Tag Archives: Mohan Bhagwat

Culture, Debates, Democracy, Law, Politics, Right watch

Bhagwat Puran of a Different Kind

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How to denigrate India’s historic freedom struggle and humiliate the sacrifices of martyrs, and keep sermonising happily ever after

Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

‘Though this be madness yet there is method in it…’

–‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare I.

The search for the real Independence Day has perhaps become longer in the Hindutva supremacist circles.

Close on the heels of the likes Kangana Ranaut, film actress and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament, who had (in)famously said that “India attained freedom in 2014 and 1947 was ‘bheek’”, or alms and Vikram Massey, another flop Bollywood hero, questioning the freedom of 1947 as “so-called” Independence, has come the news that the numero uno of the Sangh Parivar, Mohan Bhagwat, has joined the ranks.

Speaking on the first anniversary of the Ram Temple inauguration day in Indore (as per the Hindu calendar), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief underlined that this day of consecration should actually be celebrated as “true independence” of Bharat, which faced enemy attacks “parachakra” for several centuries.

As expected, Bhagwat’s remarks have received widespread condemnation in Opposition circles. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has even called it an act of “treason” and asserted that they were an affront to every Indian. He even underlined that the “[R]SS chief would have been arrested in any other country” for such controversial remarks.

Looking at the fact that Bhagwat happens to be the supremo of the ‘biggest cultural organisation in the world’, whose ideology drives India today, who has the complete liberty of sharing his pearls of wisdom whenever he deems it necessary, at times even boomeranging on the organisation, it is difficult to imagine that any action would be taken against him, or whether he will be censured for his controversial remarks, which are an attack on the sacrifices and historic legacy of the freedom fighters as also on the Constitution. ( Read the full text here :https://www.newsclick.in/bhagwat-puran-different-kind)

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Politics, Right watch

Would Agniveer Ever Be Scrapped ?

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It is a plan to militarise civilians a la Israel.

Representational Image.

Truth, as they say, has an uncanny ability of bursting out into the open, unannounced. This seems to have happened with the controversial Agniveer Scheme – the introduction of contract based employment in the military for four years – which even cost the ruling dispensation a few seats in the recent parliamentary elections.

What Prafulla Ketkar, who has been editor of ‘Organiser’ for the last eleven years, underlined in an event merits close attention in this connection. To a pointed question where he was asked ‘[w]hether India should prepare civilians for situations similar to those faced by Israel’, he specifically mentioned that ‘[t]he Agniveer scheme was introduced for this purpose only. The scheme aims to train military-ready individuals who can be deployed during crises.’

It has been more than four days since Ketkar made this explosive statement, which obviously contradicts what the government wants us to believe. But there has been neither any denial of the statement from the highest level nor has he been reprimanded by top bosses of the Sangh Parivar for making such outrageous statements.

( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/would-agniveer-ever-be-scrapped)

Culture, Debates, Democracy, Law, Media politics, Politics, Right watch

Towards a ‘Suitable’ Ambedkar and a ‘New’ Dalit ! 

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How Ten Years of Modi Regime Has Undermined Constitutional Rights to Dalits

Image courtesy: Wikimedia commons

“If the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no Law, no Parliament, no Judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the word”,..“What is the use of fundamental rights to the Negro in America, to the Jews in Germany and to the untouchables in India. As Burke said there is no method found for punishing the multitude’

– Ambedkar

Introduction

Within less than a fortnight we will have a new government in power.

Indian people normally make a judicious choice while electing their representatives, their government and this year won’t be different.

One can recall their wisdom when their united resistance helped unseat Indira Gandhi regime after the emergency (1977) or their concerted action could overthrow the Vajpayi government ( 2004) despite the much hyped ‘India Shining’ rhetoric pushed by it.

Today also ground currents definitely suggest change is in the air.

People’s desire to defeat the Republic of Hate which is pushed before them and regain their Republic of Hope seems overwhelming. 

As already expressed by scholars, political activists, concerned citizens, if the elections remain free and fair, if the various guardrails of democracy can remain true to their mandate , we will have real ‘Acche Din‘ waiting for us.

It is an opportune time to look back and see how this much trumpeted regime fared in the last decade in various aspects of India’s society and state.

It is opportune to see how the ‘New India’ – which we have supposedly ushered in – has fared via-v-vis Dalits. What follows is not an exhaustive picture of the last decade of Modi rule but a cursory glance at the issue at hand.

Perhaps it would be opportune to begin with RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s interview in the wee hours of Modi’s reign as PM. ( Read the full article here : https://countercurrents.org/2024/05/towards-a-suitable-ambedkar-and-a-new-dalit-how-ten-years-of-modi-regime-has-undermined-constitutional-rights-to-dalits/

Culture, Debates, Democracy, Theory

Wokeism – the new whipping horse of India’s Hindutva Right & of the Global Right 

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(This is another article on ‘Wokeism’ on Kafila, you must be familiar with earlier discussions on this theme here and here) 

Ram Madhav and Mohan Bhagwat, Stylised by Jaseem ( Photo Courtesy : The News Minute)

The shrill voices of those who give orders
Are full of fear like the squeakings of
Piglets awaiting the butcher’s knife, as their fat arses
Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs….
Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but
The rulers too.

—Bertolt Brecht

The global right is ’terrified’ (at least that’s what it wants us to believe)

We are being increasingly told that it has finally discovered what could prove to be its nemesis.

Right from the likes of Donald Trump to the Indian origin American Vivek Ramaswamy – who has even written few tomes on this ’menace’ to the controversial hard right Florida governor De Santis, there are claims that the spectre of woke or wokeism haunts them. One can recall how De Santis had famously declared in his re-election victory speech that ’Florida is where Woke ideology goes to die’. [1]

What needs to be noted that this ’menace’ felt by the right is not limited to the Western World only.

There are newer converts to this movement.

Mohan Bhagwat, the Supremo of RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) – a Hindutva Supremacist Organisation – happens to be the newest entrant. Sometime back he joined this chorus by the global right, similarly expressing his anger against ’Wokeism’ and ’Woke People’ in no uncertain terms. For him these were ’forces’ who were ’spoiling Indian ethos’.

( Read the full article here )

Culture, Debates, Islamophobia, Right watch, Theory, Violence/Conflict

‘Cultural Marxism’: What Links Mohan Bhagwat and the ‘New Age Chain of White Terrorism’?

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‘It was Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed over seventy people in a car bombing and mass shooting of children in 2011, who first brought the term “Cultural Marxism” to the world’s attention in his thousand-some paged statement of belief, which focused almost entirely on the concept.’ (Joan Braune, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Frankfurt School – “Cultural Marxism” as an Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory’, Journal of Social Justice, Vol. 9, 2019: 2)

Image from RSS mouthpiece Organizer on ‘Cultural Marxism’

The ideology of Hindu supremacism is going global. Last Vijaya Dashami the RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat had waxed eloquent on a new enemy, imported directly from White supremacist terrorist discourse, namely ‘Cultural Marxism’. The term is a New Right invention that has nothing to do with any specific tendency, Marxist or otherwise. It is the name of a right-wing conspiracy theory that blames all the different claims being made today as threatening to ‘traditional family values’ (read patriarchy) and to ‘traditional ways of living’ of the Whites, now threatened by growing demands of equality and multiculturalism from various quarters. As the quote above states, this term was first brought to the world’s attention by a mass murderer who killed 77 people in Norway some thirteen years ago. According to Paul Rosenberg, Brevik had used the term ‘cultural Marxists’ or ‘cultural Marxism’ 600 times in his 1500-plus page manifesto.

Continue reading ‘Cultural Marxism’: What Links Mohan Bhagwat and the ‘New Age Chain of White Terrorism’? →
Culture, Debates, Government, Politics, Religion, Right watch

Mohan Bhagwat’s Divisive Mantra on Automatic Patriotism

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It is a mischievous denigration of constitutional principles and values which declare every human equal and bar discrimination.

Mohan Bhagwat

“A Hindu is an automatic patriot and can never be an anti-national.” Remember the line? It is of Mohan Bhagwat, the Sangh supremo, who was at his best last week, at the launch of the book, Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background of Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj. The book on Gandhi’s journey from Porbandar in Gujarat to England and South Africa and back to India, by JK Bajaj and MD Srinivas, was released by the Centre for Policy Studies.

In this book is the controversial claim that during 1893-94, Gandhi was pressurised to change his religion by both his Muslim employer and Christian colleagues in South Africa, which he refused. And by 1905, the book says, he became a devout Hindu.

Sure, everybody has a right to express their views, the authors and Mohan Bhagwat included, but the veracity of their claim still needs to be tested. As for the alleged pressure on Gandhi, the claim seems to come from out of the blue, and I would take it with a pinch of salt.

(Read the full article here )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Law, Right watch

इस्लामिस्ट एवं हिन्दुत्ववादी: कब तक चलेगी यह जुगलबंदी!

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आखिर इस्लामिस्ट क्यों खुश हैं नागरिकता संशोधन अधिनियम से

not in my name

प्रतीकात्मक तस्वीर। 

विजयादशमी के दिन सरसंघचालक की तकरीर आम तौर पर आने वाले समय का संकेत प्रदान करती है।

विश्लेषक उस व्याख्यान की पड़ताल करके इस बात का अंदाज़ा लगाते हैं कि दिल्ली में सत्तासीन संघ के आनुषंगिक संगठन भाजपा की आगामी योजना क्या होगी।

विगत माह विजयादशमी के दिन संघ सुप्रीमो के व्याख्यान का फोकस नागरिता संशोधन अधिनियम पर था, जिसमें उन्होंने यह दावा किया कि यह अधिनियम किसी भी ‘धार्मिक समुदाय’ के साथ भेदभाव नहीं करता है और मुसलमानों को एक छद्म प्रचार से गुमराह किया गया है। उनके मुताबिक संसद में यह कानून संवैधानिक प्रक्रिया का पालन करके पारित हुआ है, एक तरह से सरहद पार के उन भाइयों एवं बहनों को सुरक्षा प्रदान करता है, जिन्हें वहां धार्मिक प्रताडना झेलनी पड़ती है।

मालूम हो कि उन दिनों चूंकि बिहार चुनावों की सरगर्मियां बनी हुई थीं, लिहाजा उनके वक्तव्यों से निकले संकेतों पर अधिक बात नहीं हो सकी।

गौरतलब है कि बंगाल के चुनावों के मद्देनज़र भाजपा के कुछ अग्रणी नेताओं ने भी इसी किस्म की बातें शुरू कर दी हैं। मालूम हो कई बार अपनी आम सभाओं में उनके कई अग्रणी, ‘दीमक’ की तरह ऐसे ‘अवांछितों’ को हटाने की बात पहले ही कर चुके हैं।

प्रश्न यह है कि क्या कोविड काल में इस सम्बन्ध में नियम बनाने का जो सिलसिला छोड़ दिया गया था क्या उसी मार्ग पर सरकार चलने वाली है और इसे लागू किया जाने वाला है या यह सिर्फ चुनावी सरगर्मी बनाए रखने का मामला है।

( Read the full article here )

Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Politics, Religion, Right watch

Return of Hindutva: A Challenge for Secularism

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Guest Post by Gargi Chakravartty

BOOK REVIEW

Hindutva’s Second Coming by Subhash Gatade; published by Media House, Delhi; 2019; pages: 272; Rs 395 (US $ 18).

The return of Modi to power with a huge margin in this 2019 election is a clear verdict for the Hindutva plank. Why and how it happened leave us, the secular billions, to ponder about the reality and its aftermath. And at that juncture Subhas Gatade’s 272-page analysis titled ‘Hindutva’s Second Coming’ gives us something concrete to think over once again. This in-depth study with rich academic perception is a commendable work, bereft of jargons and convoluted expressions, often found in books written from a high pedestal which goes beyond the mental reach of lay readers. Precisely for this reason the author needs to be specially acclaimed for bringing out facts at one place based on notes and references which are so far scattered in divergent historical materials. It serves as a Reader for millions who are combating communalism and distortion of history at the grassroot level.

( Read the full text here : http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article8847.html)

Bad ideas

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall ! Who Were Those ‘Bad Elements’ Mr Bhagwat?

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‘Cat drinks milk with closed eyes and thinks the world is not watching it’

(Marathi Proverb)

 I.

Rare have been occasions in recent times that the RSS, with all its anushangik (affiliated) organisations on their toes, is engaged in dousing the fire in which it has caught itself unawares. Reason being the ‘interview’ of one of its own Pracharaks (wholetimer) turned terrorist named Swami Aseemanand which was published in a leading magazine named ‘Caravan’.(http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/believer).  According to the RSS, it is a ‘concocted’ one and has even issued a handwritten letter supposedly written by the interviewee ‘denying’ that any such interview occurred whereas the magazine has stood the ground and has even made transcripts of the said interview and its audio recordings public.

Perhaps with the ‘denial’ by the interviewee the matter should have ended there for the RSS, but this does not seem to be the case. And for reasons which is known to itself, it is trying to ‘clarify’ its stand on various aspects which came up during the interview and is trying to distance itself – once again – from Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, a disciplined activist of the ‘Parivar’ for last more than three decades, who hails from a village in West Bengal. Continue reading Mirror, Mirror on the Wall ! Who Were Those ‘Bad Elements’ Mr Bhagwat? →

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The Unending Amnesia Over Hindutva Terror

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image : Courtesy – http://www.abplive.in

 

 

..[A]seemanand’s description of the plot in which he was involved became increasingly detailed. In our third and fourth interviews, he told me that his terrorist acts were sanctioned by the highest levels of the RSS—all the way up to Mohan Bhagwat, the current RSS chief, who was the organisation’s general secretary at the time. Aseemanand told me that Bhagwat said of the violence, “It’s very important that it be done. But you should not link it to the Sangh.”

Aseemanand told me about a meeting that allegedly took place, in July 2005. ..In a tent pitched by a river several kilometres away from the temple, Bhagwat and Kumar met with Aseemanand and his accomplice Sunil Joshi. Joshi informed Bhagwat of a plan to bomb several Muslim targets around India. According to Aseemanand, both RSS leaders approved, and Bhagwat told him, “You can work on this with Sunil. We will not be involved, but if you are doing this, you can consider us to be with you.”

 

(Reportage : The Believer: Swami Aseemanand’s radical service to the Sangh, by LEENA GITA REGHUNATH | 1 February 2014, Caravan Magazine, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/believer)

 

‘Law is an ass’ a phrase which was used by Charles Dickens in  ‘Oliver Twist’ in a completely different context today finds a deep resonance in this part of South Asia. And nothing illustrates this better than the predicament of what is popularly known as Hindutva terror. Continue reading The Unending Amnesia Over Hindutva Terror →

Bad ideas

NaMo NaMo or Namaste Sada Vatsale ..

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Image Courtesy : http://www.truthofgujarat.com

 

It is now time for NaMo NaMo in BJP.

To quote a newspaper, Hindutva poster boy Narendra Modi has been declared candidate for Prime Minister’s post by the highest body of the Party.

As planned earlier there were celebrations at different party offices of the BJP spread over the country. It is a different matter that the party could not hide the fact that it was not a unanimous decision rather a majority decision. The ‘tallest leader’ or ‘mentor’ of the party L K Advani made his displeasure clear in a letter the very same day. And not only Advani till a day ago three members of the highest body – whose strength is 12 only – were vehemently opposing the proposal that the candidature be announced immediately and wanted it to be deferred till the assembly elections to five states were over. Two amongst them – Ms Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi – could be persuaded to join the anointment at the last moment only.

The comical part of the whole anointment has been the gentleman who had only a week ago declared that he would like to serve the state – where he was elected CM for the third time – till 2017, had no qualms in dropping all pretensions and rush to Delhi for the coronation. Continue reading NaMo NaMo or Namaste Sada Vatsale .. →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Excavation, Mirror Worlds, Right watch, Sex

RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s Thoughts on Rape

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The RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat (or to call him out in the way he is referred to in the Sangh – Sarsanghchalak Param Pujya Shri Mohan-ji Bhagwat-ji) has now joined the pavilion of eminent Bharatiya moustachioed misogynists. In a breathtakingly revealing statement, he has told us that rapes happen in India, not in Bharat. What he means is that rape only occurs in urban areas where the influence of Paschatya Sanskriti (western culture) leads women astray into being raped by men unable to help or control themselves in the face of the assault of women, out and about, by day and night, defying Mohan Bhageat’s Sangh-mandated Lakshman Rekha.

When an upper-caste landlord in a village claims his ‘droit de seigneur’ (land-owner’s claim) with a Dalit woman, it is not rape, it is a yagya, a time honoured shastric ritual. When husbands persuade minor wives on their ‘suhaag raat’ with a few disciplinary measures that leave them with black eyes and sore limbs, it is not rape, it is the carrying out of an Upanishadic injunction. When swamijis, babajis, acharyas and prachaks have their way with ignorant and nabalik shishyas, it is not rape, it is the partaking of the naivedyam of a woman’s body. It is the realisation of a ‘pushp ki abhilasha’, even if the pushp gets pushed around a little bit in the process. Continue reading RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s Thoughts on Rape →

Bad ideas, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Why does the RSS dread the terror tag?

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1.
Ram Madhav, the bespectacled ex-spokesperson of RSS is not known for his sense of humour.

It is a different matter that some of the media people just could not control their smiles when sometime back (second week of Feb 2011) in a press conference in the capital he enlightened the journos about l’affaire Aseemanand and the broader phenomenon of Hindutva terror.

Giving a completely new and almost unforeseen twist to the Aseemanand episode he said that he (i.e. Aseemanand) had in fact left the RSS in 2006. Of course, as a good spokesperson – although he has become an ex- he had the usual disclaimers in the beginning: RSS does not believe in violence and is a cultural organisation… One does not know whether much on the lines of the School Leaving Certificate, with which lesser mortals like us are more familiar with, Ram Madhav distributed photocopies of ‘Sangh Leaving Certificate’ of Aseemanand or anything similar to give authenticity to his claims or not. Continue reading Why does the RSS dread the terror tag? →

Culture, Excavation, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Bhagwat Purana of a Different Kind

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(This post is by SUBHASH GATADE. It was initially inadvertently posted under Aditya Nigam’s name. The error is deeply regretted.)

I. Conflating Hinduism and Hindutva

Mr Mohan Bhagwat, the ‘young’ Supremo of an eighty plus year old exclusively male cultural organisation called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is in high spirits these days.

It is not very difficult to understand the glee on his face which has to do with the latest developments in the cause celebre of Sangh Parivar. One can even notice that every member of this different kind of ‘family’ also seem to be upbeat , whose representatives can be traced on neighbourhood playground in the morning doing drills, playing games or listening to ‘sermons’ of their seniors which they call Baudhik.

Continue reading Bhagwat Purana of a Different Kind →