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Thursday, December 19, 2013

[mukto-mona] Re: RSS, Jana Sangh have antecedents of organising/inciting comunal riots



Sankarda,
For people like me who were active in AISF in opposing the BJS policies Bhiwandi riots something we have lived through. These riots took place in 1967. Two of us had visited Bhiwandi with a reporter friend from Indian Express. We photographed a a Mazar that was converted into a temple. I think the communalists had placed an idol of Ganesh. I remember clearly that Organiser had its headlines: Muslim Blitz of Bhiwandi. Vajpayee then used to be very critical of Muslims and what he interpreted as anti-Hindu attitude of Congress. Balraj Madhok was worse (similar to Togadia of today). He minced no words in branding Muslims as anti-national. He had written a book on Indian Nationalism where he said that Muslims must integrate into Hindu culture. I can never forget Vajpayee's speaches (I was asked to attend BJS public meetings in order to report in our student newspaper,  Students Call.) they were anti-Muslim in a subtle way unlike Madhok. Today when people talk about Vajpayee being the secular face of BJP, I think of his earlier speaches and wonder if a leapard can change its spots. Who were responsible for such parties to come into power? These parties were marginalised  then even though they could create riots. Today BJP is a contender for power and Narendra Modi (a fascist) is hoping to become PM.
Finally the RSS ideology can be understood by reading the works of M. S. Golwalkar A Bunch of Thoughts. It can be compared to Hitler's Mien Kompf. Golwalkar (as also Madhok) talk about a mother race, being Aryan. Golwalkar writes that Hitler alone could show the world the meaning of true nationalism.
Sankarda, the future does not look too good. We have the anti-corruption wave of Anna and AAP. In 1973 Dange took a series of study circles in Mumbai on the JP movement. He said that attacking ministers and public servants was missing the mark. The root cause is capitalism which JP does not touch. If you see the present movement you will find that industrialists are supporting the movement. The same Anna Hazare gave a clean chit to the BJP-Shiv Sena govt. in Maharashtra and later when Congress NCP defeated the alliance he declared that it was a corrupt govt. The latter may be true but the BJP-SS govt was equally corrupt, if not more. The slogans that Anna and Kejriwal give are RSS slogans. These are Vandemataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai. All RSS and its fronts such as ABVP, VHP, BMS etc end their meetings with these slogans. The Hindu fundamentalists prefer Vandemataram not because of love for Bakimchandra but because Muslim have objections over bowing to anyone except Allah. The same BJS, when it was elected .to Delhi Administration in 1967, banned an edition of Saptahik Hindustan as it contained a Hindi translation of Bakimchandra's satire on Ramayan. They said it hurt Hindu sentiments. Some of the members even demanded that the author should be arrested! How does Anna and his friends adopt the same slogans? If you look at AAP performance in Delhi, it has gained at the expense of Congress, enabling BJP to become a larger party. Will the same thing be repeated in other states in the 2014 elections?
Sharit   


On 19 December 2013 09:45, Sankar Kumar Ray <sankarray62@rediffmail.com> wrote:


Nothing can disprove the fact that RSS & Jana Sangh (predecessor of BJP)  were engaged in communal incitement and riot.

I can't but quote a lengthy portion from Hindu communalism Challenge :1964 1984

by Rakesh Batabyal

 

 

"Golwalker, the chief of the RSS, speaking in the Ramlila ground at Delhideclared:The Indian Muslims are trying to orgnaise themselves around the slogans of Urdu. Anystatus or recognition to Urdu would help the process of the separatist Muslimorganisations, which would result in another partition of the country.

Very soon a masive riot took place in Ranchi, leaving many dead and resulting in adreadful communal polarisation. The Hindu communal mobilisation was led by the local business community. The administration initially showed its lethargy and the army was called inquite late; by that time many Muslims had lost their lives. The Raguvir Dayal Comissionenquiring into the riots found that the weakness and compromising character of the coalitionministry in the state was one of the most important reasons for the violence.

The post 1967 Ranchi increasingly became a kind of nerve centre of Hindu communalmobilisation, and a kind of head quarters for the RSS penetration into the tribal region of centralIndia. The Muslim insecutiries resulting after the riot also led to the ghettoisation of the localitiesand this gradually changed the shape of the city and its culture, which had evolved over a centuryin a predominantly tribal milieu with its own kind of freedom and relaxed atmophere. The work of the Hindu communal consolidation however proceeded at pace and within ten years another site in the vicinity witnessed a similar demonstration of the penetration of this ideological group.This was Jamshedpur, barely 230 kilometers away from Ranchi, and more cosmpolitan in naturewith a prosperous Muslim community engaged in different occupations in the relatively richeconomy of the industrial city.

 

The Ranchi riot was meant to create a communal core in eastern and central India. In thewest, it was the series of riots beginning from the prolonged Ahmedabad riots in 1969, followed by riots in Bhiwandi and Jalgaon in Maharashtra, which would create the communal core of theregion. While the riots demonstrated the organization, both physical and ideological, that hadgone behind each of these riots, they also showed the depth of the new cultural codes that werescripted at the sites of this violence. Madon Commission enquiring into the Bhiwandi andJalgaon riots had stated that "communal tensions does not spring up over-night. It is built up over a period of time, suckled on communal propaganda, nursed on communal incidents and fed onrumours, until men's hearts are filled with hatred and their thoughts turn to violence."

 

The enquiry commission also gave detailed accounts of how and when the riots began to take shape in the minds and hearts of the organisers and the people. Bhiwandi branch of Jana Sangh wasestablished in 1964, and in October Bhagwan Prabhashanker Vyas was elected the president of the Bhiwandi Branch. On 10th March 1968, Bhiwandi district Jana Sangh convention wasorganized coinciding with Bakra-Id (sic).

 

It was therefore a predictable progression of events by the time the final riots began in 1969. The way people were provoked and others threatenedhave been diagnosed by the commission and it listed 27 common themes of communal propaganda.

They include, decrying of the religion, customs and traditions of the other community; the charge that Muslims, with a few exceptions, are anti national and harbor extraterritorial loyalty to Pakistan; the appeasement of the Muslims by the Congress government witha view to secure their votes by upholding their so called unreasonable demands in detraction of  

the rights of the Hindus; the atrocities committed by the Muslims at the time of partition; theatrocities committed by Pakistan against Hindus residing in their country; the destruction anddesecration of Hindu temples and idols of Hindu gods by Muslim rulers in the past; the forcibleconversion of Hindus by the Muslim rulers; the charge that a Muslim has publicly slaughtered acow; the charge that a Muslim has desecrated and offered insult to a Hindu temple or the idol of a Hindu god; the charge that a Muslim has kidnapped or raped a Hindu girl or outraged her modesty; advocating sending away all Muslims to Pakistan; advocating the Indianisation of Muslims, by which is really intended the Hinduisation of Muslims; the charge that the Hindumajority is out to crush the Muslim minority and to wipe out its religion, culture and language;the Muslim in a minority will never get justice or fair play in India the charge that the Muslim ina minority are discriminated against in service, employment and other matters; the charge thatMuslims are persecuted in India.

 

In fact the exhaustive list had their full play in all the riots inMaharashtra, where the RSS and Jana Sangh have been joined by another formation, which hadcome into the field by first beating up the south Indians and which now found the Muslims as itsnew enemies.The Ahmadabad riots in 1969 was for all practical purposes one of the most organizedinstance of communal violence, notwithstanding the denials of the RSS and Jana Sangh.

 

The ideological aim of the riot was to obliterate Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy, which formed the political core of Indian nationalism. It was organized in Ahmedabad, which was to be the centreof the nationwide celebrations of Gandhi's birth anniversary. However the Parliament saw someof the most powerful repudiation of communal politics and violence by the Congress andCommunist leaders. People like Bhupesh Gupta, Hiren Mukherjee and many others tore into

 

The Vythayathil commission report and Justice Jaganmohan Reddy commission report on the Ahmedabad riot.

 

Jana Sangh and its ideology as did many Congress leaders. Unfortunately, Gujarat had also become the centre of the Swatantra party, which did not have any core political ideology to argueagainst the Jana Sangh's politics, and hence could not even identify the danger to its ownexistence in the province.

Jana Sangh and its ideology as did many Congress leaders. Unfortunately, Gujarat had also become the centre of the Swatantra party, which did not have any core political ideology to argueagainst the Jana Sangh's politics, and hence could not even identify the danger to its ownexistence in the province.VICommunalism Confronted: The Creation of a New Milieu1969-70 also saw the coming together of the three different ideological cores to the forefront – the aggressive Hindu communalism, split in the Congress organization and thereby a kind of fluxin the whole polity, and the newly emerging trend of the Indira Gandhi government movingtowards populist and socialist policies thereby attracting the intellectuals, the left and Socialiststo its ambit. The Hindu communalism, in a rearguard action, heightened its rhetoric of "Indianisation" of the Muslims. Significantly, the anti communal attack this time wasspearheaded by a large intellectual front, which had come up, with a strong counter to thecommunal propaganda.From March 1970 onwards, there was a definite combative tone adopted by the Congressleadership towards the RSS and Jana Sangh leadership. The debate on the Ahmedabad ,Bhiwandi and Jalgaon riots had given rise to a very aggressive Jana Sangh and RSS leadership.Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke of how the Hindu will become Ugra or aggressive if the Muslimswere communal. Challenging his assertions, Indira Gandhi took the floor and countering his theory of  indianisation , doubted that bhartaiyakaran was a very innocent or obvious slogan. "If therefore Shree Vajpayee wants every Indian to love his country and to be patriotic, nobody canquarrel with that and I certainly do not do so; nor is any special theory of Indianisation required.But I think his theory is not quite innocent. Shri Vajpayee would not waste his energy in statingsomething which is so obvious. He and those of his way of thinking have a very definite purpose.

She argued that the Hindu communal groups are evidently taking upon "themselves to bethe judges of who is Indian and who is not…. That is what I think, most sinister. Whenever anygroup sets itself up to decide who is an Indian and who is not, there is bound to be trouble." She further wondered: "If this task of Indianisation was so simple why should it arouse fears in the minds of some sections of our people?"

 

Vajpayee countered by saying that it was Mrs. Gandhi and her party that was "carrying on a deliberate propaganda to mislead the minority. I am sorry to say that the Prime Minister does not stand for national integration. She wants division in thesociety."

 

 Madhok came in by saying even she needed to be Indianised." Indira Gandhicountered by saying that she considered "every child who is born of mother India is a goodIndian. There is the law of treason and there are competent courts to decide if anyone is guilty of treason. This cannot be left to be decided by any political group or party. No oratoreal devicescan hide the real intentions of those who advocate Indianisation of their fellow countrymen."

 

Therefore she concluded that either "Shri Vajpayee's doctrine means the obvious" and needs "noreiteration, or it is hiding something." She in fact pointed out how "Vajpayee's colleague ShriMadhok is a better guide. He bluntly says what he means and the house is aware of his numerous utterances on the subject."

 

 She continued taking on Vajpayee's aggressive tenor by counter aggression when on 14th

 May, in reply to Vajpayee's speech on riots where he mentioned thatHindus are retaliating the Muslim communalism, she argued:Some hounourable members shouted that Vajpayee's remarks should beexpunged. I am glad that the deputy speaker did not expunge it. I would like thoseremarks to remain on record and be read by future generations and by the peopleso that they could see what is really in their minds, not the sweet sounding beautiful Hindi that he paraded before us, from time to time, but what is really behind those words. And today we saw behind those words naked fascism. This is what fascism has been.

 

The lead taken by the leadership now seems to be more coordinated. When the All IndiaCongress Committee met on 13th , 14th and 15th June 1970, the party president Jagjivan Ramtalked about the urgent need of "the party to fight the communal tendencies". Significantly, aresolution attacking the idea of  Indianisation was moved by the Congress veteran KamalapatiTripathy, who described it as "anti national, anti Indian and anti Hindu".

 

 

He went on to say that"if anybody needed  Indianisation , it were the RSS and Jana Sangh who were guilty of falsifyingour history, our tradition, our culture in the cruelest manner." ( pp 28-34




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--

Dr. Sharit K. Bhowmik
ICSSR National Fellow
School of Management and Labour Studies
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Deonar,
Mumbai 400 088, India

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