[The author writes about the current scenario, reflecting on the one hundred years of the communist movement as well as of the RSS. In these important reflections Ahmed recounts the great achievements of the communist Left, while at the same time speculating on where the RSS scored over it – leaving us with a number of questions to seriously ponder about. – AN]
Image courtesy Liberation
On October 1, 2025, a day before Gandhi’s birth anniversary, long revered and associated with ahimsa and moral conscience, the government unveiled a ₹100 coin at the Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, 15 Janpath, marking a century of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A day earlier, as if to turn ideology into spectacle, a Shakha parade, named Path Sanchalan, traced its way through Jawaharlal Nehru University—once a fortress of dissent and the audacious poetry of thought. The rhythmic march of uniformed bodies through corridors once alive with debate did more than display ceremony; it signaled a shift in the republic’s moral conscience, where the choreography of discipline seeks to mute the dialectic of doubt, and the university—once a sanctuary of questioning minds—becomes a stage for the theatre of obedience. Continue reading Red Dreams, Saffron Marches – Longue Durée of India’s Struggles and Strategies of Power: S. M. Faizan Ahmed→
[Centenary celebrations of RSS – the biggest ‘self-proclaimed’ cultural organisation in the world — comprising of Hindus are on.
Much is being said about its longevity etc., and much will be said about it in coming days, it remains to be seen if it is ready to take a fresh look at some discomforting aspects of its own history when it is embarking on a journey towardswhat it calls as ‘new horizons’]
Ram Lila, the dramatic folk re-enactment of the life of Rama is still popular in Northern India.
Anyone who has watched this programme — especially in villages or towns — might have noticed a particular scene where god curses a sage for his misdemeanour that he will get a donkey’s face for his actions and will not even realise that he has got this new face.
One is reminded of this story — which tells us the great hiatus between claims and reality — whenever an individual or a formation starts bragging about its achievements that have no basis in reality.
Leaders of the Hindutva Supremacist movement in this part of South Asia look no different when they declare from the rooftops the “great role their political ancestors have played during the freedom movement”. It is a different matter that any objective student of India’s history — especially of the Independence struggle — is conversant with hundreds or thousands of pages, books, monographs written or documented to underline the contrary, their meek behaviour and compromising role during the very struggle. [https://www.newsclick.in/rss-centenary-search-icon]
,,The rewriting spree has not left untouched RSS’s own history itself.
The biggest manifestation of this exercise is evident in the way we have before us a new look Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1888-1940) founder member of RSS and its first Supremo.
He is being called as ’‘born patriot’’, one amongst the ‘great revolutionaries who fought for India’s independence, ’’social reformer’ , ’maker of Modern India’ etc etc. disregarding the fact that all his life he focussed his attention to build Hindu Unity, to usher India into a Hindu Rashtra and never once gave a call to the organisation he founded with others – namely RSS – that it joins the anti colonial struggle. He did go to jail during the anti colonial struggle but not as a member of the RSS but as a member of Congress Party.
Many monographs, books .. – are also before us which are trying to emphasise this new image, obliterating many inconvenient aspects of his tumultous life or maintaining tactical silences over them. The latest in series is the way he is being projected as a leader of the “jungle satyagraha” at Pusad, Maharashtra which was organised as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement led by Congress. [10]
[मध्ययुग में पश्चिमी जगत में आधुनिकता के आगमन ने धर्म के वर्चस्व को जो चुनौती दी थी, भारत में अंग्रेजों के आगमन के बाद पैदा हुई परिस्थितियों और राजनीतिक आजादी ने यहां धर्म के प्रभाव को और अधिक सीमित कर दिया। रूढ़िवादी, प्रतिक्रियावादी ताकतों ने समय-समय पर इस बदलाव को बाधित करने की कोशिश की। संविधान निर्माण से लेकर स्त्रियों को अधिकार-संपन्न करने के लिए ‘हिन्दू कोड बिल’ को सूत्रबद्ध एवं लागू किए जाने का हिन्दुत्ववादी ताकतों ने जिस तरह से विरोध किया, ऐसी ही बाधाओं का ही परिणाम रहा कि डॉ. आंबेडकर को नेहरू के मंत्रिमंडल से इस्तीफा देना पड़ा। यह आलेख संविधान-निर्माण के दौरान स्पष्ट तौर पर उजागर हुए राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ के स्त्री-विरोधी विचारों एवं सक्रियताओं की पड़ताल करता है]
वह 1936 का साल था, जब राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ (RSS) के विचारों एवं कार्यों से प्रभावित होकर नागपुर निवासी लक्ष्मीबाई केलकर (1905-1978) ने संघ के संस्थापक सदस्य डॉ. केशव बलिराम हेडगेवार से मुलाकात की और संघ से जुड़ने की इच्छा जाहिर की थी। सुश्री केलकर- जिन्हें बाद में लोग मौसीजी नाम से पुकारने लगे थे- को यह कतई उम्मीद नहीं रही होगी कि संघ सुप्रीमो इस प्रस्ताव को ठुकरा देंगे और उन्हें सिर्फ स्त्रियों का संगठन बनाने की सलाह देंगे। ‘’राष्ट्र सेविका समिति’’ की स्थापना की यही कहानी बताई जाती है, जिसे आरएसएस का पहला आनुषंगिक संगठन भी कहा जा सकता है।
राष्ट्र सेविका समिति की जब स्थापना हुई, तब RSS का निर्माण हुए 11 साल का वक्फा गुजर चुका था। वह दौर औपनिवेशिक शासन के खिलाफ तथा सामाजिक उत्पीड़न से मुक्ति के लिए उठी हलचलों का था, जिसमें स्त्रियों ने बढ़-चढ़ कर हिस्सा लिया था। भारतीय राजनीतिक-सामाजिक जीवन में जबरदस्त सरगर्मियों के इस दौर में संघ संस्थापक महानुभावों में से किसी को भी यह खयाल तक नहीं आया था कि आबादी का आधा हिस्सा स्त्रियां उनके नक्शे से गायब हैं। वैसे, उन्हें इस बात का एहसास होता भी कैसे क्योंकि इन दोनों किस्म की हलचलों से उन्होंने दूरी बना कर रखी थी और अपने बेहद संकीर्ण व असमावेशी नजरिये के तहत संगठन बनाने में जुटे थे। धर्म आदि के आधार पर जिन्हें वह ‘अन्य’ समझते थे, उनको लेकर अपनी एकांगी सोच के प्रचार-प्रसार में सक्रिय थे। ( Read the full article here : :https://followupstories.com/politics/women-in-hindutva-ideological-realm-and-historical-blunder-of-rss/)
The Mahakumbh has provided Hindu Supremacist forces an opportunity to further marginalise and invisibilise Muslims, and further push for a ‘Hindu Constitution’.
Whether Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be able to recover his image after the tragedy at Mahakumbh, which officially killed more than 30 people and wounded many, many more, is a question being raised in hushed voices in the corridors of power in Delhi.
Obviously, questions are also being raised about the great hiatus between the massive propaganda undertaken around the Mahakumbh and the level of preparations for this ‘biggest congregation on earth’….
For Chief Minister Adityanath, who had ‘positioned himself as the ‘host of the biggest congregation on earth’, the path ahead looks challenging, with the tremendous ineptness of the administration led by him on full display. Much has been reported about conscious attempts made allegedly to downplay the tragedy and how it continued for the whole day. A UP minister, supposed to be close to the Chief Minister, even made a controversial statement that “such small events keep happening in large gatherings.” The statement caused so much uproar that he had to issue an apology. The mainstream media added another page of shame to its track record when it continued to publish government handouts, and did not even deem it necessary to report the tragedy. ( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/road-kumbh-paved-hindu-rashtra-intentions)
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)
Towards 75 years of adopting the Constitution, it is time for a new beginning.
‘Secularism is the religion of humanity …. It is a protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical tyranny, against being the serf, the subject or slave of any phantom, or of the priest of any phantom. “
– Robert Green Ingersoll
Simple ideas are perhaps the most difficult to implement.
For a country of around 1.4 billion, which has witnessed internecine violence on religious lines at the time of Independence, and which has turned a new leaf by adopting a Constitution based on secularism, which abhorred even mentioning the word God, why it is still difficult to avoid religious rituals in public domain, at least in the precincts of the courts?
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.
How a Central university is being allowed to humiliate/ stigmatise Ambedkar and a conspiracy of silence still pervades it.
Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, Maharashtra is again in the news for wrong reasons. It has been more than around four months that a unique initiative of doing readings from Ambedkar has been forcibly stopped, show-cause notices being issued and even punitive action being taken against Dalit teachers, but there is no murmur of protest about it and despite being in the know of these developments, the top bosses of the UGC or University Grants Commission are silent over it.
Stop readings on Ambedkar in open in University Campus, it could endanger the “safety and health of (participating) students and reputation of the university‘
The news of this unbelievable diktat by an educational institution remained dormant for a day.
Expectedly, the tremendous nationwide uproar about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election speech in Banswara, which is considered his most ‘divisive’ in last 30 years, overshadowed other similar urgent issues.
The institution under scanner for this diktat to teachers is Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, Maharashtra, a Central university. You would recall that some time ago, this institution had similarly attracted eyeballs when a team of Hindi research scholars from China had visited it. A visit that was followed by this team’s meeting with RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) leaders at their headquarters in Nagpur.
What is rather troubling to note is that it has been more than four months that this unique experiment of doing readings from Ambedkar, in open, which was an initiative undertaken by the Dalit teachers of the vishwidyalaya, under the informal group called Ambedkar Study Circle India, stands forcibly stopped, show-cause notices being issued to teachers involved and even punitive action taken against three of them, but a conspiracy of silence has pervaded it.
What must have prompted this action by the University administration against the teachers, who were were just following the UGC recommended Code of Professional Ethics? ( Please read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/new-india-no-ambedkar-readings)
How the policy of PPP (Public Private Partnership) Model in Sainik Schools is counter to all Constitutional principles and values
Representation Image
In a controversial and much reviled decision, the union government under prime minister, Narendra Modi “decided” to hand over “67 per cent of Sainik Schools to the Sangh Parivar (and its allied organisations who are self-acclaimed majoritarian and unconstitutional), BJP Politicians and allies. This investigation was undertaken by meticulous examination by the Reporter’s Collective and became public on April 3, 2024. This piece looks at the gross implications of this move.
“It’s the day of resurrection…”:
Swami Avdheshanand Giri after Pran Pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya[1]
It was October 2020 when a Sainik School for boys was inaugurated in Shikarpur Tehsil of Bulandshahr District.[2] Right from Indresh Kumar, or Ram Lal, to Mahant of Junagarh Avadheshanand Giri, a seer supposed to be close to the proponents of Hindutva, many leading lights of the RSS and its frontal organisations or co-travellers of their ideology attended the high profile function.
The event made headlines for several reasons:
One, it was called the ‘first Sainik School of RSS’.
Two, a whooping sum of Rs 40 crores was supposed to be spent over it – thanks to the largesse extended by the union (Modi) government.
Thirdly, it was one of those rare occasions when RSS had moved beyond its founder member Dr Hedgewar to build memorials. Remember Rajendra Singh alias Rajju Bhaiya (1922-2003) was the first non-Brahmin and non-Maharashtrian Supremo of RSS from 1994-2000. This Sainik School is located in the same place where he (Raju Bhaiya) was born.
Normally, an idea to start a school is met with jubilation. This one however had the opposite effect. There were voices of concern raised by educationists, social activists as well as political leaders,
The added concern was that Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS – which already runs 20,000 schools across India – would now also be running this military school although there was a clarification that this Army School will follow the CBSE curriculum and will have classes running from Class 6 to Class 12.
The same Vidya Bharatii (of the RSS’) whose stated mission is
“To develop a National System of Education which would help building a generation of young men and women that is committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour”. [3]
Questioning the whooping sum of Rs 40 crores which would be spent over it, Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi {arty (SP) and former Chief Minister of UP, had, at the time, underlined that since we already have enough such institutions “[r]un by the government so where is the need for RSS to run its own army school,”[4]
He did not hide his apprehensions about what curriculum be taught there.
“RSS apparently wanted to serve its political purpose by opening the army school where the students will “probably be taught lessons in mob lynching and disrupting social harmony”.[5]
The concern expressed by many about this project could not be brushed aside easily. It is a different matter that in today’s mediatised world, things move with such a speed that the issue of a RSS run military school , the RBSVM – Rajju Bhaiya Sainik Vidya Mandir – and the attendant furore soon died down. Little did anyone carry the premonition that the founding of RBSVM was just a trailer of what lay in store: asli film abhi baaki thi‘.
(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’.
‘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.
UGC led by Chairman Jagdeesh Kumar refuses to remain beyond controversy for long time.
The latest being its draft proposal of ‘dereservation’ of seats if not a suitable candidate from reserved category is found wherein it asked people’s views till 28 th January.
As expected this proposal which smacked of the ruling dispensation’s surreptitious and even direct attempts at attacking or biting away at the affirmative action policies emanating from the Constitution rightly led to protests in various quarters, There were protests opposing this proposal on JNU and other campuses and even opposition parties attacked the ruling party for its compromising attitude towards reservation rights and its desire and moves to either dilute or hollow out the provisions of these socially progressive policies and this led to an intervention from the Human Resources Ministry underlining that there is no such proposal.
Whether Modi will get a third term in 2024 or these elections can spring a surprise?
India at the beginning of the year stands at the cusp of a Momentous Change
The biggest question before everyone is whether the elections for the Parliament – the lower house – which will be over by end of May ( if they are not advanced by the ruling dispensation) would be able to disturb the stranglehold of the BJP-RSS over the levers of power at the Centre, whether it will lead to loosening of sorts of the grip it holds over the various institutions of Democracy ( critics even call that they have been subverted, weaponised) or it will slide the Indian Democracy further into the electoral autocracy mode much to the chagrin of well wishers of democracy everywhere.
An upcoming conference in the USA, “Dismantling Global Hindutva”, organized by Indians in the USA, most of whom are legally “Hindus”, and supported by over 40 US universities, has provoked the ire of the Hindu Rashtravaadis there as well as in India. Conflating Hindutva with Hinduism is the first step. Based on this, the Hindu American Foundation claims this conference is “Hindu phobic”, that it will put the well-being of Hindu students and faculty at risk, and that “they may feel targeted or threatened, or face hostility or harassment” as a result of “the kinds of generalisations, misunderstandings, and ‘otherising’” the event will perpetuate.
Ho hum. Just another day in Hindu Rashtra-that-is-India then, for most of us “Hindus” who oppose the politics of Hindutva that promotes misunderstandings and otherises us, all the way to mob and media violence, lynchings and jail. It is from Hindutva that “Hindus” are most at risk in India today, not from any non-Hindu “Other”.
(Why these repeated quotation marks around “Hindu”? We will come to that).
An article in Firstpost uses words like “genocidal” and “xenophobic” to describe what this conference is going to be. The conference brochure shows “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) figures being uprooted, roots and all, with the claw end of a hammer”, and this is “genocidal” according to the author. Showing the German Nazi Party being uprooted would amount to genocide too, in this understanding, perhaps? Since Hindutvavaadis are actively seeking co-victimhood with victims of anti-Semitism, as another article explicitly states, they might want to reconsider this second conflation, of the neo-fascist RSS with “Hindu”. This second article says the conference will “dehumanize Hindus everywhere” and asks indignantly if a conference titled “Dismantling Global Jewry” would be acceptable. Continue reading If Hindutva is dismantled, whom will it harm?→
[‘Parapolitics’ began on 16 January 2020 as a weekly column at the height of the anti-CAA movement. After eight weeks, it was made into a fortnightly column and now, eighteen months and 44 posts later, beginning with this post, this column will now appear once a month, on the second Saturday of every month.]
The courageous National Dastak reporter Anmol Pritam was being forced by the demonstrators to chant their slogans. Image courtesy The News Minute
What happened at Jantar Mantar on 9 August – the anniversary of the Quit India movement – was not just violently anti-Muslim in the slogans raised; it was also symptomatic of the larger counter-revolutionary shift that has taken place in our politics. That Quit India or the ‘August revolution’ day was sought to be taken over as a final gesture of that grand victory that the Sangh Combine believes it has already won, is telling. It is telling also because it is a formation that studiously stayed away from the mainstream of the anticolonial struggle but now wants to take over that legacy and saffronize it. How the rally was organized and continued to be held despite the police claiming it had no permission to do so, does not remain so much of a mystery once you realize that the key organizers are Sangh/BJP leaders or parts of the larger network of terror associated with them. But that is another matter. It is important to recognize that incidents like these are but signs of a new stage in the ongoing counter-revolution where the Hindu Right is no longer content with claiming its own distinctiveness in opposing mainstream (Congress-led) nationalism but is out to make a determined bid to appropriate the entire legacy of that nationalism. The insistence, in recent times, on the national tricolour as a sign of its aggressive nationalism, is entirely of a piece with this attempt to occupy the mainstream.
While Rome never burned, Nero never played the fiddle…
Pragya Singh Thakur, the Lok Sabha Member of Parliament from Bhopal, would never have imagined that the leading Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar would mark her return to her constituency after a 70-day gap with a sarcastic article published on its front page. The headline read, “He Digvijayi Sadhvi Pragya! Shukriya, Aap Ko Bhopal ki Yaad to Aayi—O World Conqueror, Many Thanks, You Remembered Bhopal at Last.”
The daily was giving vent to the feelings of the lakhs of citizens of the capital of Madhya Pradesh. Some had even organised a social media campaign revolving around their “missing” MP.
The last time Thakur was in the city was 2 March, to participate in a condolence meeting for a BJP leader. Thereafter, she was away from the city. The intervening period had proved extremely harsh for residents due to the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has already claimed hundreds of lives.
The anger of citizens was palpable. That is why the daily asked her, “When Bhopal was sick and desperate for help, you were not to be seen. When the city needed oxygen and Remdesivir, you were still not here.”
The absence of an elected leader belonging to the ruling dispensation when people need her the most raises a pertinent question. Was this an exception? Forget the fact that the BJP-Sangh Parivar repeatedly claim they are “disciplined soldiers”, a number of those associated with right-wing organisations have gone missing in action.
Behavioural psychologists say hatred and fear are two sides of the same coin. That explains the Hindu Right obsession with Gandhi and Godse.
Image Courtesy: India TV News
For now, the invidious project of the Hindu Mahasabhato set up a Nathuram Godse Gyan Shala in Gwalior has been shelved. Perhaps what terminated the ill-conceived venture was the sheer anachronism: while the country would mark Gandhi’s73rd death anniversary on 30 January, one section would be found singing paens to his assassin, Nathuram Godse. It would only have served to remind people of how an unarmed man was shot down on his way to a prayer meeting.
This killing was Godse’s so-called contribution and, according to leaders of the Mahasabha, marked his patriotism. The same Hindu Mahasabha has already launched a “Godse workshop”, where the members exhort Indians to “strive to follow his path”. It was also instrumental in installing his statue in the city which had invited opprobrium.
The killing of Gandhi has been shown to be part of an elaborate conspiracy hatched by the higher-ups in the Hindutva supremacist forces. Remembrance of Godse would have been a reminder of the five attempts on Gandhi’s life since the mid-thirties that involvedHindutva forces. There was even a sixth attempt, according to Chunnibhai Vaidya, a Gandhian from Gujarat. Justice Jinvanlal Kapur, who was entrusted with examining the conspiracy to assassinate the Mahatma had concluded in 1969, “All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”
It is a mischievous denigration of constitutional principles and values which declare every human equal and bar discrimination.
“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.
Review of ‘Religious Nationalism – Social Perceptions and Violence : Sectarianism on Political Chessboard‘- Ram Puniyani (Media House 2020)
“Blatant dictatorship – in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule – has disappeared across much of the world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare. Most countries hold regular elections. Democracies still die, but by different means.
Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves.”
(How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt)
अभय दुबे की पुस्तक हिन्दू एकता बनाम ज्ञान की राजनीति पर जारी बहस में एक योगदान।
दि प्रिंट में 8 जुलाई 2020 को योगेंद्र यादव का लेख ‘भारतीय सेक्युलरिज्म पर हिन्दी की यह किताब उदारवादियों की पोल खोल सकती थी मगर नज़रअंदाज़ कर दी गई है’, अभय दुबे की पुस्तक को केंद्र मे रखकर लिखा गया है. उन्होनें लिखा: “अगर अभय की किताब के तर्क उन सेकुलर बुद्धिजीवियों के कान तक टहलकर नहीं पहुंचे जिनके लिखत-पढ़त की उन्होंने आलोचना की है तो इसकी वजह को पहचान पाना मुश्किल नहीं. वजह वही है जिसे अभय ने अपनी किताब में रेखांकित किया है कि भारत के अँग्रेज़ीदाँ मध्यवर्ग की सेकुलर-लिबरल विचारधारा और देश के शेष समाज के बीच सोच समझ के धरातल पर एक खाई मौजूद है.” योगेंद्र के लेख के जवाब में, दि प्रिंट में ही 15 जुलाई को राजमोहन गांधी का लेख ‘भारत में धर्मनिरपेक्षता की विचारधारा पराजित नहीं हुई है, इसके पैरोकारों को आरएसएस पर दोष मढ़ना बंद करना होगा’ पढ़कर संतोष और असंतोष दोनों हुआ. संतोष इसलिए कि योगेंद्र के आग्रह पर बुद्धिजीवियों ने बहस को आगे बढ़ाने की पहल तो की. इसी कड़ी में 16 जुलाई 2020 को काफ़िला में छपा आदित्य निगम का लेख ‘डिसकोर्स ऑफ हिन्दू युनीटी इन द स्ट्र्गल अगेन्स्ट द राइट’ को भी देखा जा सकता है.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 