Stigmatising the Sangh

Stigmatising the Sangh
Rakesh Sinha

The Indian secularist's ingenuity does not go beyond the RSS, which they believe is the sole reason for ``communalism'' in the country. This is why they took no time to blame the RSS for the recent unfortunate incidents involving Christian institutions in some parts of UP.

As the investigation of the National Commission of Minorities revealed, these incidents were not communal but arose due to small local furies and law-and-order problems. But this is unlikely to pacify the secularists. It seems that any incident relating to minority communities is treated as an opportunity to target the Sangh.

Ignoring the fact that 12 out of 24 people charged with the crime of raping three nuns in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh were Christians, the RSS was blamed. It is an old tactic. Though they know that Nathu Ram Godse, a Hindu Mahasabhite, did not belong to the RSS, through a constant and contumacious propaganda they construct his image as an RSS member. Bhisham Shahni's novel, later made into the TV serial, Tamas, tarnished the RSS by using the shakha uniform during scenes of violence, and in the film, Gandhi, RSS men guided by a man resembling M.S. Gowalkar, were shown displaying black flags to Mahatma Gandhi after the Gandhi-Jinnah talks in 1944.

The truth is that it was the Hindu Rashtra Dal workers who had protested. Fifty years after the Gandhi assassination, the RSS was forced to sue Congress's Sitaram Kesri for repeating the lie.

The nationalist loyalty of the RSS is being mischievously interpreted as anti-minority by the pseudo-secularists. They deliberately misconstrued the RSS understanding of nationalism. Indian nationalism is a collage of varied shapes, forms, practices and beliefs i.e., panths. The RSS rejects Marxism, which incidentally has been much closer to the colonial and Muslim League perspectives that India is a multinational state.

Hindu political nationalists, like V.D. Sarvarkar and others, searched for a cure to the national predicament in majoritarian politics. Any numerical and adverse political developments, however ephemeral, created consternation among such Hindu nationalists. Col. U.N. Moorkerjee characterised Hindus in the 1930s, as a ``dying race''. But this was rebutted by Golwalkar in his treatise, We Or Our Nationhood Defined (1936), ``we cannot die. What seems to be our death merely confers upon us a fresh lease of life ... we are an immortal race with perennial youth.''

The secularists do not countenance the ideas of the RSS even if they are in the interest of the nation. The uproar over the UP Public Religious Buildings Bill, which was promulgated primarily to check ISI activities in the state, is an instance of this. The Bill proposes that prior permission be sought for the construction of religious places for worship and it does not specify any religion. Besides such laws exist in three states. However, this issue is being used to polarise society.

The joint memorandum to the President of India by some intellectuals categorically targeted the Sangh: ``it is an excuse to give unfettered powers to the District Magistrates so that these can be used to serve the purposes of the RSS''. It is their hypocrisy, rather than their concern, that is in evidence here.

Communalism is not the creed of the RSS, as its founder K.B. Hedgewar declared, ``we are not Friday reactionaries'' and Golwalkar denounced the Hindu Mahasabha for pretending to be the counterpart of the Muslim League.Of course, the RSS too has to rein in the loose statements of its outfit, the Bajrang Dal, which is only helping the secularists in their cynical project of stigmatising the RSS.