Dhirendra K Jha - The shadowy group accused of planning the 2008 Malegaon blasts has deep roots in the Sangh
Ever since the
Malegaon blast of 2008, investigative agencies have been furiously working to
learn more about the origin of the extremist Hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat,
whose members are accused of being behind this act of terror. But despite the
investigations, there’s still little we know about this shadowy organisation. There’s considerable
confusion regarding how the organisation was formed and who actually formed it.
While one version says Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast,
started it, another version says that its founder was Lt Col Shrikant Purohit,
another key accused in the same blast case.
Down the rabbit
hole
The
Kulkarni-as-founder theory was made by Himani Savarkar, the president of the Abhinav
Bharat, in an interview to Outlook magazine in November 2008,
two months after the blast. The Maharashtra
Anti-Terrorism Squad named Kulkarni as one of those who provided logistic
support for the blast that took place on September 29, 2008.
Savarkar told Outlook that
Sameer Kulkarni, who was “a part of the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]”,
started the Abhinav Bharat. “When he [Kulkarni] decided to start Abhinav
Bharat, he approached me to become its president and I accepted,” she said.
Savarkar, who died
last October, was the daughter of Gopal Godse (the brother of Nathuram Godse,
the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi) and married into the family of Hindutva
ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
While being
interrogated by the anti-terrorism squad in connection with the blast, Savarkar
said that she was elected president of the Abhinav Bharat in April 2008, and
that Kulkarni concentrated on developing the organisation in Madhya Pradesh.
The real founder?
However, other
testimonies fail to support Savarkar’s claims. According to the
investigations carried out by the anti-terrorism squad, Lt Col Shrikant
Purohit, a key accused in the Malegaon blast case, was the real architect of
Abhinav Bharat. According to the
chargesheet filed by the anti-terrorism squad, Purohit initiated the outfit in
June 2006 when he led over a dozen people to Maratha ruler Shivaji’s fort in
Raigad where “they took the blessings of Shivaji Maharaj’s throne and decided
to name the trust Abhinav Bharat and prayed for its success”.
A few months later, in
February 2007, the organisation was registered as a trust with its official
address being that of its treasurer Ajay Rahirkar, a resident of Pune, who is
also an accused in the Malegaon blast case. Such is the confusion
over the origin of the Abhinav Bharat that despite heading the organisation for
so many years, Savarkar seemed unaware of its many aspects. She might, however,
just have chosen (and in that case quite successfully) to reveal only as much
as was needed to heighten the confusion over the organisation’s origins.
Last year, in a long
interview to this reporter around two months after Savarkar’s death, Milind
Joshirao, a close associate of Purohit’s who worked as the outfit’s
spokesperson when Savarkar was president, said: “To blame her for being unaware
of many aspects of Abhinav Bharat would be unfair. She joined the organisation
late, and so she might just not be knowing everything about its origins.” Joshirao, who now
calls himself the president of the Abhinav Bharat, was detained for nearly two
weeks after the Malegaon blast and was released thereafter.
He said that Savarkar
had never been formally appointed president. “It was during that
period of confusion [caused by arrests in the wake of the Malegaon blast] when
Himani Savarkar came forward to speak to the media on our behalf,” said
Joshirao. “There was no formal meeting to make her the president of the
organisation, and that is why you won’t find anything to that effect in the
papers of Abhinav Bharat.” Joshirao added: “She
became so [its president] because she claimed so, and we all respected her
decision because she represented the great families of Savarkar and Godse.”
The 1905 Abhinav
Bharat
The Abhinav Bharat has
had a previous avatar too. Inspired by Italian
revolutionary Mazzini’s political movement called Young Italy, VD Savarkar
formed an organisation in 1905 that he christened Abhinav Bharat. The old Abhinav
Bharat, however, wasn’t very active as Savarkar, who was a student of Pune’s Fergusson
College at that time, left the country abruptly in 1906 once he got a
scholarship for higher education in England. His outfit was dormant for long,
and in 1952, Savarkar officially disbanded it.
Though its revival in
India over a century after it was first formed was a mysterious, inscrutable
affair, the link its members have with the Sangh Parivar is striking. During her
interrogation on December 26, 2008, Savarkar told the ATS: “I met [Sameer]
Kulkarni one and a half years ago when he was working as a full-time member of
the RSS. Since my house is next to [VD] Savarkar’s, he would come often and I
came to know him very well. Then he told me he would be in Madhya Pradesh to
work for Abhinav Bharat.”
Retired Major Ramesh
Upadhyay, a prominent Abhinav Bharat leader and an accused in the Malegaon
case, was, before joining this outfit, the president of the Mumbai unit of the
Bharatiya Janata Party’s ex-servicemen cell. Equally significant is
the track record of another Abhinav Bharat leader, BL Sharma. He won the Lok
Sabha election twice on a BJP ticket from East Delhi during the 1990s. An RSS
worker since 1940, Sharma had largely worked with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
before switching to the Abhinav Bharat.
RSS threads
Though Pragya Singh
Thakur, a leader of the RSS’ student wing, was not directly associated with the
Abhinav Bharat, she is alleged to have worked in tandem with the members of
this organisation to cause the Malegaon blast in 2008. Thakur was a leader of
the RSS-affiliated right-wing student body, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad, in Ujjain and Indore until 1997. She then became a member of its
national executive before taking sanyas.
Purohit, who is most
likely the main architect of Abhinav Bharat, was in constant touch with Vishwa
Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia before the blast. According to the
anti-terrorism squad’s findings, the last time the duo met was at a Mumbai
hotel in August 2008, over a month before the Malegaon blast. Purohit is believed to
have had great expectations from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which he considered
a recruitment ground for the Abhinav Bharat.
As per his
chargesheet, Purohit even told Abhinav Bharat leaders about his expectations:
“If and when [VHP leader Ashok] Singhalji will be removed from the VHP, it
would become a headless chicken. A body without a head will remain and this is
what BJP wants. This wing should become ours. Do not oppose me on this. This
will be our main weapon.”
Clearly, the overlaps
between these various Hindutva groups are striking, and are not restricted to
sharing a common ideology alone. If anything, the complexities of the
disjointed existence of the RSS and Abhinav Bharat confirm the hydra-like
structure of Hindutva politics.
see also
Nationalisation
of sex: Dr Togadia sells cure for impotency at a discounted rate, only for
Hindu men
Ayodhya sadhus condemn Dadri lynching
Six Outrageous Things BJP Leaders Have Said About Dadri Murder
NAUJAWAN BHARAT SABHA on attempts of 'Sangh Parivar' to foment communal tension in Delhi / Beef murder bid to stir hatred ahead of polls? / SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN: The fight is now over your right to not be killed for what you eat
Six Outrageous Things BJP Leaders Have Said About Dadri Murder
NAUJAWAN BHARAT SABHA on attempts of 'Sangh Parivar' to foment communal tension in Delhi / Beef murder bid to stir hatred ahead of polls? / SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN: The fight is now over your right to not be killed for what you eat
The Broken
Middle - my essay on the 30th anniversary of 1984
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)
The Abolition of truth
RSS tradition of manufacturing facts to suit their ideology
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)
The Abolition of truth
RSS tradition of manufacturing facts to suit their ideology
