Bharat Bhushan - Are RSS, BJP risking their political future?
NB: A perceptive piece. My caveat is that this hydra-headed body maintains links with all its offspring, and uses all of them in various ways for its purposes - primary among which is to deceive the public. (The current phrase is gas-lighting, I believe). And it has sunk deep roots in civil society, with ex-President Pranab Mukherjee handing it a certificate of respectability. This is a cruel joke, as the Sangh Parivar are bent upon stoking the fires of communal hatred and violence as a means of controlling power and militarising civil society. Some years ago I described Hindutva as the Maoism of the elite - surely it is clear by now that a section of the Indian ruling class hates the rule of law and the Constitution, and has no problem with violence, as long as it is communal violence?
see also
Here is an icon of our ultra-patriots, Bal Thackeray, in 1993: "I piss on court judgements. Some people are trying to get a case admitted against me. But I am not afraid of court judgements. Most judges are like plague–ridden rats against whom direct action should be taken." Thus spoke the great man in June 1993, within months of the communal conflagration in Mumbai. This direct attack on the judiciary elicited no suo motu response. After the way in which the mysterious death of Judge Loya was dismissed, what are we to think about the integrity of our senior judges? If anyone has evidence that the Sangh Parivar defended the rule of law against this attack, I'd love to hear of it.
The past five years have shown what the RSS want to do with state power. During their rule they have manipulated the judiciary, the justice system, the economy, the media and and public education - all for partisan ends and for self-perpetuation. Lets see if our civil society is capable of discussing the deep roots of communal politics in India - of each and every colour. This gang is criminalising the polity in broad daylight, is anyone awake? DS
Not too long ago the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was suspicious about the Malegaon terror
accused, and wanted their antecedents investigated. Today, there is an
eagerness to reclaim them as members of the flock. The main accused in
the Malegaon case - Dayanand Pandey, Pragya Thakur and Lt. Col. Srikant
Purohit, now dismissed - are out on bail. They were all associated with Abhinav
Bharat, an extreme right-wing Hindu organisation founded by Lt. Col. Purohit,
drawing its name from an organisation founded by V.D. Savarkar, the original
Hindutva ideologue and RSS hero. It is also currently headed by Himani
Savarkar, daughter-in-law of the RSS icon, and also a niece of Nathuram Godse,
Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin.
The aim of this organisation, according to
conversations recorded on Pandey’s laptop, is to dismantle the Indian
Constitution and replace it with one based on smritis (Vedic religious texts).
“In this country we want to have Hindu Dharma or Vedic Dharma based on the
Principles of Vedas,” Col. Purohit is recorded as saying. Pragya Singh Thakur
was actively associated with this group. A former activist of the BJP’s student
wing, she is alleged to have provided men for the Malegaon blast and attended
meetings to plot the bombing. Her motorcycle was used in the Malegaon blast.
She was also charged in the murder of an RSS activist, Sunil Joshi, who the
National Investigation Agency (NIA) claims was involved in the Samjhauta Express blasts.
The RSS reportedly
persuaded the BJP to field Pragya Thakur as its Lok Sabha candidate from
Bhopal. Her “homecoming” is also being celebrated by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in their election speeches as a validation of
Hindu nationalism and the strange assertion that “a Hindu can never be a
terrorist”.
On February 9, 2011,
Suresh Joshi, aka Bhaiyyaji Joshi, general secretary of the RSS, wrote an
unusual letter to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, distancing the RSS from
“saffron” terror and those accused in the Malegaon blast of 2008. Mr Joshi claimed that the main accused in the
case - Lt. Col Purohit and Dayanand Pandey - were planning to assassinate Mohan
Bhagwat (then general secretary and now the chief of the RSS) through a 'chemical attack' and that a 9mm pistol had been 'given to a named, specific
person' to shoot another senior RSS leader, Indresh Kumar. He demanded an
inquiry into the assassination plot and the identification of the forces behind
the accused.
However, the charges
of conspiracy to murder top RSS leaders against Purohit and Pandey, which had
been dropped by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), were never reinstated
despite the fact the the BJP was in power in both Maharashtra and in New Delhi.
Others tainted with terrorist charges are also now being brought inside the
tent. This includes a self-confessed conspirator in the Mecca Masjid, Ajmer
Sharif and Samjhauta Express blasts, Swami Aseemanand. He backtracked on a
confession recorded before a magistrate and was released by the NIA special
court. The judge reprimanded the NIA for shoddy investigation and withholding
key evidence against the accused.
Even as the BJP and
RSS continue to deny the possibility of “Hindu terror”, it is worth recalling
that two “former” RSS activists - Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Patel - have been
convicted in the Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts and are serving life sentences. While
the RSS as an organisation may not have backed or conspired to launch terrorist
strikes against Muslims, its ideological interface with those accused of these
terrorist acts remains undefined and perhaps permeable.
Today they are being
reclaimed to give the BJP an electoral edge over secular (read anti-Hindu)
rivals. But in the long run, the
consequences may be dire for the RSS and the BJP. Their relatively moderate
leadership could well be shown the door at the end of the night of the long
knives. We may in fact be witnessing the
formation of RSS 2.0 — one that does not believe in maintaining an arm’s length
distance from its extremist ideological progeny.
The radicalisation of
the RSS would also necessarily reinvent the BJP. The process may be under way.
The BJP of Atal Bihari Vajpayee evolved into one that had hardliners like Lal
Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi doing the direct ideological bidding of
the RSS. They gave way in 2014 to an even more extreme party which did not shy
away from intimidation and fear with the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at
the helm - one shaped governance in his image and the other the party. Now, they
could be making space for more extreme nominees of the RSS. First, a
hate-spewing saffron-clad Yogi Adityanath was foisted as the chief minister of
Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous and politically significant states of
India. And now, Pragya Singh Thakur, a Malegaon terror undertrial, has been
fielded for Parliament.
For sure, it will not
be saffron-clad Pragya Thakur or an incompetent Yogi Adityanath who will
replace the Modi-Shah leadership. But they will only pave the way for the
long-term transformation of the party. Future leaders of the party henceforth
might well come from the extreme fringe — the cow vigilantes, arsonists and
extremists who are the sword arm of communalism. They will have a precedent for
claiming their place in the sun. When the present leadership is exhausted and
weak, the RSS will replace it from a pool that will also contain these
elements. The danger, however, is that the revolution might devour its own
children.
By embracing
extremists for tactical gains, the RSS and the BJP are going in the same
direction as the Congress had by encouraging Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to
counter the Akali Dal in Punjab and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri
Lanka to leverage a settlement for the Tamils in the island nation. Both turned
out to be Frankenstein’s monsters costing India the life of two Prime
Ministers. The Old Testament
saying: “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind” may yet come to
haunt both the RSS and the BJP.
https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/250419/are-rss-bjp-risking-their-political-future.htmlsee also
The
emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
More threats and lies from the RSS
The
Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSSJulio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
More threats and lies from the RSS
