Exposing the Saffron Scheme: A Popular outline-V

In lieu of conclusion

Comrade Vinod Mishra

In the month of March, a comrade handed me a questionnaire issued by the ABVP during the Benares Hindu University Students’ Union elections, with the request to write a ‘befitting’ reply. The questions were a mere rehash of oft-repeated allegations against communists, their foreign roots, their role in the Quit India movement, during partition and even during Emergency and so on and so forth. ABVP wondered what relevance Marxism had in India after the Soviet collapse. Wonder of wonders! ABVP was soon to get a befitting reply in Benares Hindu University itself!

The battle in BHU campus had clearly assumed ideological proportions and ABVP had to suffer a stunning defeat at the hands of AISA. The victory was an exclusive AISA victory as the student wings of CPI and CPI(M), Janata Dal, Mulayam, and even ex-Naxalites, were all working to ensure AISA’s defeat. The BHU victory came in succession to AISA victories in Nainital and Allahabad and attracted a lot of media attention.

Ideologues of the Sangh Parivar, who till the other day relished the ‘death’ of Marxism and boasted their expanding influence in West Bengal and Kerala as the corroboration of this fact were hard put to explain the resurgence of Marxism in the intellectual centres of Uttar Pradesh. Time was ripe for going over to a counter-offensive and thus the idea of this popular series was born.

Unfortunately, most of the writings against the Sangh Parivar’s communal philosophy were enmeshed in a liberal Hindu framework: extolling the virtues of Ram, invoking the themes of Hindu tolerance and Sarva Dharma Sambhav, and correspondingly, the liberal Hindu image of Gandhi and Vivekanand; and appealing to the conscience of communalists formed the mainstream of secular defence. Left leaders too joined in under the pretext of a new-found realisation of the role of religion. Even Nehru — so dear to CPI and CPI(M)-wallahs — became taboo and was silently replaced by Gandhi in secular left literature. Pseudo-secularism indeed!

True, the fascist connotation of Hindu Rashtra was as correctly identified as the need to build a broader unity of secular forces. But in the absence of a renewed thrust on the consolidation of a left core, this opened the floodgates of ideological and political opportunism as well. It goes without saying, that bereft of the cutting edge a counter-offensive, the whole secular propaganda may fall flat in face of a heightened communal onslaught. Who will then take up this challenge? The responsibility invariably falls on the Marxist-Leninists.

In course of our popular propaganda against communalism we questioned:

(A) The Gandhian methodology of invoking Hindu symbols, particularly Ram Rajya in the freedom struggle and held that it was the prime cause for Muslim alienation.

(B) Radhakrishnan’s definition of secularism as sarva dharma sambhava — which also became the official credo — and held that a modem state’s policy towards religion can only be sarva dharma varjite.

(C) The rationality of projecting Ram, a religious figure, as a national hero, and held that this status can only be attributed to the people’s hero Bhagat Singh.

(D) The validity of Hindu Rashtra as the unifying force for the country, and held that, if history is any guide, a Hindu Rashtra will surely disintegrate into multitudes of kingdoms. Symptoms of Maratha Rashtra of Shiv Sena developing side by side is an indicator of this.

(E) The role of the RSS in the entire course of the freedom struggle, including in 1942, in precipitating and supporting partition with the demand that entire Muslim population should be deported to Pakistan, in hobnobbing with Indira Congress during the days of Emergency, and held that RSS openly derived inspiration from Nazism, a foreign ideology.

(F) The RSS style of diffusing the target against the colonial masters during the freedom struggle by raising the Muslim bogey, and held that history was being repeated once again exactly when India was facing the serious threat of neo-colonisation.

(G) The anti-Pakistan axis of Indian foreign policy and held that a friendly approach towards Pakistan and a positive resolution of the bilateral dispute of Jammu and Kashmir are crucial to the improvement of the communal situation in India. We even proposed a commonwealth of independent states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In our build up of a counter-offensive we had pointed out that the most conservative bourgeois and landlord class and upper caste social composition of BJP, the increasing intervention of sadhus and mahants in civic and political life, the militant organisation of dregs of society in the garb of kar sevaks and hordes of upstart intellectuals bent upon falsifying history, organising hate mail and forcibly shutting down all dissident voices in academic circles combine to form a perfect mix for fascism.

Afterthought

The Babri Masjid has been demolished. Democrats of all hues have rightly demanded that for the sake of historic justice the Babri Masjid should be rebuilt there itself. The doubt, however, lingers on whether this will be possible or practical at this stage.

A makeshift Ram temple is already there and the way the Rao government is proceeding – in the typical Congress style of ‘delinking religion from politics’— and acting from behind only through Chandraswami and Shankaracharyas, the case of a Ram temple is getting strengthened. Who will take the credit — Congress or BJP — remains the only issue to be settled.

Ideologues of the Sangh Parivar had been repeatedly saying that Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute is not merely a religious one. As Babri Masjid, according to them, was the symbol of national humiliation, of Muslim invasion and rule over Hindu India, it is instead a question of national dignity.

Come on, for the sake of nationalism and patriotism why not build a national monument at the site? Neither the Babri Masjid, nor a Ram Mandir, a national monument in memory of the heroes of the first war of independence of 1857. After all, Awadh was the epicentre of this rebellion and building a national monument at Ayodhya can be a befitting honour to that history.

If Hinduism is just not a religion but a culture embracing all those who live in India, if Hinduism is equivalent to Indianness and if the Babri Masjid was demolished because it was a symbol of national humiliation, the Sangh Parivar should have no objection to raising a monument of national honour. Let the super nationalists and super patriots of Sangh Parivar accept this proposal and see how Muslims — the ‘anti-nationals’ — react to it. Messers Malkani and Govindacharya, are you listening to me?

Well, whether they listen or not, it is high time the secular and patriotic forces mooted this proposal, so as to prevent the building of a Ram Mandir there. A Ram Mandir will be a perpetual source of humiliation and alienation to Indian Muslims, and in this sense, a symbol of national disintegration. A national monument seems to be the only principled and practical demand at this stage and the nation must act, if necessary over the heads of all hues of die-hards, to avert a national catastrophe.

The End...