Author: Aziz Haniffa
Publication: India Abroad
Date: October 8, 2004
Even before he had uttered a single
word, the September 29 appearance of Ram Madhav, spokesman of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced
Inter-national Studies generated much contro-versy. A petition was circulated
protesting the South Asia Studies Department's invi-tation, and asking
that it be rescinded. The controversy ended up generating additional interest;
the event was oversub-scribed to the extent that it had to be moved to
a larger conference room to accommodate more people. Even so, it was standing
room only at the highly charged conference filled with RSS supporters,
stu-dent activists and secular Hindus.
The question and answer session
that fol-lowed Madhav's opening remarks proved contentious, with allegations
and counter-allegations that had moderator Professor Sunil Khilnani, Director
of the South Asia Studies Department at SAIS, struggling to maintain control.
Khilnani introduced Madhav, who
was flanked by Professor Walter Andersen, Associate Director of the South
Asia Program and author of The Brotherhood of Saffron, a book on the RSS.
The moderator began with a caveat that "there are people here who would
not like this event to be taking place. "I would like therefore to make
it absolutely clear, before I introduce today's speaker, that by hosting
this event, I and my colleagues in no way endorse the views that he and
his organization, the RSS, stand for."
Invited to speak on 'How the RSS
Views India's Relations With Its Neighbors', Madhav started out by thanking
Khilnani and Andersen for the "great honor" of being afforded a forum for
"sharing the views of such a secret organization in such a public manner."
Almost immediately, he moved into
an attack on Pakistan and Bangladesh, which he described as two "theocratic
states" that discriminate against minorities. Madhav characterized Pakistan
as "the first reli-gion-based nation created in the modern history" till
"East Timor and a few such nations that have [since] come into exis-tence
based purely on religion as the core driving force."
Underlining what he said was Pakistan's
intolerance of minorities, Madhav Said, "Pakistan started off with a minority
popu-lation of 11 percent Hindus and Sikhs, today it is only about i percent.
It is the same with Bangladesh, with started off with 29 percent minority
population - mostly Bengali Hindus - and today stands between 8 and 9 percent."
"But in the case of India," the RSS spokesman said, "we started off in
1947 with about 10.43 percent minority popula-tion, including Muslims and
Christians, and today the minority population of India is about 14 percent.
What this suggests to people like us is that clearly, there has been an
utter discrimination against minorities in our neighborhood, whether it
is Pakistan or Bangladesh. All of us, many of you, more than we, tend to
stress the point that India is secular, pluralistic and democratic. [But]
Hinduism is nothing but pluralism."
He said the RSS in particular, and
Hindus in general, believed India should be secular, but pointed out that
India has suf-fered greatly "for practicing secularism, for practicing
democracy and the rule of law, and the entire world tries to teach us to
be more secular and we have neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are
pro-claimed theocracies. We are the only sur-viving democracy [in the region]
not only because democracy is great in itself but because Hindus believe
in democracy." He refuted the contention that the RSS would, if it became
politically more power-ful, convert India into a theocracy. "If the RSS
becomes stronger, democracy in India will become stronger because the RSS
believes in Hindu values. It is the Hindu values that stand for democracy
and plural-ism. If the RSS comes to power in India, secularism will not
be removed, but it will become stronger. And if the RSS tries to change
it, the RSS cannot remain Hindu."
Asked if the RSS saw Indian Muslims
as a potential fifth column, to be exploited by Pakistan and Bangladesh,
Madhav said, "We do not doubt the credentials of the Indian Muslims. Indian
Muslims are as patriotic as other Indians are. "We have no doubt about
that. Fifth columnists are there even in Hindus, even in Muslims, even
in Christians. They are there in India. They belong to all communi-ties."
On Kashmir Madhav said the RSS was
not opposed to compromise per se, but added that any negotiations should
be predicated on Islamabad halting its sup-port to and financing of cross-border
ter-rorism. "Let's have meaningful dialogue. Let Pakistan stop exporting
terrorism into India. India has always been in favor of dia-logue. The
problem is that we go in a bus [to Pakistan, a reference to then prime
minister A B Vajpayee bus ride to Lahore in 1999] and they come in a military
tank. We send cricketers, and they send suicide bombers. This can't take
us anywhere." Defending the RSS from the criticism that it was non-democratic,
as manifest in its refusal to admit women into its cadre, Madhav suggested
it was just as natural as sex-specific schools. The RSS, he said, mandates
attendance at its daily one-hour meetings. "For a woman to meet daily for
one hour it is very difficult in an Indian setting."
When Professor Stephen Cohen, director
of the South Asia Studies Program at Brookings Institution, noted that
even the Jamaat has women in its cadres, Madhav said, "The Jamaat does
not have daily meetings."
Shrugging off the protests and petitions
that greeted his arrival, Madhav said he was used to such situations. "And
it is fun, as long as it is dignified. As long as you don't invent new
theories, it is fun. You argue, you counter-argue, you call us com-munal,
we call it anti-national, as long as it is dignified."
Madhav said in a similar vein, allegations
that the RSS is communal helped the organization, "in the sense that we
are made more popular by our adversaries These who write against us, they
make peo-ple aware that okay, these are guys who are working for Hindus,
Hinduism and all that. It goes on, it's an interesting battle."
