Post World War I Germany , South Africa and India faced a similar problem. Each saw its own people in conflict .A substantial section of Germans were hostile to the citizens of Jewish origin though the Jews had been living there for 500 years or so .The original inhabitants of South Africa (who are black) were groaning under the inhuman rule of the white Afrikaner, who had come to their land from Holland, Germany and France in the 17th century, colonised them and become their rulers..India continues to be plagued by the hostility of a section of the majority community to both Muslims and Christians, a hostility engineered by the RSS and its various progeny including the BJP .The Muslims and Christians are natives of India like their Hindu counterparts , whose forefathers converted to Islam or Christianity under varying historical impulses, some only under the rule of the Muslim and British (though a few converted in recent time also ).The RSS and its affiliates do not accept them emotionally as an equal of Hindu citizens because their religions have ‘foreign’ origin . A conflict between Hindus and Muslims was the real cause of India’s partition and formation of Pakistan.
Hitler hated the Jews and committed unspeakable atrocities against them including genocide He butchered 6 million Jews including those from outside Germany .This inhuman act is known as the holocaust and denying this dark fact is a punishable offence now Hitler called it the ‘Final solution of the Jewish question .’Hitler committed suicide after his defeat in the Second World War (1945).His associates were put to death or imprisoned for life for their crimes.
The communal problem in India is the gift of the British, who encouraged the communal animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims to divide and rule .There used to be Hindu -Muslim riots in the country from time to time .The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) was formed in 1925 to oppose “the yavan-snakes (i.e. the Muslims), who, reared on the milk of non-cooperation were provoking riots in the nation with their poisonous hissing.
“Hedgewar, the first Sar Sangh Sanchalak, also declared that they (the brigands of the RSS) were not to join the National Movement for Independence. That explains why the British rulers gave them full freedom to expand and flourish though they were openly organised on military lines with uniform and parades. This also explains why M.S.Golwarkar , their iconic second Sar Sangh Sanchalak, declared Freedom Fighters as “Traitors”.
Golwarkar was deeply impressed and inspired by Hitler and his “final solution to the Jewish question” though he was not fully aware of the extent of the horrors that he had committed. Hitler wanted a Germany only for Germans of ‘pure race’ and he annihilated the Jews out of his hatred for inferior races (the Jews being one of them). Golwalkar wanted India as a Hindu Nation for the Hindus only on the same pattern. In 1938, when he wrote his book containing these ideas (We or Our Nationhood Defined), he could envisage driving Muslims and Christians out of India. So, he advocated a Hindu Nation in which the minorities must “cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation claiming nothing, deserving no privileges , far less any preferential treatment .not even citizen’s rights.’
The RSS still considers (in their heart of hearts) minorities to be foreigners, who have no claim on India, which, to them, is a Hindu Rashtra. It has not yet reconciled to the Indian Constitution, which treats all Indian citizens as equal regardless of their religion or other differences.
It is to achieve this goal in one form or another that the sangh has been keeping the communal pot boiling. It is now in power, but can it really attain its goal of converting of converting India into a Hindu Rashtra in the 21st century? More importantly, should it cling to its dream of a Hindu Rashtra or think of India’s larger interest it claims to protect or love more than others?
The white rulers of South Africa were second only to Hitler in subjecting people on racial grounds to inhuman treatment .The handful of Afrikaners treated the rightful black citizens of the country like animals under their law on racial segregation. Nelson Mandela himself spent 27 years in jail doing hard labour .When the white rulers found the pressure of the international community difficult to answer, they agreed to a settlement. Nelson Mandela did not think of retaliation or settling accounts with the tyrannical white rulers but thought of the interest of his motherland, which, to him, was supreme .South Africa, has now a democratic constitution without any discrimination against the Afrikaner. Though the forefathers of the Afrikaners had come from Europe and belong to a different race, they were not asked to go back. They are now full-fledges citizens of South Africa on an equal fitting with the blacks.
Our minorities are own flesh and blood, they are natives of India with the same claims and rights on her as anyone of us. Mandela has shown the way: how a person loving his motherland overcomes even bitterness and anger to serve her interest. Indians have not suffered at the hands of the minorities and have no accounts to settle with them. The RSS had no grievance against the British who exploited India and economically committed atrocities against them. They have no grievance against them even today. Is it logical then to nurture such an irrational hatred against the Muslims for a set of atrocities, imagined or even real, committed by some Muslim rulers, centuries ago?
Nelson Mandela has shown the way. It is he not Adolf Hitler who should be India’s role model.