Prakash Sharma (National convenor) and Subas Chouhan (Co-convenor)
The Indian Express, October 5, 2008
DARK SHADE OF SAFFRON
by Pradeep Kaushal
When the VHP launched its Ram-Janaki rath yatra in Uttar Pradesh to mobilise support for its Ram Janmabhoomi movement, it set up a task force to provide security to the yatra. And the Bajrang Dal was born in October 1984.
Vinay Katiyar, an RSS pracharak who had a successful stint as organising secretary of the ABVP from 1970 to 1974, was picked up to lead the Bajrang Dal—the name chosen to invoke Hanuman while undertaking the temple project in the name of Ram. The public call to the youth found a resounding response and Karsevakpuram, the sprawling VHP campus at Ayodhya, soon filled up with boys eager to sign up.
The initiation was complete with some lectures (baudhiks) by RSS-VHP leaders on the “wrongdoings of Muslim invaders” and the “oppression of Hindus during Muslim rule”. A bit of physical training and the soldiers of Hindutva were out sporting their trademark headbands with the slogan ‘Jai Sri Ram’.
Two years later, in 1986, the VHP made the Bajrang Dal its youth wing. In 1989, the outfit made headlines when it threatened to recite Hanuman Chalisa at Delhi’s Jama Masjid. Later when L.K. Advani set off on his Somnath-Ayodhya rath yatra, Dal activists walked along his chariot. Sporting saffron headbands and shouting frenzied slogans, they were ready to charge. And charge they did, demolishing the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. A ban on the RSS, VHP and the Dal followed four days later, only to be lifted by a tribunal.
Ever since, the Bajrang Dal has been working in the tribal areas of Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, trying to woo Christians back into the fold of Hinduism. In cities, it routinely makes trouble—and news—as it goes about disrupting beauty pageants, roughing up couples on Valentine’s Day and digging up Cricket pitches before India-Pakistan matches.
This ‘taskforce’ of the Sangh Parivar is now leading the agitation against Christians in Orissa. And in Karnataka, if there were any doubts about the Dal complicity in attacks on Christian prayer halls, state convenor Mahindra Kumar put them to rest by publicly owning up to them up. With the recent death of its two activists, Bhupinder Singh Chopra and Rajeev Mishra, who were making bombs in Kanpur, the group’s militant image has just grown stronger, as have the voices calling for a ban on the group.
THE ORGANISATION
It may lead mobs from the front but the Bajrang Dal...still remains a shadowy figure. It doesn’t have a constitution, nor does it have a membership form. “There is no need for a recorded membership,” argues national convenor Prakash Sharma. “Everyone who considers himself a Hindu is a member of the Bajrang Dal and anyone who has participated in any of our programmes is our active member.” He puts the number of active members at 10 lakh. “In any case, the VHP enrolls its well-wishers (hit-chintaks) every year,” he says.
The Dal has a national convenor and a co-convenor but no general secretaries, secretaries, treasurer, national executive or even a smaller apex body for decision-making. “We are a constituent of the VHP and we don’t feel any need for an organisation within an organisation or a separate constitution. We have informal discussions among ourselves and then seek the advice of VHP leaders,” says Sharma. All appointments are made by the VHP, which takes crucial decisions.
Next in the hierarchy come the 11 kshetriya sanyojaks (regional convenors). The organisational regions are named after key cities. So, the region comprising Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi is named after the Pandava capital Indraprastha. UP is divided into two regions, Meerut and Lucknow, while Jaipur includes Rajasthan and Gujarat. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh make the Bhopal region. Patna comprises Bihar and Jharkhand. Orissa along with West Bengal constitutes Utkal and the Northeast comes under Guwahati. The South is divided into two units: Chennai (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Bangalore (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh). The Mumbai unit includes Maharashtra and Goa. The 11 kshetriya sanyojaks—there are five vacancies at present—are hardly known beyond RSS-circles.
The regions are sub-divided into state, district and prakhand (for a population of one lakh) units. Then there are the local units. Each state has a convenor who is assisted by a team of five. The convenor who looks after organisational work is the sangathan pramukh, then there is a gauraksha (cow-protection) pramukh, a suraksha pramukh (security head), a vidyarthi pramukh (student leader) and a balopasana pramukh (fitness trainer).
FACES BEHIND THE DAL
Prakash Sharma (National convenor)
The Kanpur-based lawyer started as the city convenor of the Dal in 1984 and gradually moved his way up, becoming the state convenor first and then co-convenor. Though at 46, he is past the upper-age limit of 45 for holding the post, the Parivar has not nominated his successor yet. A natural...
choice for his replacement would be co-convenor Subas Chouhan.
Subas Chouhan (Co-convenor)
The fire-spewing Chouhan is a former head of the Orissa unit of the Dal. A pracharak of the RSS, Chouhan has been at the forefront of attacks on Christians, justifying them as a reaction to the murder of VHP leader Swami Lakshmanananda and asking Christians to convert back to Hinduism if they want to escape violence.
MOVING INTO THE PARIVAR
Vinay Katiyar
The RSS picked Katiyar as the Bajrang Dal’s founder president. He had been tried earlier as the ABVP organisational secretary for four years, from 1970 to 1974. Katiyar led the Dal during the most crucial phase, the Ayodhya movement. He was rewarded for his services with a BJP ticket from the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency in 1991. He doubled as BJP Lok Sabha member and Dal convenor till 1995.
Jaibhan Singh Pavaiyya
As Katiyar moved on to shoulder big responsibilities like the presidency of the UP BJP, he was replaced by Jaibhan Singh Pavaiyya, who had been VHP national secretary for 10 years (1983-1993). By the time Pavaiyya took over, the temple movement had lost steam. The BJP, looking for allies after having failed to get a majority in the Lok Sabha in 1996, sobered down. Looking for an alternative cause, the RSS strike force soon found one: M.F. Husain's paintings. In 1996, the Dal gave a call to the youth to join the Amarnath Yatra, which had been reduced to a trickle the previous year. It got the people but Pavaiyya was pulled out of office in 1997. However, he was soon resurrected. The BJP fielded him from the Gwalior Lok Sabha constituency in 1999 and he won.
Surendra Jain
The Rohtak-based economics lecturer spearheaded the Dal when it took on the ‘chagai’ (healing) Church gatherings in Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 1998. Another Parivar arm, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, lent a helping hand and the Dal penetrated the Adivasi areas of Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, MP, Gujarat and Rajasthan to counter proselytisation by Christian organisations. Meanwhile, Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two young children, Philip (9) and Timothy (7), were set ablaze in their station wagon in Keonjhar district of Orissa in 1999. Despite suspicions of Dal involvement, it disowned the triple murder. Jain was re-deployed in 2002 after an eventful term. He is now the VHP national secretary and spokesperson.
FAMILY TIES
Though the RSS refuses to... accept it as one of its affiliates-—saying “it’s the VHP’s business to manage them”—no one in the Sangh Parivar is averse to using the Bajrang Dal in their Hindutva project.
Some in the BJP have learnt the hard way that the Bajrang Dal worker could also be the Sangh Parivar’s Frankenstein. Most of the problems in Karnataka, say BJP leaders, were due to some intense competition between Mahendra Kumar and Pramod Muthalik (former Bajrang Dal comrades who later fell out and planned attacks on churches in the state, with the BJP Government looking the other way).
Similarly, in Gujarat, while Babu Bajrangi once took pride in engineering anti-Muslim riots, the BJP government had to spend sleepless nights when he threatened to take them to task for “abandoning the Hindu cause”.
The Bajrang Dal is an important reference point in the ever-changing Hindutva trajectory. With the likes of Katiyar around, others in the BJP are made to appear as moderate, right-of-centre voices. This clever positioning is what makes the Bajrang Dal an extremely valuable ally for the BJP.
