PAVAN K. VARMA : When art masks politics - Sardar Patel, Modi and the RSS
Pavan K. Varma in The Times of India, September 28, 2013
When art masks politics
Narendra Modi is a good orator, and his first public speech,
after being declared BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, at Rewari in Haryana on
September, 15, provided ample evidence of this.
I was intrigued though by his fulsome tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel. Modi announced that he is
building in Gujarat a statue of Patel, made from iron pieces contributed by
every village in India, which would be the tallest in the world, twice the
height of the Statue of Liberty.
I was intrigued because Sardar Patel was the man who banned
the RSS, the institution which Modi joined at the tender age of fifteen, and
which, on his own admission, has played an exceptionally valuable role in
moulding his life and thought processes.
Patel was the Home Minister of India when, on February 2, 1948, the
Government banned the RSS, in pursuance to its ‘determination to root out the
forces of hate and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the
freedom of the Nation and darken her fair name’. In a letter dated September 11, 1948, to
Guru Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the then Sarsangchalak of the RSS, the Sardar
was forthright in his denunciation of RSS leaders: ‘All their speeches were
full of communal poison. It was not
necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for
their protection. As a final result of
the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of
Gandhiji’.
Significantly, the Sardar was never in doubt about the role
of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha in the murder of the Mahatma. In a letter dated February 27, 1948 to
Pandit Nehru he states this clearly: ‘It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu
Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that hatched the conspiracy and saw it
through...Of course, his assassination was welcomed by those of the RSS and
Hindu Mahasabha who were strongly opposed to his way of thinking and to his
policy’.
He reiterates this position in
a letter dated July 18, 1948 to Shyama Prasad Mookherjee: ‘As regards the RSS
and the Hindu Mahasabha...Our reports do confirm that, as a result of these
two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the
country in which such a ghastly tragedy
became possible’. Incidentally,
although Nathuram Godse denied any direct link with the RSS at the time of his
trial, many years later, in an interview to the
magazine Frontline in January 1994, his brother, Gopal, was quite candid
about the truth:
‘All the brothers were in the RSS, Nathuram, Dattareya, myself
and Govind. You can say we grew up in
the RSS rather than in our home. It was
like a family to us. Nathuram had become
a baudhik karyavah (intellectual worker) in the RSS. He said it but he never left it’.
Sardar Patel was a staunch follower of Gandhiji and his
inclusive vision. His emphatic
opposition to the RSS, the institution which mentored Modi and shaped his world
view, is documented fact. What is then
Modi trying to convey by co-opting Patel, and building the world’s tallest
statue as a tribute to him?
One view could be that Modi agrees with the Sardar about the
RSS. After all, there cannot be such a
violent difference of opinion, on such a vital matter, between an ardent
admirer and his new found hero. If this
is the case, Modi must say so. If not,
he should accept that he is lionizing Patel through a conscious process of
selective amnesia and cynical manipulation, harping on what Patel did to unite
India, but deliberately ignoring his strong views on those who wanted to divide
her through the politics of communal incitement and violence.
Available evidence is definitive that the RSS played a key
role in the political choice of Modi to lead the BJP. The evidence is also categorical that Modi is
deeply influenced by the philosophy of the RSS. Modi was a Pracharak in the RSS
when Golwalkar, the longest serving and most ‘successful’ RSS chief was the
Sarsangchalak (1940-73). Modi reportedly
wrote a book in his praise. Does he agree with Golwalkars explicitly stated
views that India is an exclusively Hindu nation, with no place for people of
other faiths, not even the rights of a citizen?
Does he support Golwalkar’s praise of Nazi Germany, for having
manifested a nation’s highest pride in exterminating the Jews? Does he believe, like Golwalkar, that the
Manusmriti, that consigns Shudras to perpetual service of Brahmans and
advocates servitude of women, is the only valid law for India? The BJP, I think, made a valiant attempt
under Vajpayee to downplay this regressive thinking and broad base its
political appeal. But with the rise of
Modi, the core philosophy of the RSS is back as the driving ideology of the
BJP.
Sardar Patel, if he is at all watching these developments,
must be both a deeply anguished and a very angry man. Angry, because of his clever appropriation
by those whom he steadfastly opposed.
Anguished, because the vision of India being offered by his new devotees
is so different to the one for which he dedicated his entire life.
*****
Also see:
Also see:
Madhu Limaye's observations on the RSS (1979)
The Assassination of Gandhi
The Assassination of Gandhi
Hindutva's Foreign Tie-up in the 1930s
More signs of artistry:
In the year 2000 the Gujarat government of Keshubhai Patel, with the support of the Vajpayee government, lifted the ban on RSS recruitment among civil servants. In the ensuing controversy Patel said the RSS was not political (the usual story). This was stoutly resisted and the BJP was forced to withdraw. Read more:
