From: http://commonalty.blogspot.in/2013/03/the-hindu-nation.html
I
The Hindu Rashtra
“The Hindu Rashtra” newspaper that Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, edited bore the phrase that was coined and used by VD Savarkar. Godse had left a copy of the newspaper in Marathi in the hotel room while going on his assignment to kill Gandhi on January 30, 1948. The obvious connection of the events is self revelatory of the fact that the establishment of a nation of only Hindus is sanguinary in nature. Without killing or massacre it cannot come in existence. Since then history has shown numerous attempts to bring about such a nation by causing mass casualties through engineered riots and bomb attacks of which the overwhelming victims would be Muslims. It also reveals that sometimes other minorities could not escape the juggernaut of founding of such theocratic state. Even Hindus would be targeted for coming in the way of this movement. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was only the most spectacular.
The failed attempt to cause pogroms of Muslims in the western part of the Central Province in 1947 was a serious attempt to subvert the government in order to have a Hindu Nation without Muslims. But it was preposterous as the overwhelming people in the country were with Gandhi and Nehru. Finding themselves in insignificant number the people supporting Hindutva manipulation for the Hindu Rashtra were daunted. They also lacked respect at the hands of the majority of the people in the country. Mahatma Gandhi’s fast in Delhi led to cessation of violence. His visit to Noakhali also had soothing effect. He even prevailed upon the government leadership to handover the Quwatul Islam mosque to Muslims to pray. He even decided to travel to Pakistan and have its dues paid. The Hindutva groups were helpless and could not muster enough support against these moves. As a contrast to the mass movement of Gandhi and Nehru the Hindu Mahasabh and the RSS could only manage very limited and token protest. Thus the lack of a mass base prevented the Hindu Nation getting any currency in the mainstream society.
The demolition of the Babri mosque and the rathyatra or chariot ride of BJP leader LK Advani that led to it were thoroughly bloody in its trail. The Bombay massacre of Muslims in1992-93 was an incident of mass casualties.
The boldest attempt for the Hindu Rashtra was made by the serving military officer Lt Col Prasad Purohit. He articulated what the RSS tacitly propagated through its unwritten manifesto also popularly called the hidden agenda. Purohit started Abhinav Bharat : “with the intention of propagating a Hindu Rashtra with their own constitution and aims and objectives as Bharat Swaraya, Surajya Suraksha.” The fourteen and more accomplices of Purhit had taken a very daring step towards establishing the Hindu Rashtra. It was very bold in the sense that nearly a dozen army officers were involved many of them have not been even named in the charge sheet of the bomb blasts case of Malegaon 2008. “This organized crime syndicate wanted to adopt a national flag i.e. solo-themed saffron flag with a golden border. The length of the flag would be twice its breadth with an ancient golden torch (bhagwa dhwaj).” 1 It is strange that the government did not charge them for treason against the country. Their terrorism was treason.
The Hindu right extremism is headed by the parent body Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. But it is essentially a “multi-headed hydra monstrosity”. 2 Even the maverick Sant Mahasabha at MahaKumb, Allahabad, in February 2013 may strike one as capable of being sober. But this group is not much different, only nuances of the same colour. It called for inquiry into the demolition of the Babri mosque but not for punishing the guilty who are of course well known leaders and ministers in the governments of the day. It is open secret which batch from which place led the attack. It is also self manifest that a former head of RSS had remarked that the domes were demolished by bombs. K. Sudarshan is dead but Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar, LK Advani and a host of others are still around and kicking. What is more even the sants themselves are clamouring for the temple. The Sant Mahasabha wants a dome built upon the open temple of child Ram. Among their other demands: suitable laws to control population and giving more powers to the armed forces. These are harbingers of the Hindu Rashtra in the making. 3Whatever power the army already has is awful. It has become impossible to even name the high officers of the armed forced who connived with Lt Col Prasad Purohit and were involved in what he did. More power to them would be more conceding to the Hindu extremist movement’s demand for the Hindu Rashtra.
Their involvement in terror is in proportion of their penetration into the army and the police. Those army officers who interviewed Anti Terrorism Squad chief of Maharashtra police Hemant Karkare on November 24-25, 2008, only a day before his assassination, had a crucial talk. What actually they talked about has not been made public. Was it so scaring that Karkare had counseling from former DGP Julio Reibero and had visited the US embassy for possible security for his personal life and of his family. Was his meeting with the army officers and Military Intelligence groups so ominous! All this could have weighed upon him. His wearing the helmet and the face that looked out at the world was already doomed. He looked deader than when he died minutes later. He was surely scared by the reach of the RSS and its spawned Sangh parivar. So much so, that he had ordered his men to make sure not once but thrice that they had absolute proof before laying hand on the Hindutva extremists.
Creation of the Hindu Rashtra overrode all other consideration and can be seen “that in fact Karkare’s assassination was plotted by people associated with the RSS to stop him from unmasking the face of RSS-inspired terror...If Karkare had not been killed, he would have possibly unveiled the entire terror network and not just names of certain individuals, trying to turn India into a Hindu rashtra through violence.”4
The assassination of Karkare put the clock back in time because no sooner did he die than the man who succeeded him reversed the hunt back to jehadi terrorists. But there are divisions within the police and armed forces. Purohit et al wanted Hindu Rashtra but there are still many in army who are not enamoured of such an entity. There are many Dravidian from the south who would not like to be overwhelmed by the Brahmins who will surely dominate such a theocratic state. Kerala is deeply divided and cannot be swayed by the idea of the Hindu Rashtra ruling over the whole of the state. Different groups within Hindus will not go together far towards establishing such a nation. After everything is said and done there are more sane Hindus who would not espouse the idea of being ruled by any extreme idea of a theocracy. It leads to the moot question whether there would be one or more such states coming into existence. In Vijay Tendulkar’s play Ghasiram Kotwal Ghasiram is a Brahmin from the north. The Chitpawan Brahmins of the Peshwa who dominate government in Poona go to the Muslim concubines while the Maratha soldiers go to the Brahmin women. Ghasiram arrests the Brahmins and throws them in the dungeon. The Chitpawan Brahmins complain to the Peshwa. He orders Ghasiram to be tied to the leg of an elephant and taken around the city of Poona and then has him killed. This kind of division can dampen the spirit for an overwhelming theocratic state. Even all the Shankeracharyas and Sadhus and Sants do not eye VHP or RSS with favour. So the kind of Hindu Rashtra may not be that easy for the extremists to establish. At the worst it would split into different Hindu Rashtras.
Internal differences despite common goal can come to surface and cause tension. However political compulsions can sway the people. Shiv Sena and BJP joined hands in Maharashtra and formed government for a term in the end of the 90s of the previous century. Shiv Sena is a rabid political group. Its supremo was proud of having sent his cadres to demolish the Babri and it was he who exhorted the Hindu fanatics to kill Muslims in 1992 to teach them a lesson. On July 17, 2003 Bal Thackeray exhorted Hindus to commit violence upon Muslims in protest against the Maharashtra government’s permission to prosecute him for making hate speeches against the Muslims. Even in Malegaon there was panic when he surrendered to the court on July 25th. Finally, what happened was that the Hindu hearted emperor of would be Hindu Rashtra was acquitted because of lapse of time. “Nationally, the party joined hands with BJP to further Hindutva and its agenda for a Hindu Rashtra, which radically transformed the city’s (Bombay) geography.”5 The riots in Bombay, Malegaon and elsewhere have segregated the people on religious lines. This in itself was a big milestone on the way to the Hindu Rashtra. The long term effect is that the collector of Aurangabad sent invitation on February 13, 2013 to welcome a minister. The collector’s official address reads “Collectorate, Aurangabad” but the address of the bank which the minister Balasaheb Thorat would inaugurate had the address “Khadkeshwar, Sambhajinager (Aurangabad).”6 This lurking desire to change names of cities and localities in a way to efface non Hindu influence or origin indicates the irrepressible tendency of what the extremists have sown in the psyche of the common man.
The overall strategy employed by the right wing Hindus is to slowly but steadily seize power for their ultimate goal of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. So when the sants and sadhus in the Allahabad Kumbh mela of 2013 asked for the abrogation of article 370(which accorded JK a special place with special reservations) in Jammu and Kashmir or religious based census their hidden aim is to seize land and expand Hindu population there. But according to historical agreements the land in Kashmir was reserved for the natives preeminently the Hindu pundits of the valley. Others cannot buy land there. It was this that was nagging the officials as a hindrance to extend Hindutva to the valley that led SP of Malegaon Rajwardhand, the ATS officers KP Raghuvanshi, Subhodkumar Jaiswal, and Lt Col Purohit to offer to the Malegaon bomb blasts accused Abrar Ahmad land anywhere in India except Kashmir. 6 This is core of the spatial politics at the national and state level. It spread most insidiously during the Shiv Sena and BJP coming to power. This has given the impression that in Maharashtra the fanatics have been only a “grasp away” from regaining reins of the government.7
The Hindu Rashtra as envisaged in the essay of Savarkar Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1923) is based on an exclusionary hate ideology of the extremists. They do not want Muslims and other minorities as a part of their Hindu nation. The core philosophy of this is cultural nationalism. Muslims have a distinctly different culture. It is this that the president of BJP Rajnath Singh and his associates always oppose. But cultural nationalism is diametrically opposite to and inimical of the Indian nationalism of Gandhi, Nehru, . Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Swami Rama Tirth and with them the majority of Hindus in the country who do not share the fanaticism of the Hindutva. The noble philosophy of Hinduism of these stalwarts like Vivekanand, etc. is not hateful and chauvinistic. “Savarkar on the other hand, coined the term [Hindutva]..to propagate the two-nation theory and cult of hate. Hinduism is noble and ancient. It shows man the path to self-realization. Hindutva, on the other hand, is modern and ignoble. It debases man by arousing his basest emotion—fear and hatred.”8. It was not a reaction against the movement of creating a theocratic state of Pakistan but a movement for nationhood of Hindus based on their culture, religion and race. The Muslims and other minorities do not figure in this.
So when independence was at long last at hand the overwhelming majority of Hindus and Muslims were not perturbed by any ideology of hate. They were with Indian nationalism. There are clear differences between cultural nationalism of Hindutva and the Indian nationalism of Gandhi and Nehru. To the former my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Against this base and cheap tactic is the Indian nationalism. Nehru and Gandhi did not embrace fascism of Hitler and Mussolini to fight for the freedom of India. Dr BS Moonje not only espoused fascism but went all the way to meet Mussolini and import his means of committing mass atrocities. He founded the Bhonsla Military School for Hindus. Lt Col Prasad Purohit went far beyond Moonje and Savarkar. He not only espoused the hate philosophy but had dealings with the enemies of the Muslim world, Israel, and exploded bombs to fulfill the Israeli demand to show two examples that he could perform what he wanted to show them his capability. He was obliged to do this to continue to get support of the Jewish state in terms of steady supply of arms and ammunitions, asylum in Israel, recognition etc. He also had this kind of negotiation and agreement with the king of Nepal. The Nepalese army officers undertook to train the cadres of Hindutva including the activists of Abhinav Bharat, Bajrang Dal, and others.
Their approach of having alliance with the enemy of the enemy worked in the days of the struggle for independence. Savarkar had negotiation with the Viceroy of India Lord Linlithgow in Bombay on October 9, 1939. In his report to the secretary of state for Indian affairs Lord Zetland, the Viceroy wrote: “The situation, he [Savarkar] said, was that His Majesty’s Government must now (when Gandhi and his Congress party had asked its ministers to resign from ministry in protest against the British Government) turn to the Hindus and work with their support. After all, though we and the Hindus have had good deal of difficulty with one another in the past that was equally true of the relations between Great Britain and the French and, as recent events had shown, of relations between Russia and Germany. Our interests were now the same and we must therefore work together. Even though now the most moderate of men he had himself been in the past an adherent of a revolutionary party, as possibly, I might be aware. (I confirmed that I was.) But now that our interests were so closely bound together the essential thing was for Hinduism and Great Britain to be friends, and the old antagonism was no longer necessary.”9
The coming of the Hindu Rashtra is a matter of gradual and staggered process albeit a secret one. There was no mention of Hindutva till 1991. Next year what happened was the most dangerous manifestation of it without its being mentioned in the election manifesto of the BJP. The chief of the RSS had said in 1992 what happened was what the Muslims had had coming to them. Thus the demolition of the mosque and the blood bath preceding it and following it were on account of the Muslims! After India saw the worst so far and the society so vertically divided BJP manifesto enshrined Hindutva. In the same way after India was presented with the first Hindutva genocide of Muslims in 2002 the stage was set for the naming of the air strip in Port Blair as Vir Savarkar air port. One incident tried to eclipse the other or divert attention but it failed. The 2004 election underpinned this debacle.
However, what remained steady was the march of the Hindu Rashtra. “The strategy of Hindutva is to engage Muslims in a hostile confrontation over issues from time to time so that the atmosphere in the country would be charged with communal tension between the Hindus and the Muslims. The next tactical move would be to create riots and spread them far and wide. That has always paid the right wing Hindus rich dividends immediately in business, trade and jobs and always at the elections. But in 2002 Gujarat Modi had hatched a conspiracy whereby the balance would forever be turned in favour of the Hindus. This could not be done without genocide of the Muslims.” (0
Looking back in history there are important steps through which the RSS and its Hindu Rashtra has gone through. Jawharlal Nehru had refused to meet Golwalkar and on November 3, 1948 and had remarked that the people associated with RSS were involved in activities that were “anti-national and often subversive and violent.”11 Basically their attitude is enshrined in the book We. “Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting to shake off the despoilers…The Race Spirit has been awakening.”12 Golwalkar objected to how the nationalist congress party used ‘national,’ ‘freedom’ and ‘constitutional means’.
“All those belonging to the national, i.e., Hindu race, Religion, Culture and Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real ‘National’ life.
‘We repeat: in Hindusthan , the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation—satisfying all the five essential requirement of the scientific nation concept of modern world. Consequently only those movements are truly ‘National’ as aim at rebuilding, revitalizing and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation. Those only are nationalist patriots, who with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are either traitors or enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots.” 13
In the last six decades or more the cataclysm brought about by the Hindutva there is the unmistakable signs of a systematic and surreptitious move towards achieving the dream for the Hindu Rashtra. The Hindu party BJP was in power in Delhi with her allies a few years. Kalyan Singh was also in power for such a short time in UP. He dared to have the Babri mosque demolished. The government headed by Vajpayee managed the conditions so shrewdly that the first genocide went ahead not only just because Modi was at the helms of the affair but that BJP was also in the driving seat in Delhi. This was enough for a Kristallnaucht even in full glare of the camera. As on the night of November 9, 1938 Heinrich Müller the head of the Gestapo consulted Hitler and sent a message to all the police units in Germany that “in shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with.” Modi followed the same. He also instructed his police not to prevent but let the Hindus vent their anger against the Muslims. This was the night of broken glasses on a much larger scale. Many Jews travelled to Gujarat to see what it was like, earlier.
II
Tactics of Terrorism: RSS
It is an open secret that the violent and secretive means of the RSS used for establishing the Hindu Rashtra is fraught with danger for India’s unity. Golwalkar wrote what strikes at the root of India as a modern nation. “The foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but show of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, 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. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal with the foreign races, who have chosen to live in our country.”14
As if this hubris is not enough, he goes further to recommend the desperate remedy: “To keep up the purity of the races and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her[sic] purging the country of the Semite Races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also 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 lean and profit by.” 15 Exception, Golwalkar treats Jews and Parsis as guests.
To bring about the Hindu Nation into existence the only way is to manufacture riots which are in fact pogroms, worst still, and genocide. “Riots, as they are called, persist because we do not face the harsh reality that their occurrence is the direct result of the Sangh parivar's ideology and functioning and the softness shown to it by other parties. The parivar has perfected the technique - witness Gujarat - and profited by it.” 16
The RSS has sufficiently been around for almost a century and has shown a penchant for terrorism unsurpassed by any other organization in the subcontinent let alone India.
Its very foundation was terrorism. Dr Balkrishna Shivram Moonje had sent Dr Keshav Baliram Hegdewar (the founder of the RSS) to Calcutta in 1910 for medical course but the real purpose was to learn making bombs for which the Bengal revolutionaries were known in the subcontinent. Much later Moonje travelled to Italy and met Mussolini expressly to learn how to cause mass casualties of Muslims. Till the present time Hegdewar’s organization has gone on perfecting making bombs to make deadlier ones. The life and career of Sunil Joshi illustrates the life achievement of an individual single RSS pracharak, unit chief. He is in a line of many others who have excelled in making and exploding bombs across the states of India. Among other such pracahraks are Dwender Gupta, Ramji Kalsangrah, Sandeep Dange, etc. The arrest of Mafat Lal aka Mehul on March 7, 2013 makes it possible that ultimately RSS senior leader Indresh Kumar is not far behind. It was he who had allegedly ordered the murder of Sunil Joshi. The men who shared the room with Joshi in his hiding from law after murdering the Congress leader Ninawa and his son also killed him to wipe out the leads that surely lead to Kumar. These are notable terrorists who have left their individual signature on the murders and terror attacks. The kind of grooved pipes used in bombs which Kalsangra made bore his signature. But they were also members of the mother organization, RSS.
On the other side the founding of Abinav Bharat in 2007 underscores the spawning of the multi headed monstrosity. It is unabated. If this is the work of the mother organization of the Hindutva why did it spawn so many others? Basically to divert attention from it and disown or dodge responsibility in the first place, and division of work was the next. It grew astronomically over the years and hence shedding load became third reason. The influx of the dollar and other foreign currency led the RSS to organize and fund the first Hindutva genocide of Muslims and its architect, the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Gujarat housed Swami Aseemanand and his headquarters, made extraordinary rendition a living truth in India in flagrant disregard of the world opinion. Mehtar, Ishrat Jehan, Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati and others were caught in different states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan etc and were handed over to the Gujarat police. The police in Gujarat through the right hand man of Modi’s DG Vanzara had these prisoners of other states tortured in private bungalows and then killed and taken to sites to orchestrate ‘encounter’ which it never was. The hapless innocent Muslims youths were bumped off on the bogus pretext that they were out to kill Narendra Modi. He never could have been even threatened in a wild dream. Such was the redoubtable figure that had not only shown the Muslim their place but had also taught them a lesson they would never forget. He forever tilted the scale against them in favour of the majority.
Behind the scene the Prime Minister of the country and the Home Minister carried on the work of the government as if these fake encounters and the genocide had not been even taking place.
The right wing Hindutva dominated government of Prime Minister AB Vajpyee piggy rode the US in the so called war on terror in the wake of 9/11. It took full advantage of the atmosphere created by the New York attacks and the hoopla created by the Huntington theory of the clash of civilization. And under this ruse the genocide of Muslims was brushed under the carpet of the weltanschauung that the innards of Islam were also bloody, as Samuel Huntington had put it. The blood of the neighbours with whom the Muslim do not know how to live with! That was what PM Vajpayee remarked at the Goa conclave of his party BJP in the aftermath of the genocide in 2002. To give that reason the central government had first looked around what had happened at the Gulbarga society (where 69 women, children and men burnt alive) and the dry well of Naroda Patia( about 800 were herded into the well and set on fire from above!). They succeeded in keeping out Amnesty International from visiting India as Modi held threat to the journalists warning them of the fate of the terror victim Daniel Pearl. So Vajpayee had reached the conclusion of overtly supporting Modi after musing alone as he travelled from Port Blair to Goa, in his “sphinx like silence.” That made him appear as a lookalike of Savarkar sitting in the court with Nathuram Godse and other accused in the assassination of Gandhi.
This interlude of Gujarat was the sustained taste of what the Hindu Rashtra would be when it would be replicated all over the country as VHP would like to have it. No account of terror and imprisoning the innocent will ever be complete unless Gujarat 2002 is fully comprehended.
Suffice it to say that the preparation for the genocide was done much before the train compartment burst into flames on February 27, 2002. On the following day RSS and Bajrang Dal activists were out in large number in their uniforms well armed and well supplied with dry fruits and drinks to begin the slaughter of Muslims. Arms including rockets were brought into Gujarat from Punjab, Bihar, UP and other states even during the curfew hours. Like burning of the German parliament by the Gestapo under Hitler the kristallnacht in Gujarat had begun with a pretext created.
This strategy of the RSS is galore in evidence in events after events involving terror. This kind of preparation had alarmed the first government of free India so much that a government communiqué of February 4, 1948 said “The professed aims and objects of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are to promote the physical, intellectual and moral well-being of the Hindus and also to foster feelings of brotherhood, love and service among them…Government have, however, noticed with regret that in practice members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have not adhered to their professed ideals.
“Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried on by the members of the Sangh, the extremist groups of Hindus. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunitions. They have been found circulating leaflets, exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms to create disaffection against the government and suborn the Police and Military.” 17
The “terrorist methods” were in force even before independence. Madanlal Pawa’s activities were causing terror in the minorities of Gwalior and the Central Province so much that Mahatma Gandhi had intervened and forced the princely state to stop his terrorizing Muslims by attacking them and causing riots and demanding ransom. When the ruler took a strict approach Pawa left the Central Province and went to Ahmednager in Maharashtra. There also he started hounding the minority Muslims and went back to the Punjab refugees settling there as his hideout. Visnhu Karkare was his ally and both along with others had attempted to kill Gandhi on January 20, 1948. This terrorism of such individuals was smaller as compared to what RSS chief Golwalker was doing on much larger scale. He was collecting arms and ammunitions and preparing for pogroms of Muslims in the Central Province when a warrant against him was issued. But chief minister Govind Pant did not arrest him. The assassination of Gandhi was another milestone in the path of terror that RSS practiced.
Forty years later the things began to move so fast that terror returned to India as never before. LK Advani’s rathyatra opened up the new avenues of terror. Bajrang Dal was inducted into terror when its awesome strength and arms prevented Muslims from marching to Ayodhya. When the Hindu militants were brought there prior to demolition of the Babri mosque it was sheer terror as Muslims held their breath in fear of what might happen next. Most of them were frightened greatly. The bloody riots were unparalleled in the history of the country. The demolition of Babri mosque was a terrorist act. 18
In March 1998 BJP with its allies formed the government at the centre. This obviously led to increase in communal tension. The Archbishop of Delhi Alan de Lastic observed: “ever since the government came to power the attacks on Christians and Christian missionaries have increased.” The Director General of Police of Gujarat CP Singh noted towards the end of December 1998 how VHP and Bajrng Dal were engaged in terror methods. “One thing was clear in the pattern of incidents. It was the activities of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal who were taking the law in their hands, which posed a serious danger to peace in Gujarat. Many of the attacks on the minorities were after these organizations had whipped up local conversions and allegedly forced inter religious marriages…our investigations revealed that in most cases these were entirely baseless allegations.”19
Sixty five years after the activities of the RSS that the government communiqué dubbed terrorist methods the groups it has spawned have increased exponentially. They were in new version of the Machiavellian art of “terrorist methods”, “suborning the Police and the Military”. Or, else what is the continued payment of salary to Lt Col Prasad Purohit despite his involvement in conspiracy to overthrow the government, collecting deadly arms like AK 47s, planting bombs on trains and in towns, joining hands with Nepal and Israel for manifest aim of killing Muslims and Maoists, indicate. If these are not terrorist methods what are they then? Purohit had killed a Maoist in cold blood and thrown the body into the sewer, if this is not crime and he a diehard criminal, what else is this? If stealing more than 50 kg of RDX from the army stock is not dacoity what else is it? His being in prison has gone haywire since his wife gets the salary; he has a laptop to compose what he wants, etc. Subversion of the police and the army if it is not what else is it?
The chief public prosecutor in the case of Mahatma Gandhi was the Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel. He had worked on the case on daily basis and was seized of the matter. Of course, the RSS was banned following the assassination of Gandhi. For removing the ban the two reasons that the government insisted on the RSS to adhere to was accepting the Constitution of the republic and respect for the national flag. Purohit and his Abhinav Bharat not only resolved to abrogate the Constitution of India but also wanted the national flag to be replaced by the bhagwa or saffron flag. Instead of abiding by the wise counsel the RSS hoisted the Pakistani flag atop the tehsildar office at Bijapur, Karnataka, on January 1, 2012. The sole purpose of the misdeed was to malign the Muslim community in Bijapur and also cause a riot. Murli Manohar Joshi had travelled to Srinager to see that the Indian national flag was hoisted at Lal Chowk in a showdown with the extremists fighting for their freedom from India. His own party man from BJP had hoisted the Pakistani flag at Bijapur. Six Sree Ram Sene members of Pramod Muthalik were arrested and one went hiding. Neither MM Joshi nor any one bothered to rap the knuckles of the BJP member of Bijapur allegedly behind the episode. But the inmates of the prison in Bijapur were outraged by the Sene/BJP/RSS malefactors out to create a bloody riot and deemed them as anti-national. They thrashed them in the prison. It came out that they were members of the RSS, SRS as well as BJP. This episode of Sindagi in Bijapur gave away the truth that all those who were involved and the VHP and Bajrang Dal who called for shutdown and pelted stones at public places and buses were from the RSS and its affiliates. They showed more interest in the Pakistani flag for it clearly vouchsafed a communal riot, a sure guarantor of windfall at the hustings. The police suspected some foul play and found out that barefooted members of these organizations Rakesh Sidaramaiah Math (19), Mallanagouda Vijaykumar Patil (18), Parashuram Ashok Waghmore (20), Rohit Eshwar Navi (18), Sunil Madiwalappa Agasar (18) and Anilkumar Sriram Solankar (18), all from Sindhagi to be involved. That too they were returning from the New Year revelry! The seventh accused, Arun Waghmore, was absconding. Two of them were seen with two vehicles within the compound of the tehsildar office at the unearthly hours of 3.30 to 4 am on January 1, 2012. Another instance from the same place is when SIMI activist Safdar Nagori was scheduled to appear in the court there was a minor blast. It was blamed on the Muslims but then it turned out ultimately that the Sree Ram Sene activists were behind the blast. That too they were also burglars. In the Hindu Rashtra fair is foul and foul is fair.
It is well known fact that conspiracy is the hallmark of RSS. The conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi is the most illustrious. Savarkar who had organized and financed it wished Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte “yashashvi hou ya” Be successful this time! In the case of Dhingra killing Wyllie in London Savarkar had given the gun for the murder and had told Dhingra to finish Wyllie this time or else don’t show face to him! In 1909 the Hindutva activists had killed the collector of Nasik, Mr Jackson, for his recommending Savarkar’s elder brother for prosecution in the murder. Savarkar was behind these and more. He also wept in the court that he could be implicated in the assassination, what with Gandhi and his wife visiting him in London as family friends in the bygone days! In the case of 2008 attack in Malegaon the conspiracy was hatched for at least seven months and meetings were held in the length and breadth of different towns of different states of India. They included Shabridham, Surat in Gujarat, Jaipur in Rajasthan, Nasik, Poona in Maharashtra, Faridabad in Haryana, Jabalpur, Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain in Madha Pradesh, Gorakhpur , and Allahabad, in UP, etc. In the aftermath of the sankatmochan temple attack in March 2006 Aseemanand attended the meeting and suggested that Malegaon be targeted for revenge.
In the light of the means calculated to achieve Hindu Rashtra the role of terrorism is vital though terrorism has come in vogue only in the wake of 9/11 but it was always there. Terrorism is a handy tool in attacking composite culture as can be seen in the attacks in Hyderabad in 2007 and again on February 21, 2013. Jayprakash Narayan succinctly pointed it out that he objected RSS using devious means “to influence politics under the garb of a cultural nationalism. ..I have always condemned Hindu nationalism of the RSS. For it is a dangerous doctrine and is against the ideal of composite Indian nationalism. “20 When the National Executive accepted Morarji Desai formula it included Jan Sangh. The formula read: “Every member of the Janta Party shall unconditionally accept and strive to preserve the composite culture and secular state established in our country and nation not based on religion.”
To destroy the composite culture the extremists have always tried to use fascist techniques. Togadia rode on motor bike with statue of Hanuman with streets screened off with cloth to not allow Muslims to peep at. Marching through sensitive areas of the minority is the opportunity the fascist used in 1930s to wreak havocs on the Jews or Protestants in Ireland. Togadia followed in the footsteps of them. Advani had done it by wading through the bloodshed during his rathyatra. The bricks with Ram marked on it and consecrated and carried through Aligarh in 1989 produced pogroms but also showed hegemony of the extremists who can create terror in the Muslim ghettos at their will. The RSS cadets and Bajrang Dal activists come armed and begin to shout very indecent slogans against Muslims to create riot at the slightest pretext. It was this that Ashok Singhal wanted when he remarked on April 4, 1991 “Our shobha yatra (religious processions) should pass through every locality.” 21
The slogans shouted at such marches are no doubt abusive of Muslims and challenging: Mussalmaan key do hi sthaan/Pakistan ya kabrasthan. (There are only two places for a Muslim, Pakistan or the cemetery.) Jo kahta hai Ali Ali/uski maan ko choddo gali gali. (He who calls out to Ali, fuck his mother in every alley. Jis Hindu ka khoon na khaule/khunnahim hai pani hai (The Hindu whose blood doesn’t boil has water in his veins.22
So demonized Muslims in the Hindu Rashtra in the ‘making’ is that Singhal and Togadia and the late Bal Thackeray have surpassed each other in mouthing ignominy against the minority. “It is time to catch Muslims by their neck and tell them where their place lies. Kashi and Mathura are ours. It the Muslims want to avoid further humiliation, they should hand over those shrines quietly. That is what Ashok Singhal ranted in Lucknow on December 29, 1997.23 Not only in words but in deeds the Hindutva extremists leave no doubt how they would deal with the hapless minority. Indian Express reported that “Advani was heard ordering sealing of all entry points in Ayodhya to prevent Central forces from entering the town.” His sharing sweets with his fellow party men is no secret. All this is on account of their infiltration in the police, army and administration. These three are the most important agencies. How far they remain sane will decide the future.
The RSS has infiltrated all the three and hence the future course of the Hindu Rashtra otherwise would depend on the sangh parivar, the saffron group. The governments of West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have deftly handled riots and snipped them in the bud. This is not in any less measure due to the limited influence of the RSS there. However in the rest of the country the situation is different. Look at Karnataka since it has come under the influence of the hate ideology of the RSS.
The dynamics that generate riots is the past, the rule of the Mughals and Muslims which the RSS makes out to be a tyranny for the Hindus. This is far from truth. For the Dogra rule in Kashmir was worst as far as the Hindus and also Muslims are concerned. The pundits suffered more under the Dogras. Tipu Sultan ruled in a way that left no bitterness in the Hindu subject as the tiger of Mysore was ferociously fighting the foreign rule of the English. To the Hindu right the English were their endeared ones. But not Tipu. It was this that prompted Golwalkar to say that the Jews and the Parsis came as guests but the Muslims came as invaders. Why did he leave out the English then? Savarkar might have been behind the murder of Jackson in Nasik, Wyllie in England but he was very servile and officious to the English rule in the country. What did he expect from them for this?
III
Frightening implications of the Hindu Rashtra
A long term chilling effect of in-the- process of realizing Hindu Rashtra is the innocuous albeit surreptitious change in terminology. What has been sheer terrorism has come to pass as riot. Gujarat 2002 and Dhulia 2013 were in no way riots nor was Dhulia October 2008 that. It was terrorism, qua terrorism. At the inception of the attacks in Naroda Patia a Tamil paraplegic was stabbed to death most brutally. Imagine the poor disabled handicapped on crutches and steel rod attached to his legs being set upon by the Bajrang Dal and RSS marauders armed with swords, choppers, iron rods, white deadly powder, gas cylinders and burning torch approaching him. Of course, that after the police had cleared the passage by shooting at the Muslims to scare them into hiding and then giving cover to the marauders to go in for the kill! The message as propaganda was unmistakable: Muslims have no place to live in India.
The prevailing condition in 1947 was also the same. Imagine “two large steel trunks securely locked. When the trunks were opened, they revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust throughout the western districts of the province. The trunks were crammed with blueprints of great accuracy and professionalism of every town and village in that vast area, prominently marking out the Muslim localities and habitations.” Imagine also that arms were stocked in secret places and trained marauders waiting for the nod. The unfolding scenario would be sheer terror and not riot as the swords and choppers would be descending upon the hapless people sleeping not having least suspicion that their neighbours would attack them so stealthily. But that is what RSS chief Golwalkar had done for the unsuspecting Muslims in the western part of the Central Province! The premier of the Central Province was Gobind Ballabh Pant who dithered in the matter of arresting Golwalker. “Had Pant but acted, Gandhi's life might have been saved. Had Golwalkar's plans been carried out, a pogrom would have been staged on a pretext and the media would have called it - a 'riot'” (24)There were two acts here, arms were collected to kill Muslims on the pretext of repeated attempts to kill Gandhiji. Gandhi survived the attacks that had failed until the sixth and the last one six months later. Had the conspiracy not exposed there would have been pogroms of Muslims as in Gujarat 2002. In official record it is still called riots.
The Muslims in Dhulia were also dazed that the Hindu Jagran Manch or Samiti would create terror in Dhulia because a bomb in Bhiku Chowk of Malegaon had blown up many Muslims killing seven and injuring hundreds on September 29 2008. Dhulia is seventy kilometers away from Malegaon. And as a result to that the Hindutva group would initiate violent attacks six days later in Dhulia to provide safety to Hindus from the terrorist attack in Dhulia! The second Dhulia event was outright terror as the cops shot at the upper parts of the bodies of Muslims, looting the shops of the Muslims and letting the extremist Hindutva people attack the Muslims. There were few Muslims houses encircled by lanes and lanes full of Hindu houses. All were burning with many victims frozen to death with fear within the burning houses surrounded by the engulfing inferno and the cops waiting for the denouement! The two Dhulia disturbances are nothing but the 'institutional riot system.' as a central factor in the production of Hindu-Muslim violence
“What we call 'riots' are pogroms which is why in every single riot Muslims are the worst sufferers but the largest victims of police brutality. More Muslims are arrested even as they are the worst sufferers in the 'riots'.”
The Hindu extremists have volunteered what would be the consequences once India is transformed into a Hindu nation. This is from the professor of physics and a long time human resource development minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi: “Hindu rashtra need not be a formal structure. It is the basic culture of this country. I say that all Indian Muslims are Mohammadiya Hindus; all Indian Christians are Christi Hindus. They are Hindus who have adopted Christianity and Islam as their religion.” 25 This threatening posture was held out in the midst of the bloodiest riots taking place as a sequence of the movement for the Ram temple in the place where Babri mosque stood. The temple whenever it comes up would be symbolic but it is clear from the following report of what the thugs of Hindutva would do when they come for the minorities. In the unforgettable words of Martin Niemöller “They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
It would be like the Jews in the concentration camp, give a dog a name and hang him. Still in the animal imagery the dog and the mouse illustrate the point.
The fall off of the juggernaut of the Hindu Rashtra is becoming more illustrative by the day. Numerous instances are there where innocent Muslims are flagrantly thrown into dungeons across the country. What for? But the despicable attitude created by Golwalkar towards the minorities, essentially Muslims. First Mathi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui as a dog who also became a mouse .
“In 2008, a youth was arrested from my neighbourhood in Hubli for alleged links with the Student Islamic Movement of India. He was studying to be a doctor and had no history of indiscipline or run-ins with the law. His family was traumatised, and still is, for he continues to languish in jail. If that could happen to a young, educated Muslim like him, it could happen to me, too, I thought then. Five years later, that passing thought became an ugly reality. On August 29, 2012, a posse of armed policemen barged into the one-bedroom flat I shared with four other boys in Bangalore. They pretended to be looking for my roommate Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, whom they accused of plotting to assassinate some right-wing Kannada columnists. Ironically, they had picked him up from the locality just a while earlier. In our flat, they slapped his brother, Aijaz Ahmed, abused the other three and suddenly handcuffed me too. I pleaded with them to tell me why they were taking me away. I asked one of the policemen, whom I had spoken to earlier when I was a crime reporter with Deccan Herald, what was going on. All I got was a sarcastic look. The brazen manner in which we were picked up was more like a kidnapping than an arrest. With my pleas unanswered, my mind slid into numbness. I went blank. I could not think. The story of that youth kept replaying in my head.
My first night in the cell was the longest night of my life. We kept pleading with the cops, including the junior-most constables, to not destroy our lives. During our 30 days in police custody, the cops abused us in every way they could. One policeman asked me, “So, you work for a Pakistani newspaper?” I don’t even want to get into the nasty things they said about my faith. I was surprised that unlike the others, I was not physically abused. Outside the prison, though, I was planted as the “mastermind”. 26
Karnataka is the most crucial arena to watch as far as the rise of Hindutva extremist is concerned. Even since BJP came to power and formed government in Bangalore the birth pangs of the Hindu Rashtra was vividly seen in day today life. The coastal areas where Muslims around Bhatkal are thriving in a better off situation the police are also breathing down their necks always hunting for the Bhatkals, be it Riyaz or any other. Even Muslim mothers are at their wit’s end for correcting the police that their sons are not what they describe in calling the first names and then the ubiquitous Bhatkal. And where the names is altogether a different one then the other soubriquet is “Mastermind” as in the case of Mathi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui.
The prison that swallowed him in August 2012 and threw up out on February 25, 2013 like the snake that can swallow a mouse and is capable of also throwing it out. This is not a wild simile but a contemporary literary device of the double-speak of Hindutva. Addressing the Indian community residing in Chicago and New York, Narendra Modi on March 10, 2013 remarked that “Nation first” is secularism. If this were so why would the police arrest Mathi-ur-Rehman? He was an Indian. The others who were also Muslims arrested with him were also Indians. They had no iota of any feeling for any other country near or far. They had opened their eyes in this world of India and were destined to end their physical life by being contently buried in the soil that gave them birth. Therefore what MM Joshi had said was now being put in new sanitized words of Modi, as he holds forth: “Shivji’s family is truly unique…. Shivji, Parvati, Ganesha, Kartikeya. The common belief is that a snake devours mice. Yet you see Shivji wearing a snake around his neck. His son Ganesha uses a mouse as his vaahan (mount). This is the greatest example of co-existence.”27 Thus in the Hindutva Rashtra the second class citizens or Mohammadiya Hindus would be like the mouse that carries the Ganesha, does the drudgery. The snake can suck the mouse into his belly and resume its position around the neck of Shiva as it happened on the night of February 27, 2002 when Modi told his police to let the Hindus vent their anger at the Muslims. It reminds one of similar order given to the Gestapo on the eve of krystallnach : “in shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with.” The result was holocaust. Modi and Vajpayee also scored one of their own.
The myth of Hindutva easily lends itself to a mythical interpretation in Jungian psychology of the unconscious. Thus the family is Shivji, wife Parvati, offspring are Ganesha and Karikeya. The mouse and the snake are not part of the family. The Hindu Rashtra will be made up of the family as seen here. Those who are not in the family are the snakes and mice. So the two thousand Muslims killed in the genocide in Gujarat are vermin like the mice and the snakes, outside the family.
In a country like Australia which is not India if an innocent Muslim is accused of terror as was Dr Hanif the government would apologize for its mistake to the doctor. India as a Hindu Rashtra does not have to. This is how the nascent move towards Hindu Rashtra is unfolding itself.
The mantra of development is so charismatic that even genocide can fade into insignificance. Modi: “The objective is not to win elections, but if you are voted to power with a five-year mandate, it is incumbent on you to serve your people, sincerely and dedicatedly, without looking at self-interest. If you do it, people forgive you your other lapses.” This is the syllogism of the Hindutva that once they win election and form a majority government they would replicate Gujarat everywhere and brush the other lapses under the carpet of development. The double speak of Hindutva for a Hindu Rashtra is just that. The hidden agenda of the Hindu right reveals itself in this way in “Bharat Prem and Bharat Bhakti.”
These words of Modi are, ipso facto, apologia of what he did in February-March 2002 and has maintained it without let up. The above mythological interpretation of the totems of Hindu mythology lend different meanings to different people inhabiting India. In early January 1993 Bal Thackeray also used mythology that Shiva’s (read Modi’s usage, Shivji) third eye was opening. Even the defense minister of India staying in Bombay could not control let alone prevent the slaughter of Muslims that ensured the ominous mythical warning. The Shiv Sainiks ruled the city and even when they were caught by the army with arms in their cars on the move to supply to real time massacre they were let off. One of them Madhukar Saroptdar was even allowed to meet the Prime Minister Narsimha Rao. In such explosive situations one can see de facto Hindu Rashtra.
Lest anyone should forget, Modi, Advani and Vajpayee are committed, what is called, Savarkerites. Remember how Muslim girls and women were raped, mutilated, and burnt alive in 2002. Many of the girls and women had rods sticking out of their crotches in the front and the back. They did not have any piece of cloth to hide their shame. Nor did the women on the road they traversed to reach the relief camp help them to cover their nude and live mutilation. They could not walk even as they passed alien and inhospitable and deserted streets and yet they were not given even a glass of water to quench their thirst. Even a sea full of water could not have quenched their thirst as they had gone through harrowing and most traumatic times of several centuries in just few hours of hounding out, raping, mutilation and being burnt alive and in case they survived the endless travail. This is what Savarkar wanted Shivaji to have done to the daughter in law of Kalya’s ruler when the Maratha king defeated the ruler but sent back the girl with full honour and respect. Vajpayee, Modi and Advani fulfilled many such wishes of Savarkar, that too in one year, 2002. That is the fate waiting for many when the Hindu Rashtra would be ushered in.
(1)
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/2009012120090121024300515f53d3b61/Conspirators-had-planned-to-take-over-the-country.html
(2)Mustafa Khan. Sangh parivar: Multiheaded Hydera Monstrosity. Commonalty blog
(3)
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-15/allahabad/37118691_1_ram-lalla-vhp-and-bjp-ram-temple
(4)http://www.indianexpress.com/news/two-hours-before-26-11-attacks-karkare-called-me-to-say-his-life-under-threat-digvijaya/723183/0
(4) Aziz Burny
(5) Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot, Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation, Delhi: Harper Collins, 2012)
(6)Asian Express February 14, 2013.
(7) (http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Samar/Our-Hindu-rashtra/Article1-1011291.aspx
Our Hindu rashtra Samar Halarnkar February 13, 2013)
(8) AG Noorani. Savarkar and Hindutva
(9)“Hindutva’s foreign tie-up in the 1930’s: Archival Evidence”. Economic and Political Weekly, January 22, 2000 p 226.)
(10)(Mustafa Khan.First Hindutva Genocide of Muslims and its Architect. Page 9, November 26, 2011)
(11)AG Noorani. The RSS and the BJP Delhi:Leftword 2000.p.28
(12)ibid p.19
(13)ibid p.20
(14) AG Noorani The RSS and the BJP A Division of Labour .
Delhi Leftword 2000)
(15) ibid 20
(16) http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2004&leaf=01&filename=6726&filetype=html
(17) AG Noorani. The RSS and the BJP. Delhi, 2000. P27.
(18) AG Noorani in Frontline January 7, 2000.
(19) Communalism Combat October 1998)
(20) Dinman. April 8, 1979.
(21) The RSS and the BJP, p 40.
(22) Shashi Tharoor. Riot. Penguin 2001. P128.
(23)The RSS and the BJP. P 67.
(24)
Communal 'Riots': Some Harsh Truths
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130311/jsp/nation/story_16657754.jsp#.UT4XnnBlaMQ
As Noorani has argued in his review of the book The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India by Paul R Brass;Oxford University Press, 2002. Subsequent references are from the same source.
(25) Sunday Observer, January 13, 1991
(26) ttp://m.indianexpress.com/news/-i-was-discriminated-against-because-i-am-muslim-/1085223/
‘I was discriminated against because I am Muslim’
(27)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130311/jsp/nation/story_16657754.jsp#.UT4XnnBlaMQ
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