The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka), 15 November 2009
by Kuldip Nayar
The Rashtriyaswyam Sewak Sangh (RSS) is bad enough to represent an ante-diluvia philosophy which has injected the poison of parochialism into the body politic of India. But when the organisation continues to pursue the same agenda by digging up old controversies, it harms the country's integrity.
The latest from the RSS is that it wants the mosques standing up by the temples at Mathura and Varanasi to go. This is not the first time that the RSS has made such demands. It raised them some time ago. But then the opposition was so vehement that the matter was allowed to disappear from the public gaze. The inference was that better sense had come to prevail in the organisation and it had left pursuing what could destabilise the country. Apparently, the perception was wrong.
The RSS has again justified the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya and has demanded the construction of a temple. This is at a time when the guilty are being tried in court for the heinous crime of pulling down the mosque. It means that the RSS has no respect for law and order and it is bent upon fomenting trouble.
India has always taken pride in its diversity and has adopted a constitution which gives freedom to all religious communities, not only to follow their faith in the way they want to but also to propagate its teachings without any bar. The struggle for independence against the British had one distinctive feature: pluralism. That in fact is India's ethos.
That the RSS never imbibed those values is understandable because it did not take part in the freedom movement. If it all, it was inclined towards the British rulers. Nonetheless, after 62 years of independence, the RSS should have realized that the Hindus can be instigated to go wild as they did during the rath yatra before the demolition of the Babri Masjid. But the last two Lok Sabha elections should have taught the RSS that the community comes back to intrinsic belief in the spirit of tolerance and the sense of accommodation.
The RSS should have learnt a lesson from what is happening to its political instrument, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is speedily going down the hill and losing by-election after by-election because it fails to understand the country's pluralistic temperament. By keeping apart the RSS agenda of Babri Masjid and common personal law, the BJP was able to come to power at the centre with the support of those who saw it separating religion from politics. But it turned out to be wrong. The BJP had to follow the dictates of the RSS.
The personality of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJPs stalwart, gave a message that the party did not adopt the policy of Hindutva: the RSS ideology. Even Pakistan put its faith in Vajpayee since he spoke the language of pluralism. His speech at Lahore is still remembered as one of the best efforts to bring the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and pluralistic India closer. In his absence, the other BJP leaders have tried to fill the space and be acceptable as he was. But they do not have the same stature or the sway in the country that Vajpayee has enjoyed.
The mosque (left) next to the mandir in Mathura. Pic courtesy picasaweb.google.com
Whether the present BJP leadership would regain the ground they have lost is difficult to say. But the RSS, particularly its new chief, Mohan Bhagwat, is creating more and more difficulties for them. In his craze for publicity, he has occupied the centre of the stage. He is dictating who in the BJP would serve in which capacity and for how long. Whatever prestige the party had regained by lying low after the reverses in polls has been frittered away by this loud mouthed RSS chief.
In any case, who is he or, for that matter, his colleagues in the organization sitting at Nagpur, the RSS headquarters? They issue fiats (like fatwas) which have nothing to do with the reality on the ground. They have never faced election to know the pulse of people. There is no inner democracy. They live in shadows and initiate from there the dark deeds which affect the BJP adversely. Their problem is that they are still in the dark ages when the 21st century is already 10 years old.
In fact, the RSS resembles the Taliban in thinking and working. Both do not want liberalism. Both believe that religion is the beginning and end of all. They are a bigoted lot and have no place for tolerance in their methods. India is fortunate in having a stable democratic system. The RSS, unfortunately, executes the Gujarat-like ethnic cleansing of Muslims or on a limited scale victimise the Christians in Orissa. Yet the system is able to prevail, although it weakens every time it is hit. Were India's pluralistic society to give in, the RSS would convert the entire country into a theocratic, intolerant polity. The example of Pakistan is before us. It is in the midst of a fierce battle against fanaticism and parochialism. Due to a weak system, it is facing great difficulties.
The weakening of the system needs to be emphasized because some BJP-run states are hitting at it by contaminating the police which are reluctant to take action against the Taliban-like Hindus. The law and order machinery is evoking less and less confidence. Both the RSS and the Taliban do not believe in the means. For them, the success by itself is the end. People on both sides should be vigilant because the RSS and the Taliban are targeting the entity of respective countries.
Mosques next to temples at Mathura and Varanasi are a proud heritage of India's secular society. Those who are trying to destroy the heritage are as fanatic as the Jammat Ulma which has given a fatwa that the Muslims should not sing Vande Mataram, a song that goes back to the national movement against the British. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the greatest Muslim authority, had seen to it that only the first two stanzas are sung so that Vande Mataram does not hurt the tenets of Islam in any way.
(The writer is a veteran Inidan journalist, former diplomat and one time Rajya Sabha member)
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