as ‘ Bhagwan’ and the ‘ greatest law giver’ in many of his texts. He not only called Manu the supreme law giver but has also referred to him at various places to cite the supremacy of Brahmins.

“It is this fact which made the first and greatest law giver of the world – Manu, to lay down in his code, directing all the peoples of the world to come to learn their duties at the holy feet of the "Eldestborn" Brahmans of this land.” (We, Our Nationhood Defined, PP 117)

It is the Manusmriti that designates corporal punishments for the lower castes. The Cow vigilante groups supported by the VHP seek to implement these very Brahmanical laws. The incidents at Una, Latehar, Dadri and most recently in Andhra Pradesh are all are examples of this.

The Manusmriti quotes:
“For (stealing) cows belonging to Brahmanas, piercing (the nostrils of) a barren cow, and for stealing (other) cattle (belonging to Brahmanas, the offender) shall forthwith lose half his feet.” (The Laws of Manu, Translated by G.Buhler, PP 53)

The Sangh Parivar has always cited the role of a “foreign hand” in the incidents of caste oppression. Various cases of atrocities on Dalits post-independence have been sighted as ‘misdeeds’ of the media. Golwalkar in a section titled as “Playing the Old Game” writes:

“To our bitter experience, we know how the British used to set up one caste or sect against the other, as for example the ‘non-Brahmin’ against the ‘Brahmin’, and play the game of ‘divide and rule’, and how our own people – even the so-called leaders – fell a willing prey to it. We should take a lesson from that, and beware of similar designs even now of foreign powers and their agents inside our borders.” (Bunch of Thoughts)

Even if we leave apart all these specific incidents, the Sangh has always maintained its faith in the principle of violence. It goes back to Manusmriti to quote how violence is the only tool to establish the ‘supremacy’ of the ‘rashtra’. They have continuously implemented the same understanding within the country itself. Every time there has been a discussion around Islamic terrorism, the Right-wing in the country has found violence as the only counter to it. Many Sangh workers like Colonel Purohit, Aseemanand and Sadhvi Pragya have been accused of carrying out terror activities. The Sangh has vehemently denied proximity with these individuals. But the ideals of violence remain deeply rooted within the Sangh Parivar. Golwalkar's ‘Bunch of Thought’ has discussed ways to use violence in order to “establish peace”. It quotes:

“We had in the past set up standards of valour and heroism and produced some of the greatest generals and conquerors the world has ever known, who fought and killed and carried on fierce battles relentlessly to establish peace wherein dharma reigned, supreme.”

The disagreement of RSS with the Indian constitution is in the public domain. The anti-Dalit agenda of the RSS can be traced in its demand for the review of the reservation system. Both the RSS and the BJP opposed the Mandal Commission's recommendations that gave representation to the Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

So the question is why has RSS/BJP suddenly developed love for Dalits? The only answer is the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh. If BJP loses UP, it will not be able to have majority figures in the Rajya Sabha or the upper house. The loss will also deflate, considerably,  much of the hot air from Modi's ‘Achhe Din’ (Happy Times are here), claim.

Uttar Pradesh has 20.5 percent of Scheduled Castes (SC) population, which has traditionally voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). During the 2014 Lok Sabha Polls, however, of the 66 reserved Dalit Lok Sabha constituencies, the BJP won in 40 seats. Not only this – it won all 17 reserved constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

Since the Modi regime's stint in Delhi however, there have been a spate of incidents and the government's response, that have dented this hold. The suicide of Rohith Vemula (Hyderabad Central University, January 17, 2016), the Una atrocity (July 11, 2016), the personal attack on BSP leader, Mayawati and demands for the review of reservations by the RSS, have made the ruling party in India, vulnerable in UP. Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS are now desperately trying to contain the surging Dalit ire. But one must not forget that at the core of their ideology, lies a deep-seated anti-Dalit agenda.

Courtesy: Newsclick

(The original article has been slightly edited mainly  to add and explain abbreviated terms-Editors)
 

The post The Sangh’s Hypocrisy on Dalits, It’s Time to Read ‘Bunch of Thoughts’, Again! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The self-professed guardians of patriotism, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have done it again. At pains to imprint a peculiar version patriotism on Indian Muslims, an RSS outfit, the Muslim Rashtriya Manch has launched a nationwide campaign to get all madrassahs in the country to hoist the Indian tricolor this January 26; India’s Republic Day. India’s largest Muslim seminary, Darul Uloom has shot back a response, “Does the RSS hoist the flag at its headquarters in Nagpur?[1]

But check its history, past and more recent. It has a schizophrenic relationship with both Indian nationalism and the Indian tricolor. Its bhagwa for the supremacist fanatics and the Tricolor for the ‘others’, read Muslims. Not so long back while on its familiar and sinister track of de-bunking composite Indian nationhood, on September 20, 2015, the RSS’ All India Prachar Pramukh, Manmohan Vaidya raised objections over the Tricolour of the Indian flag. According to Vaidya, the usage of different colours to represent different religions in India, was bound to evoke a communal thought. [2]

The first time that the RSS hoisted the Tricolor on its own headquarters was during the term of the first NDA I government in power in New Delhi, in 2002![3] Similar brow-beating tactics that the RSS is using now were used by sadhvi and RSS/VHP leader, Uma Bharati when, on August 15, 1994 she attempted to hoist the national flag at Idgah Maidan Hubli.[4]  Then again, in 2011, again the RSS and its front the BJP once again, its bid to whip up a frenzy against Muslims, announced that they planned to unfurl the Tricolour, the Indian national flag, in Srinagar on January 26, 2011.

As Shamsul Islam, the author, in this article re-published below points out, “It may not be out of context to know that BJP and its RSS mentors, so zealous about hoisting the Tricolour in Srinagar, have least respect for the Tricolour, as we will see from the following documentary evidence from the RSS archives.”

Organiser, the RSS English organ, in its third issue (July 17, 1947), disturbed by the Constituent Assembly's decision to select the Tricolour as the national flag, carried an editorial titled 'National Flag', demanding that the saffron flag be chosen instead. The same demand continued to be raised in editorials on the eve of independence (July 31 editorial titled 'Hindusthan' and August 14 editorial titled 'Whither'), simultaneously rejecting the whole concept of a composite nation. The August 14 issue also carried 'Mystery behind the Bhagwa Dhawaj (saffron flag)', which, while demanding the hoisting of a saffron flag at the ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi, openly denigrated the choice of the tricolour as the national flag 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 when the Tricolour became the National Flag, it was the RSS which refused to accept it as the National Flag.

Golwalkar, second chief of the RSS and the most prominent ideologue of the organisation till date, while addressing a gathering in Nagpur on July 14, 1946, stated that it was the saffron flag which in totality represented their great culture. It was the embodiment of God: "We firmly believe that in the end the whole nation will bow before this saffron flag." 

Even after independence, when the Tricolour became the national flag, it was the RSS which refused to accept it. Golwalkar, while discussing the issue in an essay titled 'Drifting and Drifting' in the book Bunch of Thoughts, a collection of his writings, published by RSS and treated as a bible for its cadres, has the following to say: "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?"

Importantly, nowhere in the functioning of RSS is the Tricolour or national flag used even today. The RSS headquarters at Reshambaugh, Nagpur, does not fly it, nor do the RSS shakhas display it in their daily parades. 

For RSS, it seems, the national flag is meant only to whip up frenzy against Muslims. In the 1991 'Ekta Yatra', it was Murli Manohar Joshi, another favourite in the RSS hierarchy, who went to unfurl the Tricolour at Lal Chowk of Srinagar, Kashmir. Uma Bharti carried a Tricolour when it was an Idgah that was being targeted by Hindutva. But when the Hindutva cadres went to demolish the Babri mosque in 1992, they did not carry the tricolour. They carried only saffron flags which were subsequently hoisted there. 

The RSS is faced with a peculiar dilemma. For Hindus it has the saffron flag, and for Muslims, the Tricolour. This selective use of national symbols is bound to boomerang and further expose the Hindutva camp's real designs. But one thing is for sure: 'Muslim Bashing' remains the favourite pastime of the Hindutva gang. And communal polarisation – at all costs – their favourite short-term and long-term obsession. Even on the Republic Day.

 Background (Shamsul Islam)
 
The RSS since its inception in 1925 hated anything, which symbolised the united struggle of the Indian people against British rule. The case of the Indian tricolour is the most pertinent one. It was in December 1929 that the Indian National Congress at its Lahore session adopted ‘Purna Swaraj’ or complete self-rule as the national goal and called upon the people to observe January 26, 1930 as Independence Day by displaying and honouring the Tricolour (the Tricolour was by consensus considered the flag of the national movement by this time).  In response to this Hedgewar as Sarsanghchalak issued a circular to all the RSS shakhas to worship the bhagwa jhanda (saffron flag) as the national flag.

The RSS is faced with a peculiar dilemma. For Hindus it has the saffron flag, and for Muslims, the Tricolour. This selective use of national symbols is bound to boomerang and further expose the Hindutva camp's real designs.
 
Even after Independence when the Tricolour became the National Flag, it was the RSS which refused to accept it as the National Flag. Golwalkar while discussing the issue of the national flag in an essay entitled ‘Drifting and Drifting’ in the book Bunch of Thoughts, an RSS publication and collection of writings of Golwalkar, has the following to say: "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?"2
 
The English organ of the RSS, Organizer (dated August 14, 1947) carried a feature titled 'mystery behind the bhagwa dhawaj' (saffron flag) which while demanding hoisting of saffron flag at the ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi, openly denigrated the choice of the Tri-colour as the National Flag 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 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."
 
There is an interesting end note to this. Historical documents also show that the RSS showed anger at the national flag after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.[5] So the duplicitous doublespeak is simple: its Tiranga for the ‘Others’ and bhagwa for itself as far as the RSS is concerned.

The post The RSS Doublespeak: Bhagwa for Itself, Tricolour for the ‘Others’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I entered political life in 1937. I was quite young then but as I had passed my matriculation examination at a relatively early age, I also entered college quite early. Quite active in Pune in those days were the RSS and the Savarkarites (followers of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar) on the one hand and nationalist, socialist and leftist political organisations on the other. On May 1, 1937 we took out a march to observe May Day. The marchers were attacked by the RSS and Savarkarites when, among others, the well-known revolutionary Senapati Bapat and our socialist leader, SM Joshi, were injured. We have had serious differences with these Hindutva organisations ever since.

Our first difference with the RSS was over the issue of nationalism. We believed that every citizen had equal rights in the Indian nation. But the RSS and the Savarkarites came up with their notion of Hindu Rashtra. Mohammad Ali Jinnah too was a victim of a similar world view. He believed that India was made up of two nations, the Muslim nation and the Hindu nation. Savarkar too said the same thing.

The other major difference between us was that we dreamt of the birth of a democratic republic while the RSS claimed that democracy was a western concept that was not appropriate for India. In those days members of the RSS were full of praise for Adolf Hitler. Guruji (Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar) was not only the sarsanghchalak (head) of the RSS; he was its ideological guru as well.

There is amazing similarity between the thoughts of Guruji and the Nazis. One of Guruji’s books, We or Our Nationhood Defined, ran into several editions, its fourth edition having been published in 1947. At one point in the book, Guruji says, "The non-Hindu people in Hindustan must adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ungratefulness towards this land and its age-old traditions but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead – in a word, they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights."

In other words, Guruji wanted to see millions of Indians treated as non-citizens. He wanted all their citizenship rights taken away. Incidentally, these ideas of his were not newly formulated. From the time we were in college (in the mid-1930s), members of the RSS were inclined to follow Hitlerian ideals. In their view, Muslims and Christians in India deserved to be treated the same way that Hitler treated Jews in Germany.

The extent of Guruji’s sympathies for the views of the Nazi Party is evident from the following passage from We or Our Nationhood Defined: "To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by" (We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1947, p. 42).

You might say that this is an old book, of a time when India was in the throes of the struggle for independence. But then there is his second book, Bunch of Thoughts. I cite below an example from this "popular publication" which was brought out in November 1966. In this book, while discussing India’s internal security problem, Guruji identifies three internal dangers. One is Muslims, the second Christians and the third Communists. In Guruji’s view, every Indian Muslim, every Christian and every Communist is a danger to the nation’s security. Such is his ideology.

Our second major difference with Guruji and the RSS has to do with the caste question. They are supporters of the caste system while a socialist like me is its greatest enemy. I consider myself to be the biggest enemy of brahminism and the caste system. I am of the firm view that there can be no economic and social equality in India until the caste system and the inequalities based on it are demolished.

But Guruji says, "Another unique feature of our society was the varna vyavastha (caste system, the former occupation-based classification of society) which is today vilified as jati pratha (a rigid caste system)." He adds, "Society was conceived of in the image of an all-powerful god, of four aspects, who was to be worshipped by different people in their own ways as determined by their different capabilities. The Brahmin was considered great because he was the purveyor of knowledge. The Kshatriya was considered equally great because he destroyed the enemies. The Vaishya was no less important than others because through agriculture and commerce he fulfilled a social need. The Sudra too was important for he served society through his workmanship." Here it is very shrewdly being asserted that through his workmanship the Sudra is fulfilling an important social need. But Chanakya’s Arthashastra, from which Guruji takes his inspiration, clearly states that it is the religious duty of the Sudras to serve the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas. In a clever subterfuge, Guruji replaces service of the upper castes with "service of society".

The fourth issue on which we differ is that of language. We are in favour of promoting the languages of the people. All regional languages, after all, are indigenous. But what does Guruji have to say on this? Guruji says that for now Hindi should be made the common language for all while the ultimate objective should be to make Sanskrit the national language. He says in his Bunch of Thoughts, "For convenience, Hindi should be given primacy as our link language until such time as Sanskrit is adopted as our national language." Thus Hindi is merely for convenience, the ultimate link language is to be Sanskrit.

In other words, Guruji wanted to see millions of Indians treated as non-citizens. He wanted all their citizenship rights taken away. Incidentally, these ideas of his were not newly formulated. From the time we were in college (in the mid-1930s), members of the RSS were inclined to follow Hitlerian ideals. In their view, Muslims and Christians in India deserved to be treated the same way that Hitler treated Jews in Germany.

We have had differences over this right from the start. Like Mahatma Gandhi and Lokmanya Tilak, we too have always been in favour of the regional languages. We do not wish to impose Hindi on anyone. We would like to see Tamil as the prevalent language in Tamil Nadu, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Marathi in Maharashtra and Bengali in West Bengal. If the non-Hindi speaking states wish to adopt English, it should be up to them. We have no differences with them on this. But Sanskrit is the language of a handful of people, the language of a particular caste. Making Sanskrit the national language means the supremacy of a handful of people over others, something we definitely do not want.

Fifth, the national movement for independence had accepted the idea of a federal state. In a confederation, the centre would definitely have certain powers on specific matters but all others would be a subject matter for the states. But following partition, in a bid to strengthen the centre, the Constitution stipulated a concurrent list. As per this list, several subjects were made concurrent, subjects over which both the centre and the states have equal jurisdiction. What was originally meant to be under the domain of different states was included in the concurrent list only to strengthen the centre. Thus the federal state came into existence.

But the RSS and its chief ideologue, Guru Golwalkar, have been consistently opposed to this basic constitutional provision. These people ridicule the very concept of ‘a union of states’ and maintain that this Constitution, which envisages a confederation of states, should be abolished. Guruji says in his Bunch of Thoughts, "The Constitution must be reviewed and the idea of a unitary state should be written into the new Constitution." Guruji wants a unitary or, in other words, a centralised state. He says that this system of states should be done away with. What he wants is one nation, one state, one legislature and one executive. In other words, he wants to abolish state legislatures and state ministries. That means they wish to see the rule of the stick. If they were to capture power, they would doubtless bring into existence a centralised state.

Another issue was the tricolour, the flag chosen by the national movement. Hundreds of Indians sacrificed their lives, thousands bore the brunt of lathis for the honour and glory of our chosen national flag. But surprisingly, the RSS has never accepted the tricolour as the national flag. It always swore by the saffron flag, asserting that the saffron flag has been the flag of Hindu Rashtra since time immemorial.

Just as Guruji rejected the concept of a federal state, similarly, he had no faith in a democratic system. He was of the firm view that democracy is a concept imported from the West and the system of parliamentary democracy did not jell with Indian thought and Indian civilisation. As for socialism, that for him was a totally alien idea. He repeatedly said that all isms, including socialism and democracy, were alien ideas which should be rejected, that Indian society should be founded on Indian culture. Speaking for ourselves, we believe in parliamentary democracy, in socialism, and we aspire to establish socialism consistent with Gandhian principles in India through peaceful means.

While we were engaged in a struggle against the Congress party’s autocratic rule, our leader, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, was of the opinion that we should join hands with all opposition forces to save the nation and dislodge from power the Congress party which was responsible for our humiliation at the hands of the Chinese. I had lengthy discussions with Doctorsaheb on the issue. This debate went on for two years. I kept insisting throughout that we cannot have any alliance with the RSS and the Jan Sangh. Ultimately, Doctorsaheb asked me, "Do you accept my leadership or not?" I replied, "Yes, I do." He said it wasn’t necessary for us to agree on every issue or for him to have to convince me on every issue. Let there be an issue or two on which we disagreed. And since he was only thinking of a political alliance to defeat a major enemy, I should cooperate with him, let his idea be given a "trial". Perhaps he would be proven right, he said, perhaps I would. I remained convinced however that a clash between the RSS and the Lohiaite ideologies was inevitable.

It is a fact that we formed an alliance with these people (RSS and Jan Sangh) when Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed the emergency, increasingly resorted to dictatorial methods, started promoting Sanjay Gandhi and the Maruti scandal surfaced. Lok Nayak Jaiprakashji believed that if the opposition did not unite under the banner of a single party it would be impossible to defeat Mrs Gandhi and dictatorship. Choudhary Charan Singh was also of the view that we should come together and form a united party. While we were in jail, we were all asked to give our opinions on the need to form such a party and contest elections. I recall sending a message that in my view we must contest elections. Millions of people would participate in elections. Elections are a dynamic process. As the electoral tempo builds up, the shackles of emergency are bound to snap and people are bound to exercise their democratic right. Therefore, I stressed, we must participate in elections.

Our second major difference with Guruji and the RSS has to do with the caste question. They are supporters of the caste system while a socialist like me is its greatest enemy. I consider myself to be the biggest enemy of brahminism and the caste system. I am of the firm view that there can be no economic and social equality in India until the caste system and the inequalities based on it are demolished.

Since Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Narain and other leaders were of the view that without coming together under the banner of one party we could not succeed, we (socialists) too gave it our consent. But I would like to stress that the understanding that was arrived at was between political parties – the Jan Sangh, the Socialist Party, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Loktantrik Dal (BLD) and some dissident Congress factions. We did not come to any arrangement with the RSS, nor did we accept any of its demands. What is more, through a letter by Manubhai Patel that was circulated among all of us in jail we learnt that on July 7, 1976 Choudhary Charan Singh had raised the issue of a possible clash of interests because of dual membership when members of the RSS also became members of the new party. In response, the then acting general secretary of the Jan Sangh, Om Prakash Tyagi had said that the proposed party should feel free to formulate whatever membership criteria it wanted. He even said that since the RSS, having faced many constraints, had been dissolved anyway, the question of RSS membership did not arise.

Later, when the constitution of the proposed Janata Party was being drawn up, the subcommittee appointed to draft the constitution proposed that members of any organisation whose aims, policies and programmes were in conflict with the aims, policies and programmes of the Janata Party should not be given membership to the new party. Given the self-evident meaning of such a membership criterion, there was no question of anyone opposing it. However, it is significant that the sole opposition to this came from Sunder Singh Bhandari (Jan Sangh). At a meeting convened in December 1976 to thrash out issues, reference was made to a letter written by Atal Bihari Vajpayee on behalf of the Jan Sangh and the RSS, stating that a section of leaders of the proposed party had agreed that the RSS issue could not be raised in connection with membership of the Janata Party. But several leaders told me that no such assurances were given because the RSS was nowhere in the picture at the time when the idea of a merger of opposition political parties was mooted. I want to clarify that I was in prison at the time and even if there was some secret understanding, I had no part in it.

I can categorically assert that the election manifesto of the Janata Party did not in any way reflect the concerns of the RSS. In fact, each point in the manifesto was clearly spelt out. Is it not a fact that the manifesto of the Janata Party spoke of a socialist society based on secular, democratic and Gandhian principles and in which there was no mention of Hindu Rashtra? The manifesto also assured the minorities equal citizenship rights and vowed to safeguard their rights. In contrast, Guruji wanted to deny equal citizenship rights to the minorities and wanted them to be subservient subjects in a Hindu Rashtra. The Janata Party was committed to decentralisation while Guruji was a hardcore proponent of centralisation. He wanted to abolish separate states, abolish state legislatures and ministries while the Janata Party emphasised the need for greater decentralisation. In other words, the Janata Party had no desire to snatch away the autonomy of states. The manifesto spoke of socialism, social justice and equality. Did the manifesto state that it upholds the caste system? Did it maintain that the Sudras’ duty was to devote their life in the service of others? On the contrary, the manifesto not only promised that the backward castes would have full opportunity to progress, it pledged special policies for them: 25-33 per cent reservation for them in government jobs.

Yes, it is true that members of the RSS did not genuinely accept the provisions of the party’s election manifesto. It was my contention and I had once even complained in writing to Kushabhau Thakre that during discussions you people (RSS, Jan Sangh) very readily agree on matters that you at heart totally disagree with. That is why your motives are suspect. I wrote this letter to him a long time ago and I have always had doubts about the RSS. I have had these doubts since Doctorsaheb’s time (Dr Ram Manohar Lohia died in 1967). But despite this, the fact remains that to fight dictatorship we entered into a political alliance with them.

Since it was Lok Nayak Jaiprakashji’s desire that all parties should merge for a united opposition to dictatorship and since the party manifesto did not make any compromises, I consented to our coming together. At the same time, I would like to say that from the beginning I was very clear in my mind that to emerge as a unified and a credible body the Janata Party would have to do two things. One, the RSS would have to change its ideology and accept the ideal of a secular democratic state. Two, the various organisations that are part of the sangh parivar, such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Vidyarthi Parishad, would have to dissolve themselves and merge with the secular-minded trade union and student wings of the Janata Party. I was very clear about this from the beginning and as the Janata Party had given me the responsibility to manage the affairs of its trade union and student wings, it was my consistent attempt throughout to ensure that the Vidyarthi Parishad and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh ended their separate existence.

But these people started insisting on their autonomy. In fact, these organisations always function on the dictates of Nagpur (RSS headquarters), they believe in the one leader principle. Take, for example, Guruji himself. Guruji maintained that they create a mind-set which is totally disciplined and where people accept whatever they tell them. This organisation operates on a single principle: one leader. They do not believe in democracy, they have no faith in discussions and debate. They have no economic policy. For example, in his Bunch of Thoughts, Guruji expressed unhappiness over the abolition of the zamindari system in India. Guruji was deeply saddened, deeply disturbed by the abolition of the zamindari system. But he felt no compassion for the poor.

I told members of the RSS that you must abandon your ideal of organising Hindus alone and find a place for people of all religions within your organisation, that you must merge your different class-based organisations with those of the Janata Party. They responded by saying that this could not be done so soon, that there were very many difficulties involved but they did want to change, bit by bit. They continued to give such evasive replies.

From their behaviour I concluded that they had no intention of changing. Especially after the assembly elections of June 1977, when they managed to gain power in four states and one union territory, after which they began to think that with this newly acquired clout they had no need to change. Now that they had already captured four states, they would gradually also gain control of other states and finally even the centre. The leaders of other political parties in the Janata Party were older leaders who would not live long; and they would ensure that no younger (non-RSS, non-Jan Sangh) leader emerged at the top.

As is evident from the pages of the Organiser and Panchjanya (RSS mouthpieces in English and Hindi), they have not spared a single Janata Party leader who is not from their parivar. I, of course, was their special favourite, the target of special attention. They probably devoted more column space to abusing me than they did even for Mrs Indira Gandhi.

For a protracted period I persisted in dialogue with these people. I recall an occasion when Balasaheb Deoras (later RSS sarsanghchalak) visited me at my residence in Mumbai. Subsequently, I met him once again after the 1971 polls. I also had discussions with Madhavrao Mule once before the emergency. On the fourth occasion, I met Balasaheb Deoras and Madhavrao Mule together in May 1977. So no one can claim that I made no attempt to talk to them. But I finally reached the conclusion that they have closed minds in which no new idea can germinate.

On the contrary, the RSS specialises in casting young minds in a particular mould from a very young age. The first thing they do is ‘freeze’ the minds of children and of youth, making them impervious. After this they are rendered incapable of responding to other ideas.

Still, I tried. On one occasion I convened a meeting of all trade union leaders. The representatives of all constituents of the Janata Party attended but the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh boycotted the meeting. Not just that, they hurled abuses at me for no apparent reason. Similar efforts were made with the Vidyarthi Parishad and the Yuva Morcha but despite all attempts at a merger, they held aloof. This is only because of the RSS’ desire to function as a "super party".

Their aim is not only to enter into every aspect of people’s life but also to control it. In an article written for The Indian Express around that time, George Fernandes used the example of Dattopant Thengdi to make the same point. Thengdi responded by saying that the RSS intended to have all of society under its sway, it would leave no aspect of a person’s life untouched, it would establish its hegemony in every department of life. Thengdi, of course, was saying nothing new. Similar views have been repeatedly asserted by Guruji in his We or Our Nationhood Defined, as also in Bunch of Thoughts. No totalitarian organisation allows any space for freedom, its tentacles reach everywhere: art, music, economy, culture. This is the essence of any fascist organisation.

The fact is that the RSS wanted to capture the Janata Party and through it to take control of the state apparatus. For this they simultaneously dangled the carrot of the prime minister’s chair before several Janata Party leaders. On the one hand, they went on assuring Morarji Desai to the end that he was their choice for prime minister. Every now and then they would promise Choudhary Charan Singh that they would support his claim to be prime minister. Concurrently, they kept giving similar assurances to Chandra Shekhar, Jagjivan Ram and George Fernandes. Not once did they dare to make me a similar offer. When I once jokingly mentioned this to Vajpayee, he quipped, "Why you, Nanaji (Deshmukh) has never made me such a promise either. They want neither you nor me as prime minister." Anyway, they never made any such suggestion to me, knowing only too well that I would not deny others their due nor would I allow others to deny mine. Perhaps they think, you can’t fool this man so what’s the point of promising him anything – it will only make him (Limaye) even more cautious.

What these people (the RSS) do on the odd occasion is however of little importance. Has the RSS ever said that they have abandoned Guruji’s way of thinking? Only Atalji says that we should all accept the principles of composite nationalism, democracy, socialism, social justice, etc because we cannot move forward without them in today’s world. But Atalji is the only one who says this. I do not trust the other sanghis. These people pleaded for pardon while in prison, Balasaheb Deoras congratulated Indira Gandhi when the Supreme Court ruled in her favour in the Raj Narain case. So I have no faith in the utterances of these people. I am of the firm belief that I could only have trusted these people (erstwhile Jan Sangh leaders in the Janata Party) if they had ousted RSS leaders from the party, expelled them from the working committee, placed restrictions on RSS activities and, in particular, expelled people like Nanaji Deshmukh, Sunder Singh Bhandari and company from the party.

(Translated by Javed Anand.)

(May 1 marks the 31st anniversary of the united Janata Party and also the 86th birth anniversary of senior socialist leader, the late Madhu Limaye. The above piece, penned by Limaye soon after the split in the Janata Party, was published by the Hindi weekly, Ravivar, in 1979. Though dated, many of the issues he raises in the article are relevant even today.)

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In any ordinary situation these words of India's home minister, who has taken the oath to uphold a democratic-secular Constitution, would have been more than sufficient guarantee to ensure safety and tranquility to the besieged Christian community of India. What critical times the small Christian community is passing through can be gauged from a signed article [The Indian Express April 2, 2015] by Julio Ribeiro, a highly decorated retired  IPS officer, former Mumbai  police commissioner, DGP Gujarat and DGP Punjab, and former Indian ambassador to Romania. He wrote:

It is natural to be skeptical about Rajnath Singh's assurance to Christians given what the wider political family (Sangh Parivar) has espoused. In sharp contradiction to Rajnath Singh, a fellow-swayamsevak, Rajeshwar Singh who as leader of the prominent organization closely affiliated to the RSS, the Dharm Jagran Samiti (involved in 'ghar wapsi' or conversion of Muslims and Christianity to Hinduism) vowed the day after Singh’s statement, that is, on December 19, 2014:
 

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