THE Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s speech
on Oct 27 revealed far more openly than before a clear policy to
denationalise India’s Muslims, and the RSS’s age-old technique of
deception.
He arrogantly asked: “Whose country is
Germany? It is a country of Germans, Britain is a country of Britishers,
America is a country of Americans, and in the same way, Hindustan is a
country of Hindus.”
This is where the deceit comes in.
Aware that the candour gave the game away, he explained: “It does not
mean that Hindustan is not the country of other people. The term ‘Hindu’
covers all those who are the sons of Bharat Mata, descendants of Indian
ancestors and who live in accordance with the Indian culture.”
In the RSS idiom, culture means a rejection of India’s secular ethos.
That is the catch. In the idiom of the RSS and its mentor
V.D. Savarkar, ‘culture’ means acceptance of Hindu culture and religion,
and rejection of India’s secular composite culture. That explains why
the BJP did not give the party’s ticket to a single Muslim to contest
the recent UP elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi handpicked one
Yogi Adityanath as chief minister. On Nov 11, he declared that Modi and
he would establish ‘Ram Rajya’ by 2022. Establishment of a Ram temple on
the demolished Babri Masjid will signify that ‘achievement’. It is
worth watching how he proposes to ‘celebrate’ that crime, a quarter
century later on Dec 6, 2017.
As with Hitler’s Mein
Kampf, the writings of the RSS’s chiefs and ideological mentors have
been neglected. In 1939, its chief M.S. Golwalkar wrote in We, or Our
Nationhood Defined “Ever since that evil day, when Muslims first landed
in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu nation has been
gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers.”
Referring
to secular nationalism, he asserted that “effort was made to put the
race on the wrong track” by propagating “territorial nationalism” ie.
everyone born in India belongs to the Indian nation. He asserted: “In
Hindustan, religion is an all-absorbing entity. Based as it is on the
unshakable foundations of a sound philosophy of life (as indeed religion
ought to be), it has become eternally woven into the life of the race,
and forms, as it were, its very soul. With us, every action in life,
individual, social or political, is a command of religion.”
Every nation “does profess and maintain a national religion and culture, these being necessary to complete the nation ideal”.
What
of the non-Hindus? “The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt
the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in
reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the
glorification of the Hindu race and culture, ie, 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.”
The theme was amplified in
his later book A Bunch of Thoughts. It is in perfect conformity with
Savarkar’s essay Hindutva. All consistently rejected ‘territorial
nationalism’. They stuck to ‘cultural nationalism’ which has figured in
the BJP’s election manifestos. The RSS leads its political front, the
BJP.
Golwalkar was asked: “Is it a fact that the Sangh
plans to capture power?”, he replied: “We have kept before ourselves the
ideal of Bhagwan Shri Krishna who held a big empire under his thumb but
refused to become an emperor himself.” Mohan Bhagwat follows the same
line.
The RSS aspires to mould society’s outlook, lay
down the line for its governance, second party officials to run its
political wing, the BJP and provide the muscle during elections. The BJP
cannot function without RSS cadres. And, the RSS rejects Indian
nationalism. Its credo is Hindu nationalism.
In 2014, Modi, a lifelong RSS campaigner became India’s prime minister with results that are there for all to see.
Last
month, The New York Times published a report from Varanasi which said:
“Over the last two decades, luxury brands have eyed India’s fast-moving
economy, booming middle class and youthful population, already among the
world’s largest, hoping they had discovered their next big market. But
it wasn’t to be. … Since the Bharatiya Janata Party formed a national
government in 2014, the Indian fashion industry has been pressed to
aggressively promote traditional attire and bypass Western styles. The
effort aligns with the party’s broader political programme: to project
multi-faith India, a country of more than 1.3 billion, as a Hindu
nation. And with Narendra Modi, the party’s strongman of Hindu
nationalism, as prime minister, fears that the country would head into a
phase of aggressive nationalism have largely come true” … and in many
walks of national life, as the RSS ordains.
