UK Commissioner on Integration reportedly pays tribute to admirer of Nazism

AWAAZ STATEMENT: TUESDAY 15 MAY 2007
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Telephone: (+ 44) 020 8843 2333
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UK Commissioner on Integration reportedly pays tribute to admirer of Nazism
and Fascism

Ramesh Kallidai, a member of Secretary of State Ruth Kelly's Commission on
Integration and Cohesion, paid glowing tribute to an extremist who admired
and promoted Nazi-like, fascist and violent ideas in India and who believed
that what occurred to European Jews under Nazi Germany was a model that
India could learn and profit from - according to recent reports.
Mr. Kallidai was speaking at an event to celebrate the birth centenary of M.
S. Golwalkar (1906-1973), the second "supreme leader" of the Indian
neo-fascist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Mr. Kallidai, who is general secretary of the Hindu Forum of Britain, was
reported in the RSS's weekly paper as saying that trying to pay homage to M.
S. Golwalkar "was like holding a candle to the Sun". The paper writes that
he went on to praise the expansion of the RSS and its "exemplary" ideology.

The RSS's extremist ideology of Hindu supremacism has been widely blamed for
large-scale anti-minority violence in India. The RSS has been banned three
times in India since Independence. The murderer of M. K. Gandhi was a former
RSS member.
The event in London on the 12th April was organized by the supremacist Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the British branch of the Indian Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Golwalkar continues to be universally venerated by
the organization despite his support for Nazi-like views. The event took
place at the Advait Cultural Centre in Wembley, north-west London.
Earlier, in December 2004, Ramesh Kallidai, speaking at the Parliamentary
Select Committee on Home Affairs, defended the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP,
World Hindu Council), an offshoot of the RSS, from the accusation that it is
an extremist organisation. Kallidai said that the VHP works for the "social
and moral upliftment of Hindus". According to Human Rights Watch, the VHP
was among the organisations "directly responsible" for the anti-Muslim
pogroms in Gujarat in 2002, in which thousands were killed over the course
of three days of carnage. (We have no orders to save you: State
Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat, Human Rights
Watch, April 2002, page 4.)
The Indian RSS's joint general secretary, Suresh Soni, was a major guest at
the Wembley event. The event was also attended by key figures from the
National Council of Hindu Temples, the Swaminarayan Mandir, ISKCON -
Bhaktivedanta Manor, the Hindu Council UK, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (UK), Singh
Sabha Gurudwara (Southall) and other Hindu organizations.
The Commission on Integration and Cohesion was set up by the Secretary of
State, Ruth Kelly and one of its main tasks is to address the dissemination
of extremist ideologies.
"Next month, the Commission on Integration and Cohesion is due to publish
its findings on how communities can tackle extremist ideologies and overcome
tensions between different groups. The credibility of the Commission's
findings may be seriously limited if its own Commissioners are seen to
endorse individuals widely considered to be extremist", said Arun Kundnani,
spokesperson for Awaaz - South Asia Watch.
Awaaz deplores the fact that someone who the British government has
appointed as a Commissioner working towards good community relations and
harmony between groups appears to have commended and endorsed a man whose
life-long ambition was to promote ideas and organizations in India inspired
by Nazi, fascist and racist thinking, organisations that have been
repeatedly indicted for anti-minority extremism, intolerance and violence.
[ENDS]
NOTES
Who was M. S. Golwalkar?
Madahav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906 - 1973) was the second leader of the
paramilitary RSS, a Hindu supremacist organization formed in 1925 devoted to
turning India into an exclusive Hindu state. Golwalkar supported Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy. In his key book We, or our nationhood defined,
published in 1939, he openly supported the anti-semitic policies of Nazi
Germany towards German-Jews, openly supported Hitler's violent invasion of
other sovereign territories, lauded Fascist Italy and said these were models
which India could learn and profit by:
"German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the
purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging
the country of the semitic Races - the Jews. Race pride at its highest has
been manifested here. Germany has shown how well nigh impossible it is for
Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated
into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and
profit by." (Golwalkar, We, or our nationhood defined, Bharat Publications,
Nagpur, [1939] 1944, page 37.)
In the 1950s, even when the horrors of Nazi Germany was known across the
world, the RSS called these ideas of Golwalkar an "unassailable doctrine of
nationhood" Golwalkar also stated that in India, minorities deserved no
rights whatsoever, not even any citizen's rights. Minorities could
"live only as outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the
Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving of no special
protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses
open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national
race and adopt its culture, or to live at the sweet will of the national
race. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the
national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the Nation safe from
the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic of the creation of a
state within a state. From this standpoint, sanctioned [by] the experiences
of shrewd old nations, the non-Hindu peoples of Hindusthan must either adopt
the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence
Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of the glorification of
the Hindu race and culture i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of
intolerance and ungratefulness towards this land and its age-long traditions
but must also cultivate a positive attitude of love and devotion instead -
in a word they 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." (Golwalkar, We, or our nationhood defined, Bharat Publications,
Nagpur, [1939] 1944, pages 48-9.)
For Golwalkar, minorities were to either give up their beliefs or live at
'the sweet will of the majority'. In 2002, the RSS stated that the safety of
Muslims in India lies in 'the goodwill of the majority'.
Golwalkar also actively promoted racism and race superiority as central to
the Indian nation:
"It is superfluous to emphasise the importance of Racial Unity in the Nation
state. A Race is a hereditary Society having common customs, common
language, common memories of glory and disaster; in short it is a population
with a common origin under one culture. Such a race is by far the most
important ingredient of a Nation.We will not seek to prove this axiomatic
truth, that the Race is the body of the Nation, and that with its fall, the
Nation ceases to exist." (Golwalkar, We, or our nationhood defined, Bharat
Publications, Nagpur, [1939] 1944, page 21.)
What is the RSS?
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteers' Corps) was formed
in the period 1925-1926 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur, Maharashtra
state, north-west India. Golwalkar became its second "supreme leader" after
Hedgewar's death. The RSS is an exclusively male organization devoted to the
political ideology of Hindutva (or Hindu nationalism) and represents an
Indian version of fascism. Hedgewar formed the RSS as an organization of
young boys and men that was based on military drills, physical exercise,
weapons training, propagation of the ideology of Hindutva and anti-minority
hatred. Hedgewar, together with another key founder of the RSS, Balkrishna
Shivram Moonje, was also influenced by Fascism and Nazism. In 1934, Hedgewar
presided over a meeting in Nagpur aimed at propagating Mussolini's fascist
thought in India. Moonje not only met Mussolini but was a strong admirer of
Nazism and Fascism. He is today called Dharamveer - hero in the religious
struggle - by the RSS. He said that India not only needed a dictator like
Hitler but that a scheme to bring such a dictator had to be urgently carried
out. The RSS is not a democratic organization but based on the idea of one
'Supreme Leader' (sarsanghchalak), obedience to the one Supreme Leader (ek
chalak anuvartitva) and of the Supreme Leader as "the principle one who is
to be venerated" (parampoojaniya). Today, the RSS is at the core of a large
family of extremist Hindu nationalist organizations operating in India and
transnationally, including the UK.

Original report from RSS newspaper, The Organiser
The Organiser
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=18
3&page=5

May 13, 2007 p.5
Shri Guruji birth centenary celebrations in UK Sangh meet turns out a grand
Hindu Sangam
The concluding speech was delivered by RSS Sahsarkaryavah Shri Suresh Soni
who spoke about how Shri Guruji had sacrificed his life in thinking about
and acting on how to awaken the Hindu society, with the firm belief that
Hindu jage to Vishwa Jagegaa. "Shri Guruji and the RSS sought to unite,
organise and create assertive Hindus".
In an event that was every bit as unique as Guruji's life, ten Hindu
organisations came together to jointly host and celebrate Shri Guruji's life
and mission at Advait Cultural Centre, Forty Lane, Wembley (UK), on April
12. Another unique feature of the event was that the audience consisted
largely of the leaders of various Hindu organisations in the UK. and Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (UK) spoke after one another on the qualities and
contribution that Shri Guruji had made.
Swami Madhav Priyadas from Shri Swaminarayan Mandir first paid tribute to
Shri Guruji's mother for giving birth to Shri Guruji who sacrificed his life
for the nation. He wanted to pay tribute to Shri Guruji because he was no
ordinary saint. Ordinarily saints represent a section of society or a
geographical region of a nation. However, Priyadasji saw Shri Guruji as a
saint of the whole nation and an exemplary karmayogi whose every action was
for the good of the nation.
Shri Gauridas from ISKCON-Bhaktivedanta Manor, paid tribute to Shri Guruji
by pointing out how he was a man of substance and character. He concluded by
saying, "What we lack in society today are leaders of character and if Sangh
can provide one thing to modern society, it should be to produce men and
women of character fit for modern leadership".
Shri Ramesh Kallidai, general secretary and vice president of Hindu Forum of
Britain and Hindu Aid respectively said, "Trying to pay homage to Shri
Guruji was like holding a candle to the Sun". He sighted the expansion of
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as one of Shri Guruji's greatest
achievements because he felt that RSS's promotion of the Hinduvad
(doctine/theory) was the only way of making true vision of our sacred seers
and saints of ennobling the universe and uniting it.
Shri Kallidai went on to say that the phenomenon of the RSS and Shri Guruji
was so exemplary that even some of its opponents praised it. He cited the
example of Smt. Indira Gandhi who on the passing away of Shri Guruji had
said, "We have lost in Guru Golwalker a famous personality who was not a
Member of Parliament but who held a respected position in the nation by his
personality and the intensity of his convictions".
In an evening of many firsts, Shri Nitish Bhardwaj, who had played Lord
Krishna in popular Mahabharata TV serial, launched officially in UK,
Karmayogi, a documentary on the life and work of Shri Guruji, directed by
himself. He spoke about the honour of capturing Shri Guruji's life on film
and echoed the other speakers by calling Shri Guruji "a sannyasi in white
robs".
The concluding speech was delivered by RSS Sahsarkaryavah Shri Suresh Soni
who spoke about how Guruji had sacrificed his life in thinking about and
acting on how to awaken the Hindu society with the firm belief that Hindu
jage to Vishwa Jagegaa. "Shri Guruji and the RSS sought to unite, organise
and create assertive Hindus. Shri Guruji sought to do this by asking the
Hindu society to be fiercely critical of themselves and not others and by
creating individuals who put the Hindu society before themselves. Shri
Guruji used to say that Hindus should not look for faults in the Hindu
society. You cannot unite the Hindu society if you look for faults in it. As
such he sought to build an organisation whose policies, behaviour or actions
united and not divided the Hindu society and it is this philosophy that has
driven RSS to where it is today. It is this philosophy that has seen the RSS
stand the test of time when other divisive organisations have withered away.
This philosophy and method of working was Shri Guruji's greatest
contribution," Shri Soni added.
In a remarkable evening the one common thread in every speech was how best
to honour Guruji's legacy. Sardar Himat Singh Sohi, president of Singh Sabha
Gurudwara-South Hall, felt that the best way to pay tribute to Shri Guruji
was to work hard for Hindu-Sikh unity.
While Shri Sudarshan Bhatia, president of National Council of Hindu Temples,
said that a real homage to Shri Guruji would be to sit down and analyse what
we need to do to unite Hindus across the world so that we turn the whole
world into one family, Shri Lallubhai Parekh, president of National Congress
of Gujarati Organisation (UK) appealed to the audience "to carry forward the
vision of Shri Guruji".