It's the late hours of the night and I'm finding it difficult to sleep. I was flipping through the pages of Ramachandra Guha's wonderful book on post-independence India - India after Gandhi. I had read this book cover-to-cover in a marathon attempt about a year ago. It is a profoundly important book and deserves a second reading, especially when one easily forgets important details over time.
I was re-reading chapter 27 -titled Riots- and I came across a passage that I felt the need to quote on this blog. It was an excerpt from an older book called Nailing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (by a certain D. R. Goyal) which Guha quotes as 'a concise summary of the ideology of the Sangh Parivar'. Now, many will think this is hackneyed and unnecessary. In our liberal minds (sorry for the presumption; but I doubt any conservative reads my blog), we know what the RSS/BJP/VHP stand for and desire to perpetuate. But such razor-sharp characterization is rare and I feel obliged to share it with the others. Goyal states that 'without fear of contradiction, it can be stated that nothing more [than the following] has [ever] been said in the RSS shakhas during the past 74 years of its existence'. (brackets mine)
This straightforward ideology is transmitted among the Hindu thinking class in subtle ways - lofty religious liturgy from the Ramayana and the Gita are cherry picked to sugar-coat this nonsense, it is then mixed with a manufactured fear of a culture and identity threat; the Congress, with its many shortcomings and incompetencies, provides a closure to this potent recipe of obfuscation. As I sit in a foreign land and type these words, nearly 80% of my kin day-dreams and romanticizes about the BJP overthrowing the UPA in the forthcoming general elections. They are good people, lead honest lives as far as I know, nurturing their family and doing well in their careers; and they only form a microcosm of the large chunk of affluent society in India who openly root for the Hindutva brigade as a result of a self-imposed faith-based insecurity and manufactured consent that spread like a virus. They are blissfully unaware of the moral wager that rests on their conscience and more importantly, their common sense that is on a vacation. The BJP government in Karnataka has, with its mute spectator-ship of organized persecution of Christians in the state and its stellar handling of the Shri Ram Sena goons, proved once again where its loyalties lie. Rajnath Singh and Advani are resurfacing with their Ram-Janmabhoomi-talk; it is important not only that we call a spade a spade, but also try reason with others who sit on the fence.
I was re-reading chapter 27 -titled Riots- and I came across a passage that I felt the need to quote on this blog. It was an excerpt from an older book called Nailing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (by a certain D. R. Goyal) which Guha quotes as 'a concise summary of the ideology of the Sangh Parivar'. Now, many will think this is hackneyed and unnecessary. In our liberal minds (sorry for the presumption; but I doubt any conservative reads my blog), we know what the RSS/BJP/VHP stand for and desire to perpetuate. But such razor-sharp characterization is rare and I feel obliged to share it with the others. Goyal states that 'without fear of contradiction, it can be stated that nothing more [than the following] has [ever] been said in the RSS shakhas during the past 74 years of its existence'. (brackets mine)
Hindus have lived in India since times immemorial; Hindus are the nation because all culture, civilisation and life is contributed by them alone; non-Hindus are invaders or guests and cannot be treated as equal unless they adopt Hindu traditions, culture etc.; the non-Hindus, particularly Muslims and Christians, have been enemies of everything Hindu and are, therefore, to be treated as threats; the freedom and progress of this country is the freedom and progress of Hindus; the history of India is the history of the struggle of the Hindus for protection and preservation of their religion and culture against the onslaught of these aliens; the threat continues because the power is in the hands of those who do not believe in this nation as a Hindu Nation; those who talk of national unity as the unity of all those who live in this country are motivated by the selfish desire of cornering minority votes and are therefore traitors; the unity and consolidation of the Hindus is the dire need of the hour because the Hindu people are surrounded on all sides by enemies; the Hindus must develop the capacity for massive retaliation and offence is the best defence; lack of unity is the root cause of all the troubles of the Hindus and the Sangh is born with the divine mission to bring about that unity.
This straightforward ideology is transmitted among the Hindu thinking class in subtle ways - lofty religious liturgy from the Ramayana and the Gita are cherry picked to sugar-coat this nonsense, it is then mixed with a manufactured fear of a culture and identity threat; the Congress, with its many shortcomings and incompetencies, provides a closure to this potent recipe of obfuscation. As I sit in a foreign land and type these words, nearly 80% of my kin day-dreams and romanticizes about the BJP overthrowing the UPA in the forthcoming general elections. They are good people, lead honest lives as far as I know, nurturing their family and doing well in their careers; and they only form a microcosm of the large chunk of affluent society in India who openly root for the Hindutva brigade as a result of a self-imposed faith-based insecurity and manufactured consent that spread like a virus. They are blissfully unaware of the moral wager that rests on their conscience and more importantly, their common sense that is on a vacation. The BJP government in Karnataka has, with its mute spectator-ship of organized persecution of Christians in the state and its stellar handling of the Shri Ram Sena goons, proved once again where its loyalties lie. Rajnath Singh and Advani are resurfacing with their Ram-Janmabhoomi-talk; it is important not only that we call a spade a spade, but also try reason with others who sit on the fence.
3 comments:
As a partial conservative who reads your blog (please dont hate me) sometimes I disagree with what you have to say. However I quite agreee with you on the RSS and BJP. I initially liked that party because I believed that they were not pandering to minorities, but asking for equality, and more importantly trying to instil a sense of pride. I used to find it strange that sometimes saying that saying I'm a hindu and that I'm proud of being one, is immediately equated with being a communalist or non-secular. However, as you have very pertinently pointed out, the BJP is just pandering to another minority of Hindu extremists.
50 years post independence and our country is still struggling with identity issues. A question I have to pose to you : is it wrong to say that the common unifying thread between a majority of Indians is stil religion, be it Hindu or muslim, a result in a way of a failure to convince people to put country over culture?
No Raj, hate is out of the question :-). If I started hating conservatives, I would soon be orphaned :P. Besides, as E. M. Forster remarked (http://www.geocities.com/dspichtinger/otexts/believe.html), tolerance for plural views is the most important value that all of us need.
You have posed three points and I shall state my position on those in order:
1. Should someone's pride in her Hindu identity be equated with communalism?
Certainly not. The contention that every Hindu is communal is only as absurd as calling every Muslim a terrorist (cliche # 1). But there are many non-communal Hindus, who by the sole virtue of being Hindu, pay lip service to the RSS/BJP ideology in a sugar-coated form. They would curse the Congress for their inefficiency and corruption, but would turn a apathetic eye to the Gujarat pogroms and the Kandhamal massacres. The question every Hindu needs to ask herself is whether being Hindu is the same as endorsing Hindutva.
2. "The Sangh Parivar stands for equality and more importantly a sense of pride"
This is a misconception and I don't think even you believe that completely. The BJP's first electoral agenda was to press for a uniform civil code following the infamous Shah Bano verdict. So far so good. But look how they followed it up - Advani conducts a Rath yatra that ends up in a bloody climax ('Rakt yatra') in Ayodhya. Babri Masjid follows and the rest is history. One doesn't impose equality by asserting hegemony of a single religion. You only need look into videos in youtube to understand this demented notion of 'equality' perpetuated by the hate speeches of Vajpayee, Advani, Togadia and Modi from 1987-present.
3. "is it wrong to say that the common unifying thread between a majority of Indians is still religion, be it Hindu or muslim, a result in a way of a failure to convince people to put country over culture?"
This is probably true, but it is unfortunate that it is. What partisan players like the BJP have tried to do nationally and parties like the Shiv Sena locally (now we have the Ram Sene doing the same) is to assert that one's cultural/ethnic identity is the sole determinant of one's national identity. In the 1940s being anti-Semetic was marketed as equivalent to being German. Zionism is still a unifying factor among Jews across the world but that doesn't make it right, does it?
Do we want to be integrated into a monolith for the sake of unification itself? :-) I don't think I have answered your question but all I am saying is that plural identities must prevail and perpetuate, even if it were at the cost of patriotism or a so called monolithic cultural heritage.
You're right, I dont believe that about the Sangh Parivar at all. But does room exist for such a party : yes. I think these parties are emerging to fill this void, but the demonstration of this pride is sheer rubbish, marrying people to siblings or donkeys is not part of the Hindu tradition I thought.
The strength of Hindu philosophy, I think, lies in its tolerance. Perhaps thats why we're suited to live in a democracy, although people have been predicting the implosion of India ever since the British left. The fear is that once we lose that, the implosion might actually begin.
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