Undermining the freedom struggle

Bhagwat’s assertion undermines the monumental significance of August 15, 1947, as the day marking India’s liberation from colonial rule. The sacrifices of figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhagat Singh, and numerous unsung heroes are side-lined in favour of an ideological claim. Rahul Gandhi denounced the remark as “insulting to freedom fighters,” while Jairam Ramesh characterised it as “anti-national” and reflective of an agenda to rewrite history. Leaders like Tejashwi Yadav noted that this narrative belittles the immense sacrifices made by the freedom fighters under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, disregarding their unparalleled contributions. Revanth Reddy, echoing these concerns, demanded that Prime Minister Modi clarify his position on Bhagwat’s remarks, questioning whether the government stands by the freedom fighters or supports this ideological stance.

Historical revisionism and its dangers

Shashi Tharoor warned against conflating India’s independence with ideological or religious milestones. He emphasized that independence was achieved through the collective sacrifices of patriots who endured British oppression, including incarceration and execution. Tharoor cautioned that attempts to redefine this historical truth risk diminishing its universal and inclusive nature. Digvijaya Singh echoed these concerns, demanding an apology from Bhagwat and criticizing the divisive undertones of the statement.

Assault on constitutional values

The remarks challenge the principles enshrined in India’s Constitution, adopted on January 26, 1950. By linking independence to a religious event, Bhagwat’s comments contradict the secular and pluralistic ethos envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Jairam Ramesh argued that such rhetoric undermines the democratic foundation of the Republic, disrespecting the Constitution’s commitment to equality and unity.

Political and social implications

The political backlash to Bhagwat’s statement has been unequivocal. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee labelled the remarks “anti-national” and “dangerous,” highlighting their potential to distort history and disrupt social harmony. The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), led by Varun Choudhary, called for stringent action against the RSS, asserting that Bhagwat’s rhetoric threatened the nation’s unity and integrity. Shashi Tharoor pointed out that linking independence to religious milestones risks alienating minority communities and rewriting India’s collective historical achievements. Sachin Pilot also voiced strong opposition, condemning the remark as an affront to the sacrifices of countless freedom fighters. He criticized the government for weakening constitutional institutions and fostering an environment where such divisive statements are normalised.

Divisive ideology and historical context

Critics like Tejashwi Yadav and Digvijaya Singh underscored the RSS’s historical non-participation in the freedom movement. They argued that such statements attempt to appropriate the legacy of the independence struggle while marginalizing diverse contributions. Farooq Abdullah’s response emphasised the collective effort and sacrifices of all communities, warning against narratives that could deepen communal divides. This sentiment was echoed by Sachin Pilot, who criticized the remark for diminishing the inclusive struggle that defined India’s fight for freedom.

Public sentiment and wider repercussions

The broader public and political reaction to Bhagwat’s statement reflects its polarizing nature. Leaders across party lines, including KC Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge, have condemned the remarks as an affront to the sacrifices of martyrs and freedom fighters. Organizations like the Congress and NSUI have staged protests, with demands ranging from an apology to a ban on the RSS. This widespread opposition underscores the importance of safeguarding India’s historical narrative from ideological distortions.

Broader concerns on historical narratives

Bhagwat’s statement aligns with a broader trend of historical revisionism, where specific ideological milestones are promoted as central to India’s identity. Such narratives risk side-lining the secular and pluralistic contributions of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and Jawaharlal Nehru. Jairam Ramesh noted that this trend undermines the Constitution and the values it represents. By celebrating the Ram Temple’s consecration as “true independence,” the RSS projects a narrow and exclusionary vision of Indian history.

Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks represent more than a historical misrepresentation; they pose a challenge to India’s pluralistic and democratic framework. The struggle for India’s independence was a collective effort transcending religious, regional, and ideological boundaries. Attempts to rewrite this narrative for political or ideological purposes must be actively challenged to preserve the integrity of India’s democratic and constitutional ideals. Moving forward, reaffirming the values of unity, secularism, and inclusivity is essential to maintaining the spirit of the freedom struggle and the Republic it helped establish.

Related:

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As Ram Temple inaugurated in UP, reports arrive of communal incidents from five states

Only Hindutva can unify India, says Bhagwat

The post Bhagwat’s remarks spark national unity debate appeared first on SabrangIndia.

..Basically, being woke means obsessing about race, gender, and sexual orientation. Maybe climate change too. That’s the best definition I can give. Today more and more people are becoming woke, even though generations of civil rights leaders have taught us not to focus on race or gender. And now capitalism is trying to stay woke too.

(Page 12, Vivek Ramswamy, Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam)

‘A spectre haunting the Conservative world – the spectre of Wokeism’

The brainstorming by conservatives from US, Germany and other Western countries alongwith academics from India is over. (https://indianexpress.com/article/delhi-confidential/delhi-confidential-woke-talk-9177967/) The host was Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) the youth front of the ruling dispensation here namely BJP – which loves to call itself the biggest organisation of youth in the world.

One does not know whether the organisers had put any such banner regarding the ‘spectre’ or not but few of the available details of meeting tell us that the gathering did discuss ‘wokeism’ apart from other issues.

BJYM’s sudden waking up on the challenge of ‘wokeism’ is not difficult to understand.

It could be easily traced to Sangh Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s exhortation in his Vijayadashmi Speech – few months back – wherein he had castigated ‘cultural Marxists’ and ‘woke people’. (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/cultural-marxists-woke-people-spoiling-indias-ethos-rss-chief/articleshow/104681467.cms) in no uncertain terms, who according to him were ‘spoiling Indian ethos’. He even accused them of undermining education and culture, promoting conflicts and disrupting social cohesion.

Close watchers of the Sangh trajectory know very well that the Supremo’s Vijayadashmi speech is normally considered a view into the future, which presents an outline about coming challenges – as per its worldview – before millions and millions of members of this hydra-headed organisation.

And a cursory glance at the journey of these ideas of ‘wokeism’ etc within Sangh Circles makes it clear that they have been very much in circulation there since sometime.

It was a year and half back that leading lights of the Hindutva fraternity – ranging from Dattatreya Hosballe, Swapan Dasgupta, Sudhanshu Trivedi – had attended a book release function penned down by an India born American Hindutva ideologue Rajiv Malhotra alongwith Vijaya Viswanathan, who is associated with Infinity Foundation, started by him.

The book titled the book ‘Snakes in India: Breaking India 2:0. (Blueink) discussed ‘‘intense warfare against India’s integrity is the work of a well-orchestrated global machinery driven by a new ideology’. (https://www.firstpost.com/india/snakes-in-the-ganga-rajiv-malhotra-vijaya-viswanathans-book-on-uncomfortable-truths-about-indias-vulnerabilities-11337501.html) and also talked about how “wokeism has penetrated some of the Indian government’s policies. For instance, the National Education Policy 2020 is propagating Harvard’s liberal arts.”

The book had made a concerted attack on Ashoka University – the leading liberal arts and science University – alleging how it is ‘breeding wokeism in India’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LFjtHGJN8A&list=PLGQElwzyJxtzF1yNxeRuA4gJvyPNhOy5n&index=2)

The closeness of Rajiv Malhotra to the Hindutva lobby could also be understood from the fact that he was appointed as honorary visiting Professor by JNU (2018), a man who had long history of courting controversy (https://www.firstpost.com/india/jnu-appoints-hindutva-ideologue-rajiv-malhotra-honorary-professor-us-based-author-has-history-of-courting-controversy-5479421.html)

As an aside it may be added here that the idea of being ‘woke’ -which deals with ”promotion of liberal progressive ideology and policy as an expression of sensitivity to systemic injustices and prejudices’  originated in the USA and is a  black terminology, (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/woke-should-not-be-used-as-a-negative-warns-c-of-es-first-black-female-bishop) which speaks ‘specifically and directly to black people regarding the need to wake up and stay alert, to be consciously aware. So, it is not just a mere word, it is a movement,’ and thanks to the movement Black Lives Matter, a growing section of progressives also has started using it.

Sangh’s growing anxieties vis-a-vis ‘Woke People’ or ‘Wokeism’ raise two broad questions.

The ease with which it is ready to peddle a concept in the Western World.

Why does RSS and the larger Hindutva fraternity – which keeps celebrating its native roots and its celebration of India’s age old culture, civilisation and which never loses any opportunity to castigate the liberals, lefts for import of ‘Western Ideas’ finds the idea of ‘Wokeism’ attractive, which is of very recent origin.

Does it feel confident enough that the way it uncritically accepted colonial understanding of India’s history presented by the likes of James Mill, without even acknowledging it – whose problematic periodisation of India’s history as ‘Hindu Period’, Muslim Period and British Period is still being debated and packaged and peddled it for furthering its own agenda of Hindu Rashtra, this idea of ‘wokeism’ can serve its purpose in today’s times. Does it feel that it presents before it an opportunity to package its agenda of Hindu Unity in a more sanitised form before the new generation? We should not forget that it has never acknowledged the internal asymmetries of Hindu society and has always blamed this lack of unity on ‘others’ and has consciously tried to exteriorise genesis of its problems.

Secondly, does not this idea of wokeism – which as per dictionary is a ‘usually disparaging term’ – which effectively denies that all the talk of systemic insults, humiliations and prejudices by the blacks or the other oppressed is humbug, sits contrary to what RSS itself had been talking about in recent times- like end of caste discrimination or stopping environmental degradation?

One thing is certain that the Sangh ideologues would never address these obvious contradictions in their worldview or would never elaborate how in practice they are very much engaged in blurring all such distinctions between historical insults and humiliations and general grievances of people – the way rightwingers in US, especially belonging to the Republican Party – are engaged in.

Instances galore – especially since around a decade old ascent of Hindutva Supremacism at the Centre and many states, and the idea of Hindutva fascinating a large section of society, where there have been conscious attempt to deny caste discrimination or conflating/mixing it with other discriminations? (https://www.newsclick.in/how-make-caste-discrimination-disappear-universities) Instances where there is growing talk of ‘dereservation’ (https://countercurrents.org/2024/02/dereservation-whether-the-genie-is-out-of-the-bottle-finally/) or legal manouvering even to provide benefits of reservation to the upper castes – denying the Constitutional principles and values that they had their genesis in the historical injustices and discriminations faced by the Dalits, Tribals and other oppressed castes.

The attack of ‘wokeism’ on independent thinking and progressive politics also very much gels with the overall modus operandi of RSS, BJP and other affiliated organisations. Organisations whose longtime project is carving out a Hindu Rashtra out of a formal secular, democratic, socialist and sovereign India.

The manner in which routinely such liberal spaces or intellectuals are castigated as ‘Khan Market gang’ or the way Hindutva has unleashed an organised, systematic and conscious attack on educational institutions – who still valued independent thinking – can be considered a mere detail in this overall pattern of domesticating the thinking people of the country.

One can also say that with growing discrediting of the whole idea of ‘tukde tukde gang’ or ‘urban naxals’ (https://www.newsclick.in/in-search-tukde-tukde-gang) invented and popularised by the Hindutva cheerleaders – which was conveniently used against all dissenting voices, perhaps the idea of ‘wokeism’ or ‘woke people’ can serve similar purpose for them.

No doubt, the ambience at Taj Ambassadors must have facilitated the brainstorming of Conservatives in a good way.

And this brainstorming also presents before all liberal and progressive voices an interesting challenge, how prepared we are to understand the dynamics of Hindutva Supremacism and present an effective alternative in the field of ideas and actions. How is it that despite its essentially inegalitarian, exclusivist agenda based on hate and otherings – Hindutva is ready to package its worldview in a more sanitised and more cool form and more creative ways but we are still far away from it.

*Subhash Gatade is a left activist associated with New Socialist Initiative

Courtesy: Kashmir Times

The post Why Hindutva Is Worried About “Woke People” or “Wokeism”? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan was one of the chief guests at the event attended by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The RSS members also organised a ‘Path Sanchalan’ (route march) early Tuesday morning. In 2022, the chief guest at the event was Santosh Yadav, world’s first woman to climb the Mount Everest, and Bhagwat had emphasised on women empowerment.

On Manipur

Toeing the line of the union government on each issue that he touched, he, controversially, dubbed the internal conflict in Manipur that has claimed several hundred lives and simmered, unchecked –by either the state or union governments since May ¾, 2023—as the “work of the foreign hand.” “Were extremists across the border involved in Manipur violence?” he asked. Addressing the issue of the five month long simmering ethnic conflict for which the union and state governments have been sharply criticised nationally and internally, Bhagwat, the RSS chief said: “In Manipur, when people on both sides of the conflict are seeking peace, which are these forces that are attempting to trigger hatred and violence by causing an incident as soon as any positive step is seen being taken in that direction?”

“For many years, Meitei and Kuki communities have been living together. How did the violence erupt all of a sudden? The conflict benefits external forces. Are external factors involved,” Bhagwat said, while addressing the RSS Dussehra rally in Nagpur.

“Union Home Minister Amit Shah was there for three days. Who actually fuelled the conflict? It (violence) is not happening, it is being made to happen,” Bhagwat said.

The RSS chief said he was proud of the Sangh workers who worked in Manipur to restore peace.

“Lord Ram (idol) will be installed at the temple on January 22” The RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat also spoke about the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya “…A temple of Lord Ram is being built in Ayodhya…Lord Ram (idol) will be installed at the temple on January 22…On that day, we can organise programmes at our own temples in the whole country…” he said. He suggested that he may not attend the grand inauguration for security reasons. “We won’t be able to attend the ceremony because of security reasons. We will go some other time.”

This comment has raised speculation since for the past three four months, possibilities of security breaches at the highly politicised Ram temple site have been raised by various persons including former governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satyapal Malik and even Shiv Sena (UBT) chief, Udhav Thackeray. On September 10, 2023 Thackeray had claimed, “Godhra-like” incident may take place during the “return journey” of the large number of people expected to converge at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh from across the nation for the inauguration of the Ram temple.”

The speech can be viewed here:

#WATCH | Nagpur, Maharashtra: While addressing RSS Vijayadashmi Utsav, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat says, “…Every year, India’s pride is increasing in the world… The G 20 summit held here (in India) was special. The hospitality of Indians was praised…People from different… pic.twitter.com/ivmFyV4gn6

— ANI (@ANI) October 24, 2023

“Delegates at G20 Summit in India experienced our country’s unity in diversity”

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS supremo, in his Dusshera speech, emphasised on India’s successful organisation of the G20 summit. “It happens every year but this time the praise for how well the guests were hosted and treated. The announcement of including the African Union on day one was also a milestone,” he said.

He also pointed out that India’s leadership gave the country a place in the world.

“Every year, India’s pride is increasing in the world. The G20 summit held here (in India) was special. The hospitality of Indians was praised. People from different countries experienced our diversity. They saw our diplomatic skills as well as our honest goodwill. Our leadership gave India a place in the world,” Mohan Bhagwat said while speaking at the event.

On the Israel-Hamas conflict: World is looking towards Bharat to lead by example based on own Sanatan (eternal) values and Sanskars

As the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict rages, Mohan Bhagwat opined that the world is looking towards India to lead by example and show a new path to peace. All and any solution to conflicts like the war in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip, which arise due to a clash of interests and extremism, remains elusive. A lifestyle out of sync with nature is producing a string of new physical and mental- health issues amid unabashed consumerism,” Bhagwat said.

“Terrorism, exploitation, and totalitarianism are getting a free run to wreak havoc. It has become abundantly clear that the world cannot counter these problems with its inadequate vision. Therefore, the world is looking towards Bharat expectantly to lead by example and show a new path to peace and prosperity, based on its own Sanatan (eternal) values and Sanskars,” he added.

Among the bug-bears (read “internal enemies” of the professed Hindu(tva) nation –Hindu Rashtra) –according to RSS texts like “Bunch of Thoughts by MS Golwalkar are “Muslims, Christians and Communists.” While sparing this time around in naming India’s religious minorities, the supremo singled out leftists/communists.

“Some anti-social people call themselves cultural Marxists or woke but they have forgotten Marx”

The RSS chief stated that “cultural Marxists and woke elements” are using their influence in media and academia to spoil the country’s education and culture. “They take control of the media and academia, and plunge education, culture, politics and social environment into confusion, chaos, and corruption,” he said.

“…There are some people in the world and in also India who do not want that India should move forward… They try to create factions and clashes in society. Because of our unawareness and lack of belief, we also sometimes get entangled in it, and unnecessary nuisances are created…If India progresses, they will not be able to play their games; therefore, they continuously oppose. They adopt particular ideologies just for the sake of opposing” he said.

“World looking up to India to overcome problems”

‘Country is moving forward. But while moving forward, we need to show the world. We should not follow anyone else’s path. This is reflecting in our government’s actions as well,’ the RSS chief said urging people to recognise that India is leaving a global mark.

Related:

The Ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is both Hate-Ridden and Supremacist – Part 1

An open letter to the JNU VC: Your association with RSS defies humanism, anti-colonial struggle for Indian democracy!

Busted: Assam chief minister’s claim that Bajrang Dal has no links with RSS

RSS ideologues ‘wrong’; Sati wasn’t product of ‘Muslim’ rule, it existed in ancient India too

The post RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s Vijayadashami speech blows BJP’s poll bugle, extolls G-20 summit, asks if “external forces” were responsible for Manipur violence appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Since 2015, the vocal chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been delving into the issue of caste albeit from the Sangh’s unique exclusivist worldview. He had begun with calling for an “end to reservations” and made a call for “more integrated reservations for all! Closer to now in October 2022 and then two month ago in February he had declared on the Sant Ravidas (Rohidas) Jayanti that caste as a category should be done away with completely!

Now, last weekend in central India, on April 16, 2023, in Madhya Pradesh’s Burhanpur district, Bhagwat, as reported by IANS, in an apparent reference to religious conversions, said on Sunday that missionaries take advantage of the situations wherein people feel that the society is not with them. He was addressing an event there, where he dedicated to the people the samadhi of Govindnath Maharaj. “We don’t see our own people. We don’t go to them and ask them. But some missionary from thousands of miles away comes and lives there, eats their food, speaks their language and then converts them,” Bhagwat said. The next day he inaugurated the Dr. Hedgewar Memorial Committee’s office building at Saraswati Nagar and address the Sangh volunteers in Burhanpur.

Elaborating on what appears to be a recurrent concern, Bhagwat also said that over the course of 100 years, people came to India to change everything. They have been working here for centuries but failed to gain anything as our roots remained strong thanks to the efforts of our ancestors, Bhagwat said. “Efforts are made to uproot them. So, the society should understand that deceit. We have to strengthen the faith,” he said. Deceptive people raise some questions about religion to waver the faith, he said, adding, “Our society never faced such people earlier so people get sceptical…We have to remove this weakness.” Ironically there is not a mention of either India’s indigenous peoples, Adivasis or caste divisions in his speech.

This at a time when the parliamentary face of the RSS, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made political capital on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s caste (Other Backward Caste-OBC) and further fine-tuned vote-gathering based on these social strata and divisions! Bhagwat’s comments against “missionaries” come at a time when Bishops from Kerala who also proudly claim to be from the more privileged “Brahmin” caste are cosying up to the BJP in preparation for next year’s general elections!

IANS reports that Mohan Bhagwat in Burhanpur, further said, “Even after this, our society doesn’t waver. But people change when they lose faith and feel that the society is not with them.” The RSS chief said that an entire village in Madhya Pradesh became “sanatani” 150 years after they locals got converted to Christianity as they got help from Kalyan Ashram (an RSS-backed “voluntary organisation”). “We don’t need to go abroad to spread our faith as ‘sanatan dharma’ doesn’t believe in such practices. We need to remove the deviation and distortion of the Bharatiya traditions and faith here (in India) and strengthen the roots of our ‘dharma’,” he said.

Bhagwat thereafter also addressed a Dharma Sabha and visited Gurdwara Badi Sangat to pay obeisance. After visiting the gurdwara, he said that Guru Granth Sahib is a source of inspiration for the Hindus.

RSS’ and the Hindu Right’s anathema to the social justice work in education, human rights and education carried out by the missionaries has never been concealed. The propaganda often surfaces during attacks against Christian gatherings and places of worship of Christians.

February 2023: Mohan Bhagwat: There is no caste superiority, illusion has to be set aside

At Sant Rohidas birth anniversary Sunday, Bhagwat says, “everybody is same”, “don’t be misled by caste superiority”; in 2015, his suggestion for review of reservations had led to severe backlash. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat has said the “illusion” of caste superiority is misleading and that there are no such differences between people belonging to different castes.

“Whatever the name, ability, and honour of a person, everybody is the same and there are no differences,” news agency ANI quoted the RSS chief as saying at an event Sunday marking the the 647th birth anniversary of Sant Shiromani Rohidas. 

Four months before, in October 2022, speaking at a book launch in Nagpur, Bhagwat said “varna” and “jaati” (caste) should be completely discarded, adding that “the caste system has no relevance now. Everything that causes discrimination should go out lock, stock and barrel,” the RSS chief said. Then before that in September of last year while addressing a gathering of religious leaders from among the Dalits and OBCs, in Karnataka, Bhagwat said that “efforts must be made to prevent religious conversions since they take people away from their roots”.

According to the RSS-linked ‘Samvada’ website, which quoted from his speech at that time, he went on to say: “The main problems of Hindu society such as untouchability, differences and inequality exist mainly in the mind. These problems do not exist in the scriptures…These problems have existed in our minds for many generations and their solutions will also take time. We have to slowly work to remove them from our mind.”

In January 2018, addressing stock brokers at the Bombay Stock Exchange (“Nationalism and Ethical Practices in Business”) Bhagwat had said “the ethical practices of the society is reflected in the politics of the country. For example, I don’t want to use caste politics but I am compelled to use it because the society votes based on caste. If I stay in power, only then can I change the system. So if the society changes, the politics of the country will also change, not vice-versa”.

Back in September 2015, Bhagwat’s suggestion for a review of the reservation policy had received a lot of backlash. That was when the Patel stir led by Hardik Patel had peaked in Gujarat.

In an interview to RSS mouthpieces ‘Organiser’ and ‘Panchjanya’, Bhagwat had said, “We should have an integral approach of welfare for all. It is sensible to realise that my interest lies in a larger interest. Government also has to be sensitive to these issues so that there should not be any agitation for them.” He went on propose “a committee of people genuinely concerned for the interest of the whole nation and committed for social equality, including some representatives from the society, [who] should decide which categories require reservation and for how long”.

He had also then argued that the policy of reservations based on social backwardness is not in line with what the makers of the Constitution had in mind.

Unsurprisingly, his comments unleashed strong reactions, putting the BJP on the back foot. This pushed the RSS to issue a statement that “it firmly supports the existing reservation policy enshrined in the Constitution” and that the remarks were “distorted by critics to create confusion about the organisation’s view over the issue”. The BJP also clarified that it “respected 100 per cent the reservation rights of the SCs, STs and other backward castes.”

Reacting to Bhagwat’s remarks, RJD president Lalu Prasad had, in an interview to PTI, said there was a “pattern” behind Bhagwat’s remarks, adding: “That is their (RSS) original thought process. Their psyche is against SC/ST and OBC. What was their inner core came out.”

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“I (god) am in all beings. Whatever be the name or color, all have the same ability, same respect. All are my own. No one is superior or inferior…based on scriptures, what the Pundits say is a lie. By getting entangled in this imagination of superior and inferior castes, we have lost our way. This delusion has to be done away with.“ These are the words of Dr. Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of RSS, and the parent organization of BJP and plethora of organizations working for the goal of Hindu Nation. He was talking on the occasion of Saint Raidas celebrations.

Swami Prasad Maurya, the leader of downtrodden castes latched on to it and re-emphasized his call for revision of Ramcharitmanas, of Tulsidas, where there are humiliating passages for dalits and women both. On the other side the conservative Shankaryaryas and others opposed this saying that caste is created by God Himself and Bhagwat should not blame Brahmins for this. Clarifying to save his face Bhagwat went on to say that by Pandits he means scholars and not Brahmins.

Surely this is the latest articulation from the Hindu nationalist stable to woo over the dalits in particular. RSS has been in constant dilemma, on one side to maintain the pre modern status quo of caste and gender on the other to win over these sections for its agenda. The articulation of RSS regarding caste has gone through various stages. One of the factors which prompted the formation of RSS was the struggle of downtrodden to break the shackles of Landlord-Brahmins. The ‘Non Brahmin Movement’, aimed against the Landlord-Brahmin combine was the major factor in some of the elite coming together to form this organization.

RSS’s initial understanding was presented by its second Sarsanghchalak, Madhav Sadshiv Golwalkar. He upheld this varna-caste system by eulogizing Manu Smriti and presenting the past as the Golden period as the laws of this book “We or Our Nationhood Defined’, were ruling the roost. As per him it is this Holy Scripture there is a caste system and this system is based in scientific principles. Organiser, the unofficial RSS mouthpiece presented it thus, ‘If a developed society realizes that the existing differences are due to the scientific social structure and that they indicate the different limbs of body social, the diversity (i.e. caste system, added) would not be construed as a blemish.’ (Organiser, 1 December 1952, p. 7)

Later another major ideologue of RSS, Deendayal Upadhyay, who was also the President of BJP, put forward the ideology of ‘Integral Humanism’. Many of those from the Sangh stable stated this is what guides their politics. As per Integral Humanism ‘In our concept of four castes (varnas), they are thought of as different limbs of virat purush (the primeval man)… These limbs are not only complementary to one another but even further there is individuality, unity. There is a complete identity of interests, identity, belonging… If this idea is not kept alive, the caste; instead of being complimentary can produce conflict. But then that is a distortion.’ (D. Upadhyaya, Integral Humanism, New Delhi, Bharatiya Jansangh, 1965, p. 43)

 These were articulations which consolidated the base of their politics among sections of Hindus. In the next phase, when this consolidation was established RSS went into propagating that all castes are equal. In this direction they published three major books.

These books written by RSS ideologues argue that Islamic atrocities during the medieval period resulted in the emergence of untouchables and low castes. The books are “Hindu Charmakar Jati”, “Hindu Khatik Jati” and “Hindu Valmiki Jati”.

The Sangh leaders claimed that these castes had come into existence due to atrocities by foreign invaders and did not exist in Hindu religion earlier. According to Bhaiyyaji Joshi, another RSS leader, ‘shudras’ were never untouchables in Hindu scriptures. ‘Islamic atrocities’ during the medieval age resulted in the emergence of untouchables, Dalits. Joshi further elaborated, “To violate Hindu swabhiman (dignity) of Chandravanshi Kshatriyas, foreign invaders from Arab, Muslim rulers and beef-eaters, forced them to do abominable works like killing cows, skinning them and throwing their carcasses in deserted places. Foreign invaders thus created a caste of charma-karma (dealing with skin) by giving such works as punishment to proud Hindu prisoners.” And now comes the latest phase where the caste system is blamed on Pandits.

As such the foundations of the caste system are very old and untouchability came as an accompaniment of the caste system. The Aryans considered themselves superior, they called non-Aryans krishna varnya (dark skinned), anasa (those with no nose), and… they were considered non-human or amanushya. (Rig Veda: X.22.9) There are quotes in the Rig Veda and Manusmriti to show that low castes were prohibited from coming close to the high castes and they were to live outside the village. While this does not imply that a full-fledged caste system had come into being in Rig Vedic times, the four-fold division of society into varnas did exist, which became a fairly rigid caste system by the time of the Manusmriti.

Untouchability became the accompaniment of the caste system sometime around the first century AD. The Manusmriti, written in the second–third centuries AD, codifies the existing practices which show with utmost clarity the type of despicable social practices that the oppressor castes were imposing upon the oppressed castes.

Whatever the truth be, RSS after consolidating its base now wants to win over large sections of dalit-OBC to its agenda. As such earlier also it had set up Samajik Samrasta manch (Social harmony Forum) to work among Dalit-OBC and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram to co-opt the Adivasis. Their well spread out network has made inroads into these sections of society from decades and it has yielded rich electoral dividends, apart from trying to make these sections as a part of Hindutva fold. Their work in these areas revolves around promoting Brahminical religiosity and Seva (Service, Charity)

Now the electoral politics is becoming more challenging as the deprivations of the downtrodden sections are becoming clear about the RSS agenda, and so the new formulation of origin of caste. They can do now it as their core constituency is consolidated and such utterances are not going to shake that while they adopt newer language to woo over the dalits-OBC in particular.

Related:

Mohan Bhagwat: Distorted History-Sectarian Agenda

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In a series of lectures in Vigyan Bhavan in 2018 Mohan Bhagwat spoke in a language due to which many insiders and many commentators outside the Sangh felt that it is a major moment for RSS and it is changing drastically. The RSS supremo went to the extent of reciting the preamble of Indian Constitution and upheld secularism and socialism. In the recent interview to its mouth pieces, (Panchjanya and Organiser January 2023) the language is changed to what can be said to be ‘Golwlakar 2.0’.

Golwalkar’s ‘Bunch of Thoughts’, which is not much quoted by the Sangh ideologues these days, argues that Muslims, Christians and Communists are internal threat to the Hindu Nation. In his other book, ‘We or Our Nationhood Defined’, this ideologue asserts that we are a Hindu nation from times immemorial and the minorities should be given the same treatment what Germans gave to the Jews and other weaker sections of society in Germany.

Now when Bhagwat says, that threat is not from outside but from inside, he is repeating Golwalkar’s formulation. In his earlier pronouncements he had been trying to gain legitimacy to the extent that a section of Muslims elite went to have dialogue with him. Now in the present circumstances it seems that Bhagwat wants to show RSS agenda in its blunt form. So he states that ‘Hindu’ has been on war from last thousand years and now ‘Hindu’ has woken up.  As per him there is no harm to the Muslims living today in Bharat. If they wish to stick to their faith, they can. If they want to return to the faith of their ancestors, they may. It is entirely their choice”. Also they have to give up their sense of superiority. He covers a wide range of topics from cruel Muslim invasion, to illegal immigrants, to accommodating transgender among others.

As per him there is nothing to fear for Muslims, only they should become used to occasional beatings in trains like Asim Hussain, they should become used to boycott on the pretext of Corona jihad or land (Shaheen bagh, Haldwani) or UPSC jihad among others. There is a consistent theme in his pronouncements and that reasserts the RSS understanding of ‘Hindu Nation from times immemorial’! Was this the identity and religion of the people living here all through? Was the South Asian community a homogenous mass living under one Republic or monarch? The present concept of Nation state is a just few centuries old and earlier there were pastoral groups, followed by Kingdoms, which were at loggerheads with each other. It was not Hindu versus others.

Just a small example will suffice Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj for establishing his kingdom had to defeat Chandra Rao More another Hindu king. His armies plundered in Surat and Bengal. In Bengal Maratha army plundered recklessly including the rich trader Jagat Seth.

In his battle against Aurangzeb he had Muslim Generals like Ibrahim Gardi and Daulat Khan. Aurangzeb had sent his top officer Raj Jaisingh to contain Shivaji Maharaj. So what is this, ‘Hindu is at war from 1000 years’? It is basically history related to diverse kingdoms and not people. Again a single example, it was Rana Sanga who invited Babar to come to join him in battle against Ibrahim Lodi. In Bhima Koregaon battle the Peshwas army had Arab Muslim mercenaries, in another instance Rana Pratap had thousand Pathan soldiers in his army which took on Akbar in Haldighati.

The real struggle had been at the social level, the upper caste domination and atrocities against the lower caste, so very well pointed out by Swami Vivekananda. Kings’ administrations were mixed and people interacted at social level giving rise to our culture, which had admixture of best of the traditions irrespective of from which religion they came. The whole edifice of RSS ideology is to hide the caste/varna atrocities of our history and to deflect to the battle of Kings and rule of different Muslim kings, particularly Mughals. So in their projection on one side there are Muslim aggressors and other side “Hindu”! Totally illogical way of presenting history!

RSS adorns the garb of representing Hindus, and puts itself as ‘Hindu’, who has woken up. As ‘Hindu’ has been at war and woken up during last two decades and is in ‘hyper state’ from last eight years is to be accepted and not to be feared of as per Bhagwat. This ‘waking up’, has stepped up the violence against Muslim-Christian minorities. This woken up Hindu is represented by the likes of Dara Singh, (killer 0f Pastor Stains) or Shambhulal Regar who killed Afrazul or those who have been indulging in lynching of Muslims on pretext of cow beef. As he is stating that Muslims have nothing to fear, bulldozers are delivering justice to Muslims in particular, while another set is intimidating Christian missionaries in Adivasi areas in particular.

Human Rights Watch report 2022, points out that home demolitions are being used more and more brutally against Muslims of India. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen states that the exercise of CAA is weakening the Muslim minority and strengthening the Hindu Majoritarianism. As far as Muslim superiority is concerned, some communal thinkers amongst Muslims, the elite sections did try to generalize the ‘we Muslims were the rulers’; this was parallel and opposite to ‘This has been a Hindu Rashtra’. The atrocities, beef lynching’s, love jihad intimidations are not due to the ‘superiority’ feeling among Muslims. It is enfoldment of agenda of Hate constructed by the Hindu majoritarianism.

Why has the language of Sarsanghchalak changed from his 2018 speeches in Vigyan Bhavan? There may be many reasons for Bhagwat to be more forthright than sugarcoating his agenda earlier. Many state elections are due in 2023 and General Elections are due in 2024. The polarization around identity issues seems to be the main instrument in its hands. As Amit Shah, has already blown the conch for next elections by saying that Ram Temple will be ready by January 2024. Bhagawat is operating on same wavelength. The massive response to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra may be another factor.

Another point may be to put forward a subtle defense for those spewing Hate like Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur (Sharpen your knives) or likes of Yeti Narsinghnand (40% Hindus will be killed if a Muslim becomes a PM). It may be also be signal for its other foot soldiers to carry on their work irrespective of the criticism they face and odd Court ruling which may be critical of their actions. His insinuation about ‘balance of population’ is also unwarranted as the fertility rate among women, including Muslim women is also falling.

‘Hindus society has awakened: Natural to be aggressive’, this ‘Bhagwat speak’ totally contravenes what the greatest Hindu of 20^th Century, Mahatma Gandhi, who gave the call of peace and non violence, compassion and love.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

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RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat has rationalised and almost justified the sharp rise in communal sentiment and strife, and the impunity of Hindutva mobs, in an interview to the house journal, Organiser. 

“Hindu society has been at war for over 1,000 years ― this fight has been going on against foreign aggressions, foreign influence and foreign conspiracies. The Sangh has offered its support to this cause, so have others. There are many who have spoken about it. And it is because of all these that Hindu society has awakened. It is but natural for people at war to be aggressive.” 

Significantly, he also referred to Italy and its 19th century general, Guisseppe Garibaldi, also long-revered by the Sangh for his role in the Italian unification: “Garibaldi led the war, but once fighting stopped, he wanted others to lead. At the end, when they had to choose a monarch, Garibaldi refused the mantle and said it should go to someone else. Of the three leaders who rose to prominence during Italy’s rise, it was Garibaldi who led on the battlefield. However, at the end, he distanced himself, saying, this is not my job.”  The Sangh’s open admiration for Benito Mussolini if Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany has been minutely documented by scholar ….. in …… In fact BS Moonje, founder of the RSS’ inspired and funded Bhosle Military Academies ater his ten day visit to Italy during the reign of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini an Hitler’s aggressive and exclusionary brand(s) of nationalism is what has inspired Sangh ideologues and cadres, alike.

Over the past week, Bhagwat has spoken often and audibly. The speculation that prime minister, Narendra Modi is now the voice that dominates dominant the sangh parivar, and not the Sarsanghchalak, may have been a factor that pushed Mohan Bhagwat to address this to his supporters, who may be “in awe of” Modi’s personality.  The Caravan from November: ‘Bhagwat eclipsed’. 

On Muslims and India

Seemingly out of the blue, Bhagwat, in the same interview given to both Organiser and Panchjanya controversially also said that while Muslims have nothing to fear in India, but they must abandon their “boisterous rhetoric of supremacy”.

In an interview to Organiser and Panchjanya, Mr. Bhagwat said, “The simple truth is this, Hindusthan should remain Hindusthan. There is no harm to the Muslims living today in Bharat… Islam has nothing to fear. But at the same time, Muslims must abandon their boisterous rhetoric of supremacy.” 

“We are of an exalted race; we once ruled over this land, and shall rule it again; only our path is right, rest everyone is wrong; we are different, therefore we will continue to be so; we cannot live together; they (Muslims) must abandon this narrative. In fact, all those who live here whether a Hindu or a communist must give up this logic,” the RSS chief said.

Reacting sharply to the remarks, senior advocate, Kapil Sibal said on Twitter, “Bhagwat: ‘Hindusthan should remain Hindusthan’, Agree. But: Insaan should remain Insaan.” Mr. Bhagwat also stated (sic) the new-found aggression among Hindus the world over was due to an awakening in the society that has been at war for over 1,000 years.

On the LGBTQIA communities 

On “LGBT people” Bhagwat said “they had the right to live, without much hullabaloo”, and had “always been accommodated in society”. There was no need for a fuss about them.

Related:

Mohan Bhagwat and Indian Muslims

Hindus, Muslims and the lies of Mohan Bhagwat

Mohan Bhagwat gets another invite to debate reservation

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Just a week after the chief of the All India Imam Organisation, Dr. Imam Umer Muhammad Ilyasi described Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarasangh Chalak of the mighty RSS as “Rashtra Pita” (father of the nation) exhibited confidence that the man has equal respect for all cultures, further avowed that both Bhagwat and he had decided to keep the nation above all other considerations etc, the RSS chief declared in a meeting hosted on the occasion of Navaratri, that the eating of meat leads to “tamasic” – devilish-  tendencies and hence one should abandon or restrict eating meat. On Dussehra Day, October 5, the traditional Vijayadashami rally saw the RSS chief again waxing eloquent on population control.

Now, this comment displayed a contempt not merely against ‘beef eaters’ read Muslims but also against the whole meat eating community as a whole, which, by the way, constitutes more than 80% of ‘Hindus’ themselves. In a way, the comment is a re-statement of the supremacy of a narrow, Brahminical culture which considers (one form of) Brahminical vegetarianism as the ‘superior culture’ and, by inference, meat eating as inferior. In a way the RSS supremo is therefore quite unabashedly advocating racist supremacy of Brahmins over the rest of the Hindus, besides non-Hindus.

Still, we find of late, a section of the Muslim elite and a section of Muslim clergy displaying an incurable infatuation towards the RSS Supremo. They have found him reasonable, a person who can understand the anxieties of the Muslims. They even attribute secular meanings to his words and silences and continue to give credence to some of the RSS’s own rather hypocritical efforts.

A month before this meeting with the Imam, five eminent leaders including former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Najeeb Jung,  SY Quraishi, former chief election commissioner, Zamiruddin Shah, former Lt General (retd) from the Indian army and

Vice Chancellor, Aligarh Muslim University Vice Chancellor, Shahid Siddiqui, former MP and philanthropist along with Saeed Shervani, business magnet met Mohan Bhagwat for an hour in a closed door meeting.  

This closed door meeting was not open to the public and neither the RSS nor those who met the RSS supremo disclosed immediate details. Subsequently however, over the last month both SY Quraishi and Najeeb Jung have given many interviews and written articles around the meeting. In a nutshell, these interviews told us that the meeting, was the initiative of this motely group of eminent people, who wanted to convey the anxiety and insecurity of the Muslim community through a dialogue with the RSS supremo. The group feels they were successful in making him realise the fallacy of insidious propaganda around the growth of Muslim population and the hidden intimidation the community suffers when the whole Muslims are branded as ‘Jihadis’.

In response, on the other hand, the group said the RSS supremo expressed how Hindus feel offended when every Hindu is called a ‘Kafir’ and how every Hindu is hurt when a cow is killed for meat. The group conceded that both issues could be attended to since Kafir is an Arabic word for non-believer and could be avoided entirely. Cow eating is not an essential religious practice and existing laws against beef eating can take care of the hurt feelings of Hindus feeling etc. The group felt that the meeting was most fruitful and admired the RSS supremo’s simplicity and punctuality. They believe that this conversation would reach its logical end and the RSS supremo would reign in his organisation .

But the RSS itself has said nothing, neither about the purpose nor the outcome of these meetings from their side. The attitude of the RSS is summarised in the reply of a RSS functionary to a news agency when he said RSS supremo meets many people when he is in Delhi and hence did not attach any significance to such meetings. On the Dussehra day speech some reference was made to some Muslims apologising for the ‘violent reactions’ of Muslims to former BJP spokesperson, Nupur Sharma’s statements on Prophet Mohammed at Udaipur and Amravati,

On the other hand Sheshadri Chari, another ideologue of the RSS and the ex-editor of its mouth piece the “Organiser”, in an article in “The Print”, has opined that such meetings are neither new nor unusual. He even stated that the second Sarvasanghachalak of the RSS, MS Golwalkar also used to meet the Muslims. This tradition has been continued on and off by others also. The purpose of such meetings is to influence the Muslim leaders to “de-Arabise Indian Islam”.  And inspire them to be nationalist etc.

In a way, this is true. The RSS has launched Muslim Rashtriya Manch – MRM- under the dreaded RSS leader Indresh Kumar in 2002 itself to pursue their agenda of promoting ‘nationalist Muslims and Indianisation of Islam’. Bhagwat himself has met non-Hindu leaders prior to the 2019 general election. This was in 2018 at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan where he lectured on the tenets of the Hinudtva for three days. In that meeting he declared that Hindutva and the RSS is wrongly understood and Hindutva is incomplete without Muslims.

Again, at a book release program in 2021, Bhagwat declared that Hindus and Muslims in India are of same DNA and those who opt for lynchings etc are not true Hindus because tolerance is the hall mark of Hinduism. Also that Hindutva is not about religion but civilisation and nationalism etc. Even then, many Muslim intellectuals and a section of clergy opined that the RSS is changing and was becoming inclusive. But immediately after the 2019 elections an all-out attack on the Muslims and their identity was unleashed by both the BJP government and the so called fringe elements with the full support of the same Supremo.

Now history seems to be repeating itself. For example, some news reports suggest that Bhagwat, during his much-publicised visits to Madrasas and the Imam, gifted a copy of the Bhagwad Gita to the Madrasas and them asked to make the students become acquainted with the Gita along with Quran. Could this be considered, for some intellectuals, a grand gesture of suggestion to make students aware of all religions instead of only their own?

No. Because the RSS run thousands of schools where only the Gita is taught and no mention of either the Quran or the Bible is made. Not only that, in BJP ruled Karnataka, where the government and the High Court denied girls the custom of sporting the Hijab along with the school uniform as an affront to secularism, the state has also declared its intention of introducing the Bhagavad Gita as part of its moral education curriculum. The justification is more annoying – That the Gita is above all religions and a great text with a code of moral conduct. Incidentally, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar declares, in his “Krishna and his Gita” the text being a “philosophical Justification of the Counter Revolution” and the “Manu smriti with vivid details”. Thus Bhagwat’s offering Gita to Madrasa is nothing but another act of defining India as a Hindu Nation and the Muslim, a community obliged to follow the Hindu.

Even the Sheshadri Chari’s alibi of de-Arabisation of Indian Muslim smacks of blatant Hindutva Fascism loaded with sweet words. What within Islam is that is Arabic which the RSS wants to Indianise? And what is Indianisation other than Hinduisation/ Brahminisation?

The Dargah culture is prevalent among Indian Muslims. In fact this is true Indianisation of Islam for that matter. The Islam of the Dargah is localised and further flourished by imbibing the local culture of the subaltern Hindus. Thus in the dargahs like Bababudan Dargah in Karnataka the religiosity, theology and the practice at the shrine is a mixture of original Islam and the local culture of the Hindu/ Shudra peasantry. The meat food was served for the devotees who came for the Urus.

However, neither the RSS nor its affiliate Hindutva outfits consider the Dargahs (or Sufi Islam for that matter) as the confluence of two traditions but as the cultural annexation of Islam over the never existent Hindu deity. The harmonious Indianisation of the Islam is considered as the historical invasion which should be set right. So where is the Indian Islam located within the Hindutva Project?

Even the NEP policy and its  position papers  prepared to redesign the National Curricular Framework, the present Prime minister and his counterpart in the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat  speeches, both personages oft declare that India has “suffered” under 1200 years rule of colonisers and that this history of the ‘Invaders’ should be re-written. Thus, Indian Islam is completely taken out of the Indian History and students are now taught that any aspect or form of Islam is ‘foreign’ and only the Hindu, that is the Brahmin is Indian and by extension, also superior.

In fact this is a project of Hindutva which Golwalkar stated without mincing words in his “We Or Our Nationhood defined”. Golwalkar writes and says:

“ 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 idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must loose 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.”

Thus when Bhagwat says that Hindutva is not about Hindu religion he is making mockery of the idiocy of his audience. In fact, the RSS’s Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) baithak (meet), held in Ahmedabad in 2022 says in its annual report, that :

 “There appear to be elaborate plans by a particular community to enter the government machinery. Behind all this, it seems that a deep conspiracy with a long-term goal is working. On the strength of numbers, preparations are being made to adopt any route to get their demands accepted.”

Thus the constitutional right of every Indian community to get representation within democratic structures of governance, to get educated and obtain government jobs by Muslims is being criminalised by the RSS and is projected as a conspiracy against the country. One is reminded of “UPSC jihad” controversy raked up by the Sudarshan channel a year ago. While its proponent Suresh Chavanke was ridiculed then as the fringe element, the source of that “knowledge” is the official resolution of the RSS headed by Bhagwat.

By that logic, one should conclude that when Bhagwat met Qureishi, Jung and other eminent citizens who served the Indian State in high positions, Bhagwat was talking to UPSC jihadist. Within the Karnataka State Assembly, the speaker and the many cabinet ministers of the BJP government went on record saying that in few years Bhagva (saffron) flag would become the official national flag. There is no more fringe elements outside the core after 2019. The de facto existence of Hindu Rashtra in India is also gradually becoming de jure year after year.  

The discrimination against the Hijab and judicial sanction of the same, the state introduction of Gita, The attack on the Azaan, Masjid, trade and business of Muslims, legislations like CAA, NPR/NRC, the almost unanimous support to abrogation of article 370 in Indian Parliament, the state recognition of the murder of a ‘Hindu’ as ‘anti-national’ and the killing of a ‘Muslim’ as ‘just a crime etc’, are but de jure declarations of the Hindu state.

Yet, sections of the Muslim clergy and some Muslim intellectuals are of the opinion that the RSS supremo could be their saviour. This is not just illusion but also a suicidal obsession. Instead, meeting and inter-acting with masses of Muslims and Hindus and forging unity against the RSS’ brand of Brahmanism could help in finding the real way out of the impending danger.

*Views expressed are the author’s own. The author is an activist and freelance journalist who was also a columnist for Gauri Lankesh’s publication.

Other pieces by Shivasundar:
Bharat Jodo pragmatism of the Congress & illusions of the progressives
Adani’s capital Modi’s power in Sri Lanka
Modi’s eight years: Eight acts of shameful disgrace
How a state suffocated by Saffron got a new breath from Blue
Never Ever Forget

The post Mohan Bhagwat and Indian Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat has invoked Mahatma Gandhi and selectively quoted and ‘interpreted’ the father of the nation  to ‘prove’ his own take that Hindus are ‘automatic patriots’. Bhagwat was of course was quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s personal observations on what Hinduism means for him, and conviniently omitted that Gandhi had also said, “Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.”

Bhagwat also did not mention the Sangh’s own ‘hero’ Nathuram Godse, a strong proponent of Hindu nationalism in his life, who had shot Gandhi thrice in the chest on January 30, 1948.  

According to Bhagwat, a Hindu will never be anti-national. He was speaking at the launch of a book on Gandhi and was quoted in the Indian Express saying, “All Indians worship motherland. But Gandhiji said my patriotism comes from my religion. So if you are a Hindu then you will be an automatic patriot. You may be an unconscious Hindu, you may need awakening, but a Hindu will never be anti-India.”  The RSS chief tried to prove his theory stating that even Mahatma Gandhi had said his religion was a source of his patriotism.

The book, Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background of Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj, was launched by Bhagwat who said, “All Indians worship motherland. But Gandhiji said my patriotism comes from my religion. So if you are a Hindu then you will be an automatic patriot. You may be an unconscious Hindu, you may need awakening, but a Hindu will never be anti-India.” According to the news report, Bhagwat elucidated on “how Indian culture and Hindu religion inspired Gandhi”, and said, “Gandhiji said my religion is the religion of all religions. Gandhiji wanted to say ‘Dharm’ but there is no parallel to it in English. Gandhiji started the movement for Swaraj (self-rule)… But till you do not understand ‘Swadharm’, you can’t understand Swaraj.”

He added that “The launch of a book dealing with the rise of a Hindu patriot in context of Gandhi and the presence of RSS chief can mean a lot of things to the people. People will say we are trying to appropriate Gandhiji. No one can appropriate a great personality. The aim of this book is not that. It is a thoroughly researched book on the life of Gandhiji.” The book has been brought out by Centre for Policy Studies and authored by Dr J K Bajaj and M D Srinivas, and according to IE it focuses on Gandhi’s journey from Porbandar to England and South Africa and back to India.

Bhagwat’s comment on Gandhi, and the exclusion of all other faiths from his speech invited sharp critique.

Will Bhagwat answer: What about Gandhi’s killer Godse? What about the men responsible for Nellie massacre, anti-1984 anti-Sikh & 2002 Gujarat pogroms?

It’s rational to assume that most INDIANS are patriots regardless of their faith. It’s only in RSS’s ignorant ideology….[1/2] https://t.co/fZv3GpmlIg

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) January 1, 2021

Bhagwat did not stop at that and added that Gandhi’s understanding of religion was of tolerance saying, “Unity in diversity is our sentiment and not just a matter of policy. Gandhiji said I will follow my religion strictly but also respect other religions. This is the fundamental of Indian thought. Difference does not mean separatism.” The irony continued as RSS chief then tried to find a link between Gandhi’s opinions with that of  RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, “Gandhiji clearly said the Western civilisation has ruined our own culture and we have become ‘Dharmbhrasht’. …Dr Hedgewar also used to say that do not blame others. You got enslaved because you were ready to be enslaved. There was something lacking in you. I saw a parallel of such thought in Gandhiji.”

The book released by Bhagwat claims that during 1893-94, “Gandhi was pressured by his Muslim employer and Christian colleagues in South Africa to convert but he refused. And by 1905, he had become a devout Hindu.”

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The post I’m also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew: Gandhi’s memo to Mohan Bhagwat appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It started in early October, when a small group of five masked protestors entered the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London, and disrupted an ongoing South Asian Solidarity Group meeting. The meeting had been organised to discuss the conditions created by the government of India in Kashmir.

The protestors barged in, turned on the fire alarm and spread leaflets saying that they are “Gay for J&K”. They called the panel, which included Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) leader Kavitha Krishnan and Dipesh Anand, who heads the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster, “regressive Left’. The protestors claimed that revoking the protections of Article 370 from the former state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was a boon for Kashmir’s LGBTQ community.

According to the protestors, the special status of J&K had prevented it from implementing the Supreme Court’s 2018 directive to decriminalise homosexuality. The legal debate on whether the J&K High Court had an obligation to follow the apex court’s reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or whether the Ranbir Penal Code, operative in the erstwhile Kashmir state, had to undergo amendments to accommodate the verdict was immaterial to the protestors.

Surprisingly, after the SOAS protests, India’s Hindutva troll brigade on social media came out in full support of their newly-made LGBTQ “brothers and sisters” in Kashmir. This is an about-turn, for, the Hindutva brigade has consistently opposed anything but heteronormative as “unnatural” and “perverted”.

On August 6, the day after Kashmir was stripped of its special status, one Abhishek Banerjee wrote on a Right-wing platform: “…the abolition of Article 370 has finally given equal property rights to Kashmiri women, how are liberals fighting back? They say it is against the autonomy of J&K! Why was homosexuality still a crime in J&K despite the SC judgement last year? Because of Article 370… how are liberals trying to block them?”.

Nationalistic rhetoric, where the rights of homosexuals are privileged over the fundamental rights of others to a life of dignity is new to India but has long been practised in the West. The “Gay for J&K” protestors at SOAS were echoing this logic to justify stifling the voices of the marginalised in Kashmir. And they did so in the name of upholding LGBTQ rights.

Respecting LGBTQ rights is now a symbol of being a progressive nation state. In order to claim being modern, a nation must recognise the rights of the LGBTQ. So far so good, but nationalistic rhetoric floats the theory that a competition or conflict exists between the rights to a dignified life of homosexuals and other marginalised groups.

This strategy of the Right wing draws legitimacy from the global discourse that seeks to accord rights to freedom of sexual choice and a dignified life to the LGBTQ, by playing up the competitive marginality card. In Israel, for instance, the occupation of Palestine has been justified by citing homophobia in Palestinian society. Yes, dignity and human rights are what LGBTQ movements the world over seek and fight for. Yet, a number of ‘modern’ nations use the rhetoric of these movements to shield their violation of the fundamental rights of the other marginalised groups.

Israel has stifled the voices of the marginalised Palestinians by privileging one marginalised group—the LGBTQ—over the others.

Clearly, this is done in many countries to detract from contentious issues. This is part of what queer theorist Jasbir Puar calls homonationalism. Herein, nationalistic slogans are floated in which a country claims that it is modern and progressive while suppressing dissent and differences.

In her book, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, Puar defines the use of “acceptance” and “tolerance” for gay and lesbian subjects as the “barometer by which the legitimacy of, and capacity for, national sovereignty is evaluated”. She critiques the liberal rights discourse on progress and modernity that accords some populations access to cultural and legal citizenship “at the expense of the partial and full expulsion from those rights of other populations.”

In the post 9/11 context, Puar says, the liberals justified the United States “war on terror” and dismantling of West Asia by arguing: “Of course we oppose the war on terror, but what about the homophobia of Muslims? Of course, we oppose the US occupation of the Middle East, but the Iranians keep hanging innocent gay men. Of course, we support the revolution in Egypt and the Arab Spring, but the sexual assaults of women prove that the Egyptians are beasts.”

Feminist Lila Abu-Lughod says in her book Do Muslim Women Need Saving? that such justifications for war were manufactured by essentialising the conditions of Muslim women in these countries.

This is the kind of sexual nationalism that modern nation states are practicing and it is a project with echoes in today’s India. Consider a section of the Hindu men in India who celebrated the triple talaq Bill, which criminalises Muslim men. The same trope legitimises the arbitrary scrapping of Article 370 and detention of eight million Kashmiris in their own land.

Feminist critic Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak had identified “White men saving Brown women from Brown men”. Now we have Hindutva nationalism at its Hindu male adherents rescuing Muslim women from Muslim men.

Binding Israeli Occupation and US War on Terror

On December 18, 2010, the US government revoked the ban on homosexuality in its military. On the same day, the DREAM Act, or the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, to permit undocumented students in the US to access higher education, failed on a procedural flaw in the US senate. The withdrawal of the ban on homosexuality overwhelmed public discourse—there were protests against the DREAM Act’s withdrawal, but few noticed.

In the fall of 2009, the US senate passed the Mathew Shepard James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, technically the first legislation that criminalises hate crimes against the LGBTQ community. Anti-race-discrimination queer groups such as Queers for Economic Justice warned that such criminalisation would affect people of colour the most; for it often believed in the US that members of non-White races are more homophobic. The QEJ warned that criminalisation of hate would bolster surveillance excesses, increase discrimination and foster violence, but nobody paid any heed.

It is Israel, the closest ally of the US, which is among the proudest campaigners for gay rights. The Brand Israel campaign talks about its LGBTQ-friendly environment and attempts to strike a contrast with the Palestinian people and Palestine in doing so.

Such a campaign closes off any counter-arguments on how securing LGBTQ rights can legitimise the oppression of another people. Israel thus denies the Palestinian LGBTQ subjects a voice. The Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and the Al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society (AlQaws), the two major queer collectives of Palestine, are fighting relentlessly against the Occupation and call it their main site of struggle. Yet, Israel pinkwashes them.

This is not all. On January 11, 2011, Tel Aviv declared itself the “World’s Best Gay City”. On the same day, Israel’s High Court of Justice endorsed a law that prohibited West Bank Palestinians from meeting their spouses in Israel. So, the country with the world’s best gay city, amends its citizenship law to blatantly stifle the sexual and physical mobility of its Palestinian citizens and residents.

Contrary to perception, the rights granted by homonationalists to LGBTQs do not give greater sexual freedom and rights. Consider the misconceived notion of ‘love jihad’ floated by Hindu nationalists in India: Like the homonationalists in Israel, India’s ‘love jihad’ proponents want to restrain sexuality and curb the intermingling of castes, classes and religions. It is such interaction which constitutes a nightmare for the purist Hindutva propagators, though it speaks the language of protecting women throughout its campaigns against inter-marriage.

Anti-Islam Rhetoric of Homonationalism

Homonationalists do not limit themselves to the boast that they are proud modernists and progressive nationalists. They justify Islamophobia and seek to disenfranchise Muslims of their right to being modern (as the West defines it).

In a conference on ‘Sexual Nationalisms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe’, organised by the University of Amsterdam, Stefan Dudink, who teaches social anthropology and development studies at the Radbound University in the Netherlands, explained how homosexuals are constructed as a “race” against Muslims. “Whenever equal rights and respect for gays and lesbians are contrasted with Islam and Muslim culture, a series of oppositions is implicitly or explicitly mobilised: West-East, modern-backward, secular-religious, etc,” he said.

Hence, the inherent logic is anti-Muslim, the rhetoric is of self-claimed modernism and the weapon is LGBTQ rights. In this way, homonationalism has been deployed to delegitimise Palestinian rights, clamp down on Kashmiris and so on.

In India, Hindu nationalists may oppose Western liberal ideals on many scores but they seem to have learnt from Israel and the US that by raising the rights of the LGBTQs, and by spewing rhetoric on “protecting” Muslim women, they will gain the sanction to attack dalits, Muslims and tribals, and yet claim to be “modern”.

Consider the transitions in the stance of the Sangh Parivar regarding the rights of homosexuals. From wanting to exclude them, they turned to containing them, appropriating them and now they are using them to fulfil their broader Hindutva nationalist project. Minutes after the Apex court had read down Section 377, Bhagwat readily accepted the decriminalisation. Now, a new book, The RSS: Roadmaps For the 21st Century, by RSS theologue Sunil Ambekar says that RSS does not outright reject gay marriage either. That it is willing to discuss it at length.

For these reasons, the SOAS incident should be an eye-opener. India must invigorate its discussions on the rights of one marginalised community, which must not come at the cost of other’s rights. There is need for a larger consolidation of the marginalised against the rising tide of homonationalisation. Hindu elite-caste homosexuals are not responsible for rescuing Muslim homosexuals from Muslim heteronormativity.

The writer is a doctoral research fellow at the School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi. The views are personal.

First published in NewsClick.
 

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