HVK Archives: RSS & Independence; and four letters
RSS & Independence; and four letters - The Hindustan Times
Tanika Sarkar
()
18 July 1997
Title: RSS & Independence; and four letters
Author: Tanika Sarkar
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: July 18, 1997
Advani's rath yatras promise us a recurrent fare of spectacles. The BJP
has certainly innovated a unique political method: projecting its agenda
not through arguments and reason, but through the spectacular, the
theatrical, the entertaining.
The last yatra, let us recall, built up a violent movement that did
irreparable damage to Indian secularism and democracy, and also to Hinduism
as we have always known it. If that had, indeed, been a tragedy, was this
one a farce, a pathetic repetition of something that paid dividends
earlier, but has now gone stale? What was, in any case, the purpose behind
it, apart from a gesture towards the fiftieth year of freedom, a
lineage-seeking that all major political forces feel impelled to do this year?
The immediate context is, obviously, a new bid to power. The first yatra,
and the pogroms that followed in its wake, had brought the BJP within an
inch of state power. Ironically, what had made for its success there, was
precisely the factor that prevented the final leap across that last inch.
The Indian electorate refused to fully or finally endorse a fascistic
future. The BJP became an untouchable among major national and regional
parties.
Now, with another stint of political instability in the offing, it needs to
turn its image of reckless violence and rabid majoritarianism into its
opposite. It seeks to attain the looks of a calm, serene, statesmanlike,
responsible guardian. It must, in short, wipe out the memories of its own
past, eschew VHP demands for another round of violence over the Mathura
mosque. When a new image becomes necessary, what better order of
historical memory to appropriate for itself at this moment than the
gigantic mass movements of the freedom struggles? What else can establish
it as the nation builder?
Can the Sangh Parivar legitimately lay claims to those memories, or is the
rath yatra yet another confidence trick? The RSS was founded in 1925, the
Hindu Mahasabha a bit earlier. V. D. Savarkar, the ideological inspiration
behind all forms of the Hindu Right, was certainly a heroic revolutionary
terrorist, who had spent long years in the Cellular prison at the Andamans.
The Sangh often flaunts its respect for the iconic revolutionary figure of
Bhagat Singh, thereby trying to establish a special affinity with him. The
image of undivided India that it worships is also taken to prove its
greater commitment to the integrity of the country than even Nehru and
Gandhi showed during the time of nation making. Very often, a contrast is
made between its fervent Hindu nationalism and the compromise that the
Communist Party of India had made with the colonial state in 1942 when it
supported the British war efforts against fascist powers.
Let us now investigate the claims. Savarkar entirely broke with his past as
a nationalist terrorist once he wrote his seminal tract on Hindutva and
started a new ideological formation. Savarkar's career as a Hindutva
ideologue began only after his life as nationalist revolutionary was
finally over. There was no point of contact between the two phases.
The RSS was founded at Nagpur in 1925 with a handful of Brahmin youths, and
for a long time, its social composition was exclusively upper caste and
urban middle class - a characteristic that remains largely true even today.
This was, however, a time when enormous movements of peasants, tribals,
workers and the middle classes had come together in mass struggles against
the colonial state. The narrow and privileged social base of the RSS was
in marked contrast to that of the Congress as well as the fledgling
Communist groups whose middle class leaders would start with working class
bases and then fan out among the peasantry and among tribal groups, while
socialistic elements like Kisan Sabhas worked among the lesser peasants.
It was in even more of a striking contrast to the strategies of ideologues
and leaders like Ambedkar or Periyar who were mobilising Dalits against
social injustice. The RSS protested neither against social inequalities,
nor against colonial rule - a pretty difficult feat in those tempestuous
years when so much of both was in the air.
The years after its foundation were the years when India witnessed some of
the largest mass movements in the history of the world. The RSS stayed
away from every one of them. It took no part in the urban-centred
demonstrations against the Simon Commission that took place close to its
birth. It was nowhere on the scene during civil disobedience or Quit India
Movements, nor did it form a part of the demonstrations against the Indian
National Army trials or the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in the mid-forties.
The history of revolutionary terrorism passed it by entirely.
The kinship that it seeks with Bhagat Singh is quite flagrantly fictitious,
for it did not demand his release even though this became an extremely live
issue before his execution. Also, Bhagat Singh had openly proclaimed
himself to be a socialist and an atheist, and as such, must have been
anathema to the RSS agenda. Hedgewar, the first sarsanghchalak of the
Sangh, did, in his individual capacity, participate in civil disobedience.
What is significant is that he underlined his decision that the RSS was in
no way involved in his act of participation. Alone of all the major
political forces and organisations, the Sangh has a track record that is
entirely untainted by a single act of protest against colonialism.
One marvels at the self-discipline of its young men who managed to escape
the storm of patriotic fury that left few youths of those times untouched.
The shakhas, throughout the turbulent years of anti-colonial movements,
taught about "Muslim tyranny" to their cadres. They were silent about
colonial rule. Much has been made of the fact that the CPI stayed away from
the Quit India Movement in 1942. So did the RSS, and the Hindu Mahasabha
actually remained in the ministries, along with the Muslim League, even
after the Congress quit them.
Recent researches in Kerala and Bengal by Dilip Menon and Sanjoy
Bhattacharyya prove conclusively that despite the CPI's support to the
British war efforts, colonial bureaucrats continued to be very suspicious
and obstructive towards the CPI - and, justifiably so, because the CPI
cadres launched into anti-colonial propaganda once they were free to move
about and campaign. Of course, for most of its career during the colonial
era, the CPI was under a ban and had to operate practically the whole time
from underground. Most of the time, too, it criticised the Congress for
compromises with the colonial state and urged a stronger fine of action.
Not so the RSS. At a time when the colonial authorities were paranoid
about young Indians engaging in any form of physical training with arms,
they put no obstacles in the way of the physical training programmes of the
RSS. The Hindu Mahasabha got official support and financial help from
senior bureaucrats when it started a military academy for Hindu youths.
Throughout the colonial era, no member of the Hindu Right had to face a
single act of repression from the colonial state, let alone a ban, which
was the regular fare of the Congress and the CPI. The leniency was richly
deserved, for the RSS did engage in violence many times against Muslims in
colonial times, but it never raised a finger against the colonial masters.
Such unbroken loyalty was unparalleled: even the Muslim League had had its
times of protest and disaffection.
But anti-Muslim riots were frequent, adding to the spiral of hatred and
vindictiveness. The RSS did its bit in promoting divisiveness between the
two major religious communities, the tragic outcome of which was the
partition. The Muslim League was not alone in proclaiming the two-nation
theory: the Hindu Mahasabha was equally an adherent. Having been an active
partner in that history of divisiveness, it is strange that today the Sangh
combine claims to represent national unity and integrity.
To the processes of nation making, whether through mass struggles, or
through debates over democratic rights, the Hindu Right forces had
precisely nothing to contribute. The historical record is clear and
strangely unambiguous. The rath yatra is sleight of hand that through
sheer spectacular myth making aspires to turn this history into its exact
opposite.
LETTERS
Utterly biased
Sir, - Tanika Sarkar is highly prejudicial and unfair to the sangh parivar.
How can anyone equate the RSS with the Muslim League? One is a cultural
organisation; the other has been a political party. One admits members of
all communities; the other has been an exclusively Muslim political party.
One stands for akhand or undivided India; the other stood for the two
nation theory and the partition of the country.
Mrs Sarkar might not be a Hindu or she could dislike Hindus; that is
understandable. But why should she fly in the face of facts? In the Muslim
universe, the temporal and the religious spheres are woven together. The
Hindu ethos, on the other hand, is almost at the other end of the scale.
The king and the priest cannot be the same. - Yours etc.,
P. D. PURSHOTTAMAN New Delhi.
II
Sir, - As a student who attended RSS shakhas and participated in the
physical, cultural and intellectual activities of the RSS, I can say with
authenticity that Tanika Sarkar's comments about pre-independence RSS in
"RSS and Independence (July 18) are utterly biased and based on superficial
knowledge about this most patriotic and enlightened organisation.
True, the RSS was not anti-British but then it was not anti-Muslim either.
The truth of the matter is that RSS was anti-no one. Their only aim was
(and is) Hindu-Sanghathana i.e. to bring about unity and feelings of
brotherhood amongst Hindus. What RSS wants to do is to rid Hindus of evils
like, casteism and regionalism; to cast aside fear, gloom and despondency
and to make Hindu rashtra united and strong.
If a sick man wants to get rid of his illness and become healthy, does he
need anyone's permission to do so? Similarly when millions of disenchanted
and sullen Hindus wanted to stem the cancerous rot of casteism that was
eating into their vitals, did they need any patronage from "the colonial
authorities"?
Tanika Sarkar's observation that RSS was an organisation of "Brahmin
youths" and "exclusively upper caste" is also erroneous. Any Hindu (and
that included Sikhs) could attend any RSS shakha. All were treated as
equals in all respects without any discrimination whatsoever. Yours etc.,
SHYAM SUNDER MALHOTRA - New Delhi.
III
Sir, - I was aggrieved to read Ms Sarkar's article. I am a young man of 74
years of age and I joined the RSS shakha much before 1942 and along with
many fellow RSS men actively took part in the Quit India Movement. I may
further mention that at the time when the Late Dr Hegdewar started the RSS
Movement, he was an active worker of the Congress and he also took active
part in the 1930 Congress movements. Furthermore the RSS is a national and,
character building organisation and no where in the world there is anything
parallel to it.
It must also be mentioned that even after partition the contribution of the
-RSS, be it in times of war, natural calamities or tragedies, has been
above all other organisations. After the recent air crash at Charkhi Dadri
it was RSS men who first reached the spot and helped the relatives of the
victims. - Yours etc.,
SUKHMAL CHAND JAIN - New Delhi.
IV
Sir, - For some reason Ms Sarkar has ignored. the mid-forties. This was
the period when we had man-made famine in Bengal and forty to forty-four
lakh skeletons bogged-down Netaji and INA's march to Delhi. Bengal was
burnt to save the empire We might have forgotten but an epitaph at a Kohima
grave-yard states - "For your tomorrow we are giving our today." - Yours etc.,
DESH BANDHU - Delhi.
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