What to believe in: Words or deeds?
RSS Supremo’s Public relations Exercise
Ram Puniyani
Do
organizations say what they intend to do? Not necessarily. This came
out clearly from the three long lectures by RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan
Bhagwat. The event was supposed to be a dialogue, but the maximum of
dialogue one could see was his answering few questions at the end of
lectures. This normal practice of answering the questions was underlined
strongly, as probably this must have been novel thing for this
organization.
What
did Bhagwat say which was new? He did say that Hindutva includes
Muslims, RSS respects Constitution, RSS is not opposed to reservations,
RSS is not dictatorial-there is a place for opinions of others apart
from that of Shri Bhagwat also, RSS respects the diversity of this Hindu
nation etc. It became clear the gentleman was answering to the
criticism of his organization by its critics, and there are plenty of
them. What appeared novel was the change in the language of RSS from its
major ideologue Guru Golwalkar to Mr. Bhagwat, the current chief? While
Golwalkar bluntly appreciated the Nazi methods of exterminating the
minorities, Bhagwat sounded to be accepting the existence of religious
minorities. While Guru was announcing the Muslims, Christians and
Communists are internal threat to Hindu nation, Bhagwat went on to say
that they don’t fully agree with Guruji so his book, ‘Bunch of
Thoughts’, has been republished by omitting such sentences which are
threatening to minorities and asserting the Hindu nationalism in a blunt
way.
So
has RSS changed? In case of most of the organizations, they should be
judged by their actions, or by the outcome of activities and the
programs of the organizations which come into being due to RSS ideology.
That’s what will tell us the true character, real agenda of RSS and
help us assess why a pleasant face is being presented now?
The
core activity of RSS is structured around Shakhas (Branches). In these
shakhas young boys are given the physical training, one component of
training is wielding lathis (batons). This is what is the most visible
part of its activities. Running parallel to this is the ideological
training, the bauddhiks (intellectual) sessions. This is where the real
agenda of RSS gets itself manifested. In these shakha bauddhiks, which
are backed up by long training camps leading to three year training
program, the outcome of which are the Swamyamsevak/Pracharak, who is
ready to take on the mantle of RSS programs in an independent way.
These
bauddhiks indoctrinate the young boys in to believing that, India has
been a Hindu nation from times immemorial. Roughly RSS training module,
as gleaned from various sources, follows these lines. ‘We’ were having a
great society, all castes were equal, women had honorable place in the
society. The society was attacked by foreigners, the Muslims, leading to
inequality of castes and degeneration of status of women. The Muslim
kings destroyed our temples, and imposed Islam by force. The Muslim
kings were very cruel, Mohammad Gazani (destroying Somnath) Mohammad
Ghori (Betraying Prithivraj Chowhan). Hindu kings like Maharana Pratap
and Shivaji saved the Hindu society. During freedom movement, while
Savarkar put forward Hindu nationalism, the likes of Gandhi-Nehru and
their followers regarded people of foreign religions also belonging to
this land. Gandhi appeased the Muslims due to which Muslims got
emboldened and demanded Pakistan; it’s due to faulty policies of Nehru
that Kashmir, the integral part of India, has become a problem and so on
and so forth.
The
prachraks/swaymsevaks after this training go in to different segments
of society, or into directly floated organizations, Bhartiya Jansangh,
ABVP, BJP, VHP, Vanvasi kalian Ashram, Seva Bharati to name the few.
Technically these are all independent organizations, but they are run
and controlled by the trained prachraks of RSS. So RSS does not have to
act as remote control as its ideology runs into the DNA of these
organizations. The RSS module of indoctrination has created hatred in
the society, hatred against Muslims and partly against Christians and
those upholding secular values-liberals. One manifestation of this
Hatred was the murder of Gandhi by Godse, who was the trained Pracharak
of RSS. Sardar Patel must have
been the first one to articulate this and see beyond the murder of
Gandhi. He could see that the core reason of Gandhi’s murder was spread
of Hatred in society by RSS.
While
RSS has volunteers dressed in RSS uniform doing relief work, those
taking up arms to indulge in violence are the one, who are guided by
this hate against religious minorities. The violence prevalent in the
society has been the outcome of issues, which are related to emotions
brought into the service of Hindu nationalism of RSS. The communal
violence went up in the wake of Ram Temple issue. If the country belongs
to all, all religions are respected, why the crime of demolishing a
five hundred year old mosque? Why marshalling of communal view of
history to polarize the society? On similar lines why Holy cow is the
political issue, while swami Vivekanand did say beef was eaten during Vedic times and Gandhi posited that state should not take up banning of cow slaughter or banning of beef?
One
must say that RSS, as it has got renewed confidence during last four
years is now trying to spread its net by mouthing liberal language. This
velvet glow is the contribution of Mr. Bhagwat to the deepening divide
created in the society due to the all round work of the progeny of RSS,
which while sounding independent is totally loyal to the trainings it
got while attending shakha baudhhiks. So we know that when the Jansangh
component of Janata Party was asked to severe its links with RSS, they
preferred to break the party and reemerge as BJP. So the late Prime
Minister Vajpayee in Staten
Island, while talking in front of NRI Indians reaffirmed his primary
loyalty to RSS. Its respect of Indian Constitution is a sham as; for
Indian Constitution; we are a secular democratic India, in contrast to
Hindu nation, the soul of RSS agenda.
