In his attempts at explaining Islamophobia as a phenomenon unique to the west, Prof Guduvarthy(‘There is Communalism – Not Islamophobia in India, The Wire, 01/05/19) commits a number of erroneous assumptions; namely limiting anti-Muslim violence in India to the domain of the Hindutva forces thereby discounting the structural racism and exclusion of Indian Muslims as evident from the Sachar Committee report and the securitization of Muslims apparent in the various anti-terror legislations proposed and supported across the political spectrum.

Guduvarthy’s neglect of the scholarship on Islamophobia which has been established for over 20 years is evident in some rather elementary misconceptions that liter his article.  For example, his exposition of Islamophobia as a word rather than as a concept by hinging his argument on the literal meaning of the words Muslim and phobia. The meanings of terms cannot be pinned down to etymology, but sense is made from their usage. For example, in policy debates, terms like xenophobia and homophobia are commonly used without being considered to be descriptions of psychological conditions[1] nor do these terms account solely for individual prejudices and biases but are rather deployed in relation to structures and systems of governance to gain an analytical and critical understanding.

This obliviousness to all the definitions that have been made in understanding Islamophobia as a concept by Muslim thinkers, academics, community leaders and organisations in the west is quite unfortunate and the subsequent denial of its use in India is in fact a negation of Muslim civil rights. Islamophobia is global rather Western phenomenon: it can occur where Muslims are considered to be recent immigrants (Western Europe), where Muslims have been present long before countries were formed (India, China, Russia, Thailand), it can occur in societies where there are virtually no Muslims and it can also happen in countries where Muslims are majorities not despised minorities (Algeria). There is nothing about the history of India that precludes it from Islamophobia. Moreover, if concepts ranging from democracy and secularism to capitalism and fascism could be transferred across social/political/cultural boundaries, why the exceptionalism to Islamophobia emphasizing its alleged western origins.

By locating class as the raison d’etre for prejudice and bias against Muslims, Prof Guduvarthy’s analysis indicates the dismissal of racism as an analytical tool to understand Indian Muslims in the Indian social sciences. The common argument raised against defining Islamophobia as racism is that Islamophobia cannot be considered as racism as Muslims do not constitute a race. Without falling repeatedly into the pitfalls of an etymological understanding, races are not physiological nor is it scientific per se and Muslims are definitely not a race, but they are treated as if they are a race. Just as a Muslim name or appearance guarantees a random security search at a Western airport, similarly manifestations of Muslimness ensures scrutiny by the Indian security apparatus as well. This identification of Muslimness as a threat is not borne out of prejudice or hate in the psyche of security officials be it in the west or in India, but rather it is rendered normal through institutional and systemic currents.
The other argument that anti-Muslim violence in the west is sporadic and isolated unlike in India where it is organized and well planned suffers from a myopic view of situating violence in the act per se without factoring in the prevalent Islamophobia discourse which is quite organized and fanned by a network of politicians backed by mainstream media, which trade on many tropes of the global Islamophobia industry. It would be shortsighted to assume that tragedies ranging from the Bosnian genocide (1995) to the Christchurch mosque shootings were random acts totally divorced from historical narratives and the rise of right-wing political movements running on an anti-Muslim platform. In violence and discrimination against Jews and African-Americans, the articulation of agency has played a dominant role in their resistance of which defining anti-Semitism and racism on their own terms was an integral part of that resistance.

This failure to grant agency to Muslims for the same can be fathomed from Indira Jaising’s writ petition to the Supreme Court urging the Indian government to legislate anti-lynching laws. Jaisingargued her case by drawing parallels between the lynchings of African-Americans in the late 19^th century during the advent of the Jim Crow laws, but despite the use of the history and plight of African-Americans as a marker to measure the situation for Indian Muslims, the analytical comparison halts at victimization figures and statistics. The trajectories of the African-American Civil Rights Movement or the Black Power Movement would never be applied as a paradigm for analyzing or proposing a way forward for the Indian Muslim community as it would deem to disrupt the secular common sense by focusing on ‘the Muslim’ as an identity and any such assertions would be deemed ‘communal’ and hence an Indian Muslim version of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr. for that matter would simply not happen.

Islamophobia is a form of racialized governmentality[2]. It needs to be named and its continual circulation in public debate testifies to the ways in which it hints at something that needs to be addressed and this need of Muslims especially in India cannot be done away with.Islamophobia is in India, a refusal to accept this, or dismiss it as communalism is not only epistemologically wrong but ethnically perverse. Denying Islamophobia is a denial of justice for Muslims in India.

[1]https://www.criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/defining-islamophobia/
[2] https://www.criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/reports_of_islamophobia_1997_and_2017/

Shaheen Kattiparambil is a Phd researcher at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds.

Courtesy: Counter Current

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The Justice Sachar Committee Report 2005 is the first of its kind in India that provides useful insights into the socio-economic and security issues facing the Muslim-minority constituting 13.4 percent (about 173 million) of the population). Muslims are the biggest chunk of the Indian minorities. 

Image: http://caravandaily.com/

The Sachar Committee report states: i) Muslims in India face a double burden in that they are regarded as anti-national and are at the same time are said to be pampered by the government;  ii) police are highhanded in dealing with Muslims; whenever an incident occurs Muslim boys are picked by the police; iii) the state does not function in an impartial manner, the acid test for a just state; iv) Muslims, the largest minority in India, are lagging behind the other Indian communities in terms of most human development indicators; iv) ‘every bearded man is considered an agent of the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence’; v) fake encounter killing of Muslims is common; vi) Police presence in Muslim areas is more common than the presence of industry, schools, public hospitals, banks and the like; vii) security personnel enter Muslim homes at the slightest provocation; viii) the plight of Muslims living in border areas is worse since they are treated as foreigners and are subjected to harassment by the police and the administration; ix) violent communal conflicts, often include targeted sexual violence against women, which tends to have a ‘spread effect’ even in areas not affected by communal violence; x) immense fear and a feeling of vulnerability that prevail have a visible impact on mobility and education, especially of girls; xi) the lack of adequate representation in the police force accentuates the problem in almost all Indian states and heightens the perceived sense of insecurity, especially in a communally sensitive situation; xii) insecurity leads to Muslims living in ghettos; xiii) the perception of being discriminated against is overpowering amongst a wide cross section of Muslims, resulting in collective alienation.

The much discussed and lauded secularity of the Indian state appears bogus when judged by the scale, intensity and widespread nature of the violence against India’s largest minority community since independence.

Though detailed research is needed and despite the many factors that must be considered, it can be broadly stated that in electoral terms, the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has been the biggest gainer in the unprecedented communal mobilisation and mass violence against the Muslims that have been unleashed in Indian politics through the 1980s, the 1990s and after. In successive parliamentary elections, the party has steadily bettered its performance: the successive parliamentary (Lok Sabha) election years mentioned here are followed by seats won, in brackets: 1984, 8^thLok Sabha (2); 1989, 9^thLok Sabha (86); 1991, 10^thLok Sabha (120); 1996, 11^thLok Sabha (161); 1998, 12^thLok Sabha (182); 1999, 13^thLok Sabha (182); 2004, 14^thLok Sabha (138); 2009, 15^thLok Sabha (116); 2014, 16^thLok Sabha (282).

The communal mobilisation of the last few decades in India has benefited the BJP di hugely in electoral terms. Besides winning three successive state assembly elections in Gujarat (never mind the carnage of 2002), the BJP led by Narendra Modi won the big parliamentary election in 2014 even if he won only 31 percent of the popular vote. The biggest losers in this process have, of course, been the Indian electorate!

It is not surprising that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hesitant to condemn stoutly the Hindu communal mobilisation and violence that confronts him as Prime minister, no matter if it gives his party and government a bad name and his country a black mark.

The Criminal Justice System
Following features of the Indian criminal justice system are noteworthy: i) criminal justice system in India vis-a-vis the minorities, especially the Muslims, Christian and the ethnic communities in the Northeast, is in virtual collapse. Members of these communities are being implicated in many false cases, tortured and ill-treated in the criminal justice system; ii) The Supreme Court of India said that over 60 percent of the arrests made are illegal or unnecessary; iii) In 2009, it was found, on the basis of field investigations in several states, that about 1.8 million people are being tortured in police custody every year.  Many of the victims are members of the minorities and weaker sections; iv) extrajudicial executions or ‘encounter’ killings are taking the place of torture in investigation. Such killings are occurring in several states of India.; v) ‘Encounter’ is an event in which the police shoot dead a person and later claim that he was killed while he undertook an ‘encounter’ with the police; vi) the repressive criminal justice system created by the colonial authorities was retained after independence; vii) the penal and procedural codes enacted by the British in the 1860s need revision in the light of the imperatives of the Constitution of India 1950; vii) the Indian Penal Code begins with chapters on criminal conspiracy and offences against the State. The prevention and detection of offences, the main task of the police are relegated to Chapter XVI and Section 299. The Bengal Regulation III 1818 used to deport people was not repealed. The offence of ‘sedition’, untenable in a parliamentary democratic system, introduced in 1870 in the Penal Code has been retained. Legitimate protest in a democracy is being penalised as ‘sedition’. Similar provisions can be found in the Criminal Procedure Code, 1861 and the Police Act 1860 (Anandswarup Gupta, 1979, Police in British India 1861-1947’); viii) the Supreme Court of India has said that ‘dehumanising torture, assault and death in custody are so widespread as to raise serious questions about the credibility of rule of law and criminal justice’; ix) the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, 2007 noted the ills of the Indian police as: ‘politically oriented partisan performance, partiality, corruption, inefficiency … the public complained of rudeness, intimidation, suppression or concoction of evidence and malicious padding of cases’. 80 percent of the people surveyed mentioned they had to pay a bribe in their dealings with the police. Out of the 11 public agencies surveyed, police were found to be the most unsatisfactory; x) in the name of investigating crimes, torture is inflicted not only on the accused, but also upon bona fide petitioners, complainants, informers and innocent bystanders’; xi) police training is abysmal; xii) the Indian judiciary needs reform and is over-burdened with a huge backlog of cases. 
 

Other relevant points
The Constitution of India, 1950does not define minorities but refers to ‘minorities’ and speaks of minorities based on ‘religion and language’ spelling out their rights in Part III on Fundamental Rights, which are legally enforceable.

Part IV of the Constitution provides the Directive Principles of State Policy, which are not enforceable by law. 

The government of India passed a National Minorities Commission Act 1992 and set up a National Commission for Minorities, 1993. The Commission mentions five religious Minorities: Muslims; Christians; Sikhs; Buddhists; and Zoroastrians. The Jains were added in 2014.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs in the government of India deal with minority issues.

The UN Declaration of 1992 mentions ‘National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities’.  This is a comprehensive phrase which goes beyond the category of the six religious minorities mentioned by India’s National Commission on Minorities, 2005.

It would be advisable for India to adopt a more comprehensive term and include national, ethnic and linguistic minorities. The Constitution of India needs amendment for this purpose. There must be a separate law for the prevention of violence against minorities in India.

There is increasing violence against minorities other than Muslims: indigenous communities in Central India and ethnic minorities in the Northeast of India, which are not included in the list of the National Commission on Minorities in India.    

The National Commission on Minorities has the powers of a civil court and can summon witnesses. The Constitution needs to be amendment to provide the Commission with criminal powers of a High Court of India. The same should apply to the National Commission for Women and the National Commissions for the SCs and the STs along with the National Human Rights Commission, all concerned with minority protection.    

The Constitution of India came into force in 1950. In view of the existence of a multiplicity of minorities in India including National and Ethnic Minorities and in view of the conflicts that are emerging from identity assertions across the country, there is a need for amendment of the Constitution of India and define the term ‘minority’ and enumerate the categories including religious, linguistic, national, ethnic minorities. The Constitution must also incorporate specific provisions for the protection of minorities from all forms of violence and provide them a fair and just criminal justice system. A separate law on minority protection on the lines of the existing law for the protection of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes needs to be passed in Parliament.          

The Preamble to the Constitution of India declares India to be a ‘secular’ state (this is of special relevance to religious minorities) and to secure to all ‘liberty of thought, expression, faith and worship and equality of status and opportunity’.

The Fundamental Rights enumerated in Part III of the Constitution are judicially enforceable. The Directive Principles of State Policy enumerated in Part IV, though not judicially enforceable, are fundamental in the governance of the country. It shall be the duty of the state to apply these Principles in the making of laws.

Significant for the minorities are elimination of inequalities. The Fundamental Rights include, among other things, equality before the law; equal protection of the law; prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth; freedom to profess, practise and propagate any particular religion; freedom of religious instruction and worship etc. These provide for a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-racial Indian society with communal harmony.

The Muslim, the Christian and Sikh minorities have been victims of extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, intimidation, and implication in false cases, destruction of property and utilities and other illegal acts under the criminal justice system.

Non-listed minorities in the North-eastern region too have been subjected to similar abuse.   

The Sikhs were subjected to genocidal killings after some members of the Sikh security forces assassinated former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in protest against the killing of Sikhs during and after Operation ‘Blue Star’ (1984). The genocidal killings of the Muslims in Gujarat (2002) also violated the norms of the criminal justice system.

‘Transfer of power’ in 1947, led to the retention of colonial criminal laws, such as the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1861 and the Evidence Act, 1874 and the Police Act, 1860, which do not institutionalize human rights of minorities. 

The primary focus of the Indian criminal laws is on the security of state, public order maintenance and state-centric intelligence collection. The first 299 sections of the IPC do not have anything to do with the investigation and detection of crimes. 

There are no specific protective legal provisions for the minorities, who are increasingly subjected to violence, torture and extrajudicial executions in the Criminal justice process. Police, prosecution and the judiciary are not sensitised to minority issues; they tend to function within the existing framework of law and order.

International principles and standards on minority issues are yet to be incorporated in the Indian criminal justice system.

Police powers and Muslims
The new anti-terrorist politics have encouraged the devaluation of the criminal justice system resulting in the prosecution of innocent Muslims. They are not involved in terrorist activities but are falsely implicated by the police in such cases for getting government recognition and rewards. The criminal Justice System (CJS), now jocularly termed ‘criminal administration of justice’. Far from getting any specialised attention and protection, the minority communities especially the Muslims are targets of police harassment for alleged ‘terrorist’ activities. 

This problem is clearly brought in a study, which documents registration of false cases against innocent Muslims (and an ethnic minority person from the North-east) who are subjected to systematic police harassment, cruelty and torture and implication in false criminal cases under special security legislations involving prolonged imprisonment and more (see: ‘Framed, Damned, Acquitted: Dossiers of a very Special Cell, A Report by the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association, New Delhi, 2015)

Indian police organisation is of colonial-repressive, paramilitary origins and subject to civilian authorities and politicians. Its priorities are not service to the people but to their political masters. Police is centralised and relies on secrecy with limited understanding of the causes of communal violence. It indulges in periodic exhibitions of force with interplay of police and military functions. It is linked rural and urban propertied interests and equates force with authority and opposition with crime. In the law, police officers cannot be prosecuted without prior permission from their superior authorities.

The Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) is preoccupied with state security and begins with chapters on criminal conspiracy and offences against the state. The detection of property offences and offences against the person come only from Part XVI and section 299. Obnoxious regulations such as Bengal Regulations III, 1918 which was used to deport freedom fighters are retained. The offence of ‘sedition’ was added as an IPC offence in 1870.

The Criminal Procedure Code, 1861 (CrPC) has chapters on security for keeping the peace and maintenance of public order including use of force by the police, which take precedence over the investigation and trial of criminal offences.

The Police Act of 1861 prioritises collection of political intelligence. The prevention and investigation of crime is only from section 23. It provides for punitive policing. Police officers including the constabulary vested with vast powers.

The police are not popular given the persistence of repressive colonial laws which have continued.

The East India Company’s Board of Directors had said (1856)that ‘the Indian police are all but useless for the prevention and sadly inefficient in the detection of crime; unscrupulous in the use of authority they had a generalised reputation for corruption and oppression’.

David Bayley (‘Police and Political Order in India’, Asian Survey, 1983) said: ‘police officers are preoccupied with politics, penetrated by politics and participate in it individually and collectively.

No serious police reforms have taken place in India since independence. The reports of the National Police Commission (1979-81) and of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2007) are gathering dust in government archives.

More generally, i) the National Human Rights Commission NHRC) said that 60 percent of the arrests made are unjustified or unnecessary; and 75 percent of the complaints made to the NHRC were against the police; ii) the Supreme Court of India observed that: ‘dehumanising torture, assault and death in custody are so widespread that questions about the credibility of the rule of law and the administration of criminal justice arose’; iii) the Vohra Committee report 1993, dealt with the ‘criminalisation of politics and politicisation of crime. It noted the ‘nexus between politicians, criminals and civil servants’.

Addressing root causes
Lack of political will and non-implementation of recommendations made by several reforms Commissions are among the causes.  Structural inequality and injustice in the social and political system too need to be mentioned. Muslims (13.4 percent of the Population) and Christian (2 percent of the population) and Sikhs (about 2 percent) are the primary victims of the failure of the criminal justice system in India.

Some practical suggestions

1. The Constitution of India needs amendment to include, not just religious minorities but also national and ethnic, indigenous (Scheduled Tribes) and caste (Scheduled Castes) minorities and their languages and cultures; a list of recognised minorities should be provided.

2. A new law must be enacted to prevent and punish crimes against the minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, on the lines of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

3. Accountability mechanisms must be strengthened for police and political misbehaviour.

4. Criminal justice reforms must include UN guidelines such as i) the  Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement officials, prosecutors, lawyers and judges; ii) Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms; Standards and Norms in Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice; iii) Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council such as Working Groups on Arbitrary Detention, Enforced and Disappearances, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Standing Invitation to Special Rapporteur on the human rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Communities.

((*** This is the concluding part of KS Subramanian’s essay ‘Babri Masjid 1992 – Gujarat 2002 – Kashmir 2016: How the SanghParivar has wrecked India’s secular social fabric by sustained anti-minority violence’. The author is a senior, retired member of the Indian Police Service-IPS.)) 

About the author
K.S. Subramanian is a former officer of the Indian Police Service.  He was a member of the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal on Gujarat 2002 led by Justice VR Krishna Iyer. He has a PhD in Political Science (Karnatak University). He has worked in the Delhi administration; Himachal Pradesh and the Northeast; the Intelligence Bureau; and the Union Home Ministry. He was professor the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi; and the JamiaMillia University, New Delhi. He was Visiting Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford; Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi; and Institute of Development of Studies, Sussex. He was a member of the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal on Gujarat, 2002. He has authored several books three on the Indian Police and two on the Northeast. He is the author of ‘Parliamentary Communism: Crisis in the Indian Communist Movement (1989) and State, Policy and Conflicts in Northeast India, (2017). He contributes to Asian Age, Hongkong.
 

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The proposed enactment is unlikely to be taken seriously by the Narendra Modi-headed BJP government with a comfortable majority. But there can be no doubt that if enacted, Tharoor’s Bill would go a long way in promoting equality and preventing discrimination not only against Muslims but every vulnerable segment of India’s citizenry.

The Sachar Committee’s mandate was to prepare a comprehensive report on the ‘Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India’ and to make necessary recommendations for addressing issues related to the socio-economic backwardness of the community.

The Committee’s report submitted in November 2006 highlighted the fact that Indian Muslims were victims of institutionalised discrimination and suggested several short and long-term remedial measures. In 2007 the then UPA government tabled the report in Parliament and declared its intent to act upon all the Committee’s recommendations.
However, as several reports have since pointed out, the actions taken have at best been token in nature.

Between 2007 and 2014, when the UPA government was voted out of power, the recommendation for an Equal Opportunities Commission was tossed around between the Ministry for Minorities Affairs, National Commission for Human Rights and the National SC/ST Commission before being altogether forgotten.

Whether the national scene would have been altogether different had a law of the kind now suggested by Tharoor been enacted during the pendency of the UPA regime is now a matter of conjecture. However, his private Bill has within it the clear possibility of placing before citizens a promising counter-narrative.

The overarching aim of the Bill is to promote equality and prevent harassment, boycott, segregation, discriminatory violence and victimisation of any targeted group of persons based on caste, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity, pregnancy, sexual orientation, religion and belief, tribe, disability, linguistic identity, HIV status, nationality, marital status, food preference, skin tone, place of birth or residence, age.

In addition, it includes any group of persons suffering widespread and substantial social, economic, political, cultural or educational disadvantage.

The wide-ranging protection provided by the Bill cannot be dismissed on the ground of alleged “appeasement of minorities”.   

The ‘Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill, 2016’ envisages the creation of a Central Equality Commission to be headed by a Chief Equality Commissioner (CEC) who is a retired judge of the Supreme Court or chief justice of a high court or a senior advocate practicing in the Supreme Court. The CEC is to be assisted by two Equality Commissioners (ECs). One of them would be a distinguished academic and the other a member from civil society who has “worked for organisations committed in advancing the purpose of the Act”. At least one of the three ECs should be a woman.

The other nine ex-officio members of the Commission will be the chairpersons of the present national commissions for SCs, STs, minorities, human rights, women etc.
The functions of the Chief Equality Commission shall include:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment, boycott, segregation, discriminatory violence and victimization.
• Encourage the formulation and adoption of good practice in relation to equality, anti-discrimination and diversity for the disadvantaged groups.
• Promote awareness and understanding of the rights and duties under this Act.
• Assist aggrieved persons in seeking legal remedies provided under this Act.
• Monitor the enforcement of this Act.
• Review, from time to time, the functioning of this Act and make recommendations for its improvement.

The powers of the Central Equality Commission:

• Approach any court for the enforcement of this Act.
• Require any public servant to undergo diversity training.
• Take any other reasonable action towards the implementation of this Act.
• Conduct equality impact assessments of the activities of composition of any public authority or any private person performing a public function.
• Direct a State Equality Commission (to be set up along similar lines as the central commission) to investigate any alleged breach of provisions of this Act.

The full text of the Bill may be read here.
 
 

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A recent news report (‘Now, RSS plans to launch a Christian outfit’; The Times of India, January 4, 2016) has taken the Christian community in India by storm. The report quotes Indresh Kumar, senior pracharak, member of the national executive and margdarshak (guide) of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch as saying: “On December 17, 4-5 Archbishops, 40-50 Reverend Bishops from across 10 to 12 states met and it was decided to build a movement. This is preparing the ground to lay the seeds for an organisation.” According to the report, the proposed organisation, likely to be named Rashtriya Isai Manch, is to work along the lines of the Rashtriya Muslim Manch. The supposed aim is to build “goodwill” among India’s Christians.
 
The report also mentions that while addressing a Christmas celebration organised by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India in December, Union home minister, Rajnath Singh assured Christians that he would not let any "injustice" happen to them. Singh added that he was deeply hurt by the attacks on churches in the year before. This was followed a few days later by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley hosting clergy and professionals from the Christian community at a gathering which was attended, among others, by Cardinal Oswal Gracias, who is a member of Pope Francis' advisory council.

In short, Indian Christians are being wooed simultaneously by the RSS and top ministers in the government led by Narendra Modi, the sangh parivar’s preferred candidate for the the prime ministerial chair. It is curious, to say the least, that the man chosen by the RSS to be the face of the proposed Christian outfit, Kumar, is the same person who stands accused of instigating the most widespread and vicious anti-Christian violence in 300 years – Kandhamal, Odisha during 2007-08 and whose name has also figured in ‘saffron terror’ cases.
 
What’s going on here? Why this sudden love and affection for a community which has been demonised and repetedly targeted, especially since the late 1990s? Is this a fresh RSS hoax or a case of naivete among a few church members? How does RSS propose “to build bridges of goodwill with the Christian community”? What, if any, was the outcome of the several dialogues with the Church in the recent past? Does RSS have some hidden agenda behind such dialogues? How does the Church respond to the idea of an RSS-inspired Christian outfit? While the top Church leadership is yet to respond to the proposal of launching an RSS-friendly Christian outfit, let us try to understand what is behind the proposed launching of this outfit and the possible options before the Church.

The series of attacks on adivasi Christians in Gujarat in 1998 rattled and unnerved the peace-loving Christian community in India. The Church leadership did not know how to respond to these diabolical attacks. The Church leaders’ prime concern for the protection of the members forced them to have direct talks with the leaders of the perpetrators rather than the state actors (the latter, in many cases, were hand-in-glove with the former).

 
Talking peace with the bully
The Church in India has and continues to contribute to nation building, especially in the sphere of education and health care of the marginalised groups. The Church’s humanitarian response to all disasters, whether man-made or natural, remains unparallelled. Yet, in recent years the sangh parivar has repeatedly targeted the community with hate campaigns, physical attacks and intimidation, questioned the intention behind the services provided by the Church for the marginalised groups as never before.
 
The series of attacks on adivasi Christians in Gujarat in 1998 rattled and unnerved the peace-loving Christian community in India. The Church leadership did not know how to respond to these diabolical attacks. The Church leaders’ prime concern for the protection of the members forced them to have direct talks with the leaders of the perpetrators rather than the state actors (the latter, in many cases, were hand-in-glove with the former).
 
Thus began the story of dialogue between Church groups and the sangh parivar in December 1998. Those who participated in the first conference included the then BJP president Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre, RSS joint general secretary KS Sudershan, BJP general secretary Narendra Modi on one hand and Catholic Bishops Conference of India president Archbishop Alan de Lastic of Delhi, Archbishop Aruldas James of Madras, Evangelical Fellowship of India general secretary Richard Howell, the Church of North India's Sushma Ramaswamy, All-India Association of Christian Higher Education director Mani Jacob, Indian Social Institute director Father Ambrose Pinto and All-India Catholic Union national secretary John Dayal on the other.
 
A vicious cycle
Archbishop Alan De Lastic who led the first dialogue with the BJP-RSS for the protection of the community was quick to realise the futility of the talks. At a meeting immediately after the dialogue, he told the then home minister LK Advani: “The dialogues with the sangh parivar would serve no purpose unless there was an immediate end to the physical and verbal violence against the community, particularly in Gujurat”. “What I have noticed is that ever since this government (BJP-led NDA) came to power at the Centre, the attacks on the Christians and Christian missionaries have increased,” he added.
 
Of equal concern was the NDA government's wilful refusal to condemn the violence, the fact that as home minister Advani was not living up to his oath of office (do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law without fear or favour, affection or ill-will). But the official response was: “There is no law and order problem in Gujarat”. Alan de Lastic’s untimely car accident in Poland in June 2000 left a void.
 
The chart below clearly shows how dialogues between the Church and the sangh parivar have not resulted in any let up in the attacks against Christians:
 

 
As indicated above, dialogue after dialogue continued over the years at different levels. But it meant nothing for the Christian community which was under relentless attack even, as the RSS laid claim to ongoing dialogues with the Church. Chaos was evident among the Church groups as some unknown faces with varied interest holding dialogues with the RSS and claiming positive outcomes. But for the RSS, it was simply a joy ride. Meeting a few self-serving individuals/fronts and Church associates at different locations, billing them as Church-RSS meets were too part of their strategies. The only use of these dialogues was to lend credence to the pretence of BJP leaders in government that the attacks on Christians were the handiwork of anti-social elements unrelated to the sangh parivar. As the dialogue drama unfolded, Christians who had participated in them despite their reluctance and apprehensions realised that the RSS was not at all serious and that it could not meet the community expectations.
 
In 2002, the Kerala Council of Churches, affiliated to the National Council of Churches of India (NCCI), urged its parent body to reassess the process of dialogue. “The strategy adopted by the RSS for a dialogue with churches, the committee observed, “appeared to be intended to divide the churches”.
 
A year earlier, Bishop Thomas Mar Athanasius, president, Ecumenical Study and Dialogue Centre flayed the move for a dialogue between the CBCI-NCCI and the RSS arguing that those entering into a dialogue with the RSS were only weakening their credibility to speak on behalf of the Christian community.
 
Seeing through the hidden agenda
Fr. Ambrose Pinto, former director of Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, one of the delegates for the first-ever meeting between top Church and RSS leaders held in 1998 sees the future of any further Church-RSS meet thus: “First of all, we need to know:  a) what RSS stands for, b) why is the RSS saying what it is saying? c) the difference between its propaganda and facts, and d) in case Christians join them, do those Christians represent us? Understanding the nature of the fascist organisation, we should resist them as a community in solidarity with the prople of goodwill”. Would he like to be part of any future dialogue? “I was a reluctant participant. I did not want to be there. Even at that meet, I was one of those who spoke against their designs. I shall never join any kind of dailogue with RSS. You cannot dialogue with fascists”.
 
Says John Dayal, one of the delegates for the first Church-RSS dialogue: “To the parivar, there is only one mantra. Stop Conversions, and everything will end. To the sangh parivar, a dialogue is a monologue in which it speaks its mind, and the other has to take it or lump it. After all, Christianity is all about dialogue, both within the church and outside. Parivar spokespersons keep on repeating the same old manufactured lies like a Goebblesian zombie. If any single community, Sikh or Christian or Muslim, thinks it can reach a bilateral peace with the sangh parivar, it is only deceiving itself, and allowing the parivar to buy time”.
 
As the above chart shows for the RSS dialogue was mere pretense. The dialogues were punctuated with increasing violence year after year. The worst ever violence against Christians in India in 300 years was in Orissa in 2007-08 which continued unabated for over four months. It took nearly four years for the displaced adivasi and dalit Christians to return to their homes; even today there are several villagers where the forcibly displaced are not able to return eight years after the carnage.

The only use of these dialogues was to lend credence to the pretence of BJP leaders in government that the attacks on Christians were the handiwork of anti-social elements unrelated to the sangh parivar. As the dialogue drama unfolded, Christians who had participated in them despite their reluctance and apprehensions realised that the RSS was not at all serious and that it could not meet the community expectations.
 
While the dialogue was underway, the sangh parivar stepped up its hate campaign and violence against the Christian community. It is important to reflect why the earlier dialogues have failed to yield results. What are the issues that the RSS and the Church bring to the table? The RSS is quite clear about its agenda as has been articulated both in words (media) and actions (violence). As for the Church, it is still debatable whether it does or does not want any further dialogue. If yes, for what purpose and towards what end?
 
No one should be confused about what the RSS stands. There are certain key issues on which the sangh parivar’s stand is consistent and clear. The real agenda behind the so-called dialogue it seeks with Christians is to browbeat the community into meekly concurring with its ‘non-negotiable’ stands on these issues. These are repeatedly articulated through its mouthpiece, the Organiser. Here below are just a few examples:
 
Hindutva on conversions: ‘anti-national’ act
 

• Ram Madhav, spokesperson of RSS and general secretary of BJP calls for dismantling the evangelical establishment in the Organiser, November 2, 2008)

 
“Evangelists are subverting Indian culture… conversion, especially in tribal areas, leads to demographic disturbances which in turn lead to resentment and violence.”

• (Late) MV Kamath, sangh parivar ideologue in the Organiser, November 2, 2008.

 
“Conversion is an act of violence… Religious conversion destroys centuries-old communities and incites communal violence. It is violence and it breeds violence.”

• Swami Dayanand Saraswati in an ‘Open Letter’ to Pope John Paul II in the Organiser, October 1999.

 
“Conversions ban [are] a national necessity… Conversions are resorted to for political reasons and not for faith. There is, therefore, absolute justification for imposing a ban on free conversions. Lawlessness in India has taken place whenever the governments have failed the people to satisfy their legitimate feelings”.

• Swami Asangananda Bharati, director, Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy, in the Organiser, January 9, 2005.

 
“They went away (to other religion) because of some allurement and thus there is nothing wrong in bringing them back to original fold… It is like a thief who steals our valuables. The thief is caught and we will get our valuables back. They are ours.”

• RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat, in The Hindu, December 21, 2014.

 
“Is conversion necessary? Will any country allow changes in its demographic character?”

•  Union home minister, Rajnath Singh signalling the central government’s willingness for an anti-conversion law, PIB release, March 23, 2015.

 
“An aggressive campaign is required for ghar wapsi of those Hindus who had converted to other religions in the past.”

• BJP’s Lok Sabha MP, Yogi Adityanath, at a conference ‘Dharmantaran Rashtranataran Hai’ (Religious conversion is the same as change of nationality) at Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur. It was announced that BJP MPs Yogi Adityanath and Tarun Vijay will introduce private member bills in the the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively to stop religious conversions and debate the issue in next session of the Parliament, in The Indian Express, September 27, 2015.

 
Hindutva on affirmative action for minorities: vehement opposition
 
The denial of justice to the Dalit Christians and Muslims goes against the letter and spirit of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 25 of the Constitution of India on equal justice, equal opportunities and freedom of religion. Both Ranganath Mishra Commission and Sachar Committee reports address the anamoly in denying reservation meant for Scheduled Castes to Christian and Muslim Dalits. The sangh parivar however remains vehemently opposed to any affirmative action, as is evident from the writings and statements of its leaders, spokespersons and ideologues:
 
“The Ranganath Misra Commission’s report is… a sinister, treasonous conspiracy… it is the UPA’s gift to the Vatican and the Pakistani-Arab sponsors of jehad. It is on the verge of capitulating to a notorious paedophile organisation, masquerading as a religious dispensation and the licentious, Islamist criminals enthroned by the British… For quite sometime now Christian evangelists and Islamist jehadis have been working overtime to subvert the Indian judiciary. They want to disempower it and for real decision-making authority to reside with suborned politicians ready to facilitate the rapid ensnaring of Indian society… If reservations (for Scheduled Castes) are extended to Christians and Muslims a no-holds-barred campaign of bribery and chicanery will commence to entice underprivileged Hindus into their political fold. At present Hindus are harder to lure because Hindu society legislated reservations to help them overcome historic disadvantages. The Islamo-Christian calculation is that an extraordinary opportunity to finish Hindus off is at hand”.

• Dr. Gautam Sen, member, steering committee, World Hindu Economics Forum; president, World Association of Hindu Academicians in the Organiser, January 31, 2010.

 
“If perverted reports like those of Justices like Sachar and Ranganath Misra indulge in travesty of justice, who will save the law of the motherland? Ours is a nation governed by the will of the people. These justices may come and go, the nation is inexorably an essential unity, adhering to only one global ethic – dharma.  Sachar and Ranganath Misra have done a signal disservice to the integrity and unity of the nation by promoting a sectarian view, which will not achieve an integrally developed Bharat with equal opportunities for everyone to realise his or her full potential”.

• Dr S Kalyanaraman, in the Organiser, January 31, 2010.

 
“Minorities cannot ask for caste quotas. If either Christians or Muslims accept and practice caste discrimination amongst themselves, the conversion process among such groups or individuals should be legally declared to be inadequate and incomplete. In other words, they may be declared as non-Christians and non-Muslims and asked to either complete the process of their transformation to the new faith, or return to the Hindu fold. There can be no half-way house in this matter”.

• Sandhya Jain, Hindutva ideologue, in the Organiser, July 23, 2006.

 
“The need to strip converts of quota regime: The Kendriya Sarna Samiti (KSS) asserts that tribal converts no longer belong to the Scheduled Tribe as they have renounced their traditional identity as a sine qua non of the conversion process”.

•  Sandhya Jain, Hindutva ideologue, in the Organiser, September 3, 2006.

 
Cannibalizing Hindu society: Evangelicals have jealously sought access to the caste-based reservation benefits of Hindu depressed classes. They saw their chance when the Mandal Commission listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs. Political parties were too short-sighted to challenge this dangerous opening, and Christians began to lobby for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians’.”

• Sandhya Jain, Hindutva ideologue, in the Organiser, June 3, 2007.

 
“Enough is enough! Stop looting! Don’t try patience of Hindus: Why should Hindu tax-payers pay for vicious design by Islamic fanatics? Why should Hindu SCs, OBCs and STs and other meritorious Hindus allow Muslims and Christians to snatch their school/college seats, jobs, loans, lands and political rights?… STs converted to Christianity should not be allowed to retain and enjoy their ST reservations. Articles 25 to 30, minority privileges should be cancelled”.

• Pravin Togadia, VHP leader, in the Organiser, January 31, 2010.

 
“It is the story of another anti-Hindu policy of Orissa government, which is going to create an explosive situation… Levinus Kindo, IAS, the member of state board of revenue, has issued a circular to all the collectors that during his last tour of the tribal areas, he found that the tribal Christians (tribal converted to Christianity) are being deprived of getting proper benefit as they are being recorded as only Christians in the government records and in their respective Record of Rights (RoR) too… ‘Such an illegal and anti-national circular of Orissa government will encourage the missionary to undertake more conversions in the tribal areas. Christians will enjoy double privilege as tribals along with their present religion, says Sarat Chandra Sarangi, state general secretary of VHP, Orissa while expressing his reaction on the issue’.”

• Debasis Tripathy, in the Organiser, May 15, 2005.

Hindutva on secularism: ‘a façade for anti-Hinduism’
 
For the ideologues and votaries of Hindutva, secularism is a dirty word:
 
“Secularism has degenerated as the backbone of terrorists & evangelists: This India had to be a Hindu India. The ideology of Indian secularism, misconceived from the very outset, has become the backbone of Islamic jihad and fundamentalist evangelism. The one is committing mass murder, the other attempting to transform India’s cultural and political landscape in order to reimpose foreign rule over it”.

• Dr.Gautam Sen, president, World Association of Hindu Academicians, in the Organiser, November 2, 2008.

 
“Secularism: A facade for anti-Hinduism: We became enamoured of the word secular because of our contact with the Britishers during their 150 years rule or because of our association and appreciation of the British polity… Why are not Pakistan and Bangladesh secular states?”

• MG Vaidya, all-India Prachar Pramukh, RSS, in the Organiser, October 12, 2008.

 
“For RSS, secularism is irrelevant in India: The perversion of the concept of secularism has resulted in the terming of nationalists as communal and people with communal thinking being hailed as secular. Saffron should have been the only colour on the national flag as other colours represented a communal thought.”

• MG Vaidya, all-India Prachar Pramukh, RSS, in The Indian Express, September 20, 2015.

 
“Rajnath is right. Secularism has become communal”.

• Shyam Khosla, on the then BJP president, Rajnath Singh calling for  a national debate on secularism, in the Organiser, June 15, 2008.

 
“Secularism is the most misused word in the country…This must stop. Because of the rampant misuse of the word, there have been instances of tension in society.”

• Rajnath Singh, Union home minister, NDTV, November 26, 2015.

 
Issue after issue of the Organiser is splashed with headlines such as ‘Secularism as insulting Hindus’, ‘Obnoxious application of secularism’. The media and secular groups who ‘dare’ to spoke out against anti-Christian or anti-Muslim atrocities are severely castigated for alleged “minority appeasement” and “pseudo-secularism”.
 
 
Hindutva on India’s minorities: ‘Your Safety lies in our goodwill’
 
“Hindutva is facing severe jolts all over the world. Muslim fundamentalists and Christian missionaries are the age old enemies of Hinduism. Next to them the communists have come forward to squeeze the throat of this great way of life. They have also walked a long way in this deadly mission”

• Jagadguru Swami Sri Nischalananda Saraswatiji of Puri (Odisha) Govardhan Peetham, one of the four Sankaracharyas, in the Organiser, June 18, 2006.

 
“Minorities must have good relations with the majority for their safety”.

• (Former) RSS Chief KC Sudarshan, talking to the media after a dialogue with Christian leaders, in The Times of India, March 22, 2002.

 
“Unravelling the poisonous power of discourse: The UPA government made a great communal leap when it formed the Ministry of Minority Affairs… The creation of National Commission for Minorities is another instance of communalism… The Sachar Committee’s functioning needs to be probed… it has violated not only its terms and references but created a poisonous atmosphere. The recommendations are not [only] communal and divisive [but] a complete retreat to hey days of the Muslim Leagues’ politics”.

• Rakesh Sinha, RSS ideologue, in the Organiser, January 31, 2010. 

 
Hindutva on the Vatican: Pope a ‘dacoit’
 
“Conversion to Christianity in the pretext of service, health, education and co-operation is an insult and devaluation to the service itself and a crime against humanity… It proves that your services are selfish motivated and expansionist as well as intolerant… In all the states, districts, areas where the Christian missionaries are active and powerful, the hatred, crime, social unrest, separatism, addiction are on the increase and the environment of peace, harmony, brotherhood and happiness are fading away”.

• Indresh Kumar, in an open letter addressed by him to Pope Benedict XVI, reported by the Organiser, October 19, 2008.

 
“The pontiff, who is a dacoit, cannot be India’s guest”.

• VHP vice-president Acharya Giriraj Kishore in a scathing attack on Pope John Paul II, in The Telegraph, October 29, 1999.

 
“Christianity inherited this [Roman] instinct of cruelty. The Pope wants to convert us Hindus into Christianity. The West wants to have control over our destiny. Can we allow these things to happen?”

• MSN Menon, in the Organiser, March 20, 2005.

. 
Hindutva’s advise to Christians: set up Indian nationalistic churches 
 
“Indian Christians must free themselves from from the stranglehold of foreign countries by setting up Indian nationalistic churches."

• KS Sudarshan, RSS sarsanghchalak (chief), at an RSS rally in Agra. A few days earlier, Sudarshan had argued that this was essential in the interests of national security; in The Washington Times, October 18, 2000.

 
“Church is an arm of the West's defence forces. It has been used to guide Christians into domestic as well as international politics”.

• KS Sudarshan, RSS sarsanghchalak (chief), at an RSS rally in Agra, in the Fontline.

 
“An Indian Christianity not just desirable, it is a must: Indian Christians must purge their faith of… imperial distortions… Indian Christians must leave this tradition of violence. They are legatees of the Indian (Vedic) tradition of love (of humanity as a family) and the Buddhist tradition of compassion. But this also happens to be the tradition of Jesus. Christianity was born as a religion of love. Today it is a religion of hatred. This must be a matter of concern to Indian Christians. Only the guidance of a lofty world view such as that of Vedanta can release them from their predicament. Only they can save Christianity’.

• MSN Menon, in the Organiser, July 29, 2007.

 
The above quotes are just a few examples, taken mostly from the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, which clearly shows the hostility of the sangh parivar towards the principles and values enshrined in the Indian Constitution, demonisation of Christianity and Islam, animosity and hostility towards’s the country’s Christians and Muslims. There is nothing new here.
 
The term Hindutva was coined by Vikram D Savarkar leader of the Hindu Mahasabha a century ago. In his book with the same title, he had argued that India belongs only to those for whom the country was both a pitrubhoomi (fatherland) and punya bhoomi (holy land). Madhav S Golwalker, the second and the longest serving sarsanghchalak (chief) of the RSS (1940-1973) in its 90-year-old history, till date remains the most revered ‘Guru’ of the sangh privar. In his book We, or our nationhood defined first published in 1939, had also asserted that non-Hindus may at best aspire to continue living in his imagined Hindu Rashtra as second class citizens. In the early 1960s, he had identified Muslims, Christians and communists as the three “internal enemies” who are far more dangerous than external enemies and Hindus must guard against them.  
 
Thus, what the leadership and the ideologues argue of the sangh parivar argue today, as may be seen from statements and writings such as those referred to above lie spring from the core ideas of Hindutva formulated a century ago. Even today, the sangh parivar remains committed to turning secular-democratic India in to a Hindu Rashtra.
 
As in case of the Rashtriya Muslim Manch, through the institution of the proposed Rashtriya Isai Manch, the sangh parivar wants to create a forum of RSS-friendly Christians to legitimise its anti-Constitution, anti-secular democratic, anti-minorities world views. It is important to recall that the Rashtriya Muslim Manch was floated in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 in Gujarat under the watch of then chief minister Narendra Modi and the proclamation by the RSS top leadership that Muslims must have cordial relations with Hindus in the interests of their own safety. It is no less important to remember who Indresh Kumar, the man who is being projected as the RSS face for the proposed Christian front, is. For the Survivors Association of Kandhamal (SAK), Odisha, he along with VHP leader, PravinTogadia are the masterminds of the 2008 mass crimes against the state’s Christians. 
 
Church for combating Fanaticism and fundamentalism
Contrary to the sangh parivar’s baseless allegations of forced or induced conversions, the Church promotes the idea of “building bridges of friendship with the followers of all religions, in order to seek the true good of every person and of society as a whole”. But it also warns against the dangers of religious intolerance, fundamentalism and extremism.
 
In 2013, Cardinal Tauran, president of Justice and Peace Commission affirmed that religious freedom was a sacred and inalienable right, convinced that to deny or limit religious freedom in an arbitrary fashion means cultivating a reductive vision of the human person and rendering impossible the affirmation of an authentic and lasting peace for the whole human family.
 
During his visit to Turkey in 2014, Pope Francis stated: “Fanaticism and fundamentalism, as well as irrational fears which foster misunderstanding and discrimination, need to be countered by the solidarity of all believers. Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue can make an important contribution to attaining this lofty and urgent goal, so that there will be an end to all forms of fundamentalism and terrorism which gravely demean the dignity of every man and woman and exploit religion.
 
Cardinal Parolin, Vatican’s secretary of state is not quite optimistic about the dialogue with fundamentalists: “I don’t think that it’s possible to dialogue with fundamentalists. One can offer to dialogue, but I don’t see many opportunities of establishing a dialogue”.
 
Final Comments
Should the Church join hands with those who believe in a just, equitable and diverse world or should they seek security from communal, hate-filled and violent groups that demonise other religious traditions? This is a very important moment in history when the Church could and should join eminent writers, thinkers, academicians, film makers and civil society who speak for the overwhelming majority of all Indians and who believe in a secular democratic polity which protects and promotes the equal rights and freedoms of all citizens, including the right to freedom of religion. Of course, the Church could and should also engage in dialogue with Hindu religious leaders too. But nothing is to be gained in cozying up with the wolves of the sangh privar parading about in sheep’s clothing.
 
ajaysingho@gmail.com

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