Sitaram Yechury

March 19, this year, will be notorious for its extrava¬gance. The pomp and show, wasting crores of rupees worth of precious national resources will end up highlighting the only achievement of the present BJP-led ramshackle government — that they have somehow managed to last one full year! But in that year there has not been a single area of public life that has not been gravely vitiated by their being in office. On every score, their actions have proved disastrous for both the country and the peo¬ple.

On assuming office, this government had outlined its priorities in what was called the National Agenda for Governance (NAG). The country was promised a stable' government with anable’ leadership. During the course of this year, the government beleaguered by the Samata-Mamata-Jayalalitha syndrome has earned notoriety for being India’s most consistent `rollback’ govern¬ment. The ugly squabbles within the BJP in various states (witness, for instance, the Madanlal Khurana vs. Sahib Singh vs. Sushma Swaraj fracas in Delhi), the lack of cordiality amongst ministers belonging to the BJP (such as the Murali Manohar Joshi-Uma Bharati standoff) apart from their gross collective inefficiency and pathetic lack of common sense in dealing with day-to-day issues of governance has reduced this government not only to a non-performer but as one compounding anarchy at every stage.

The NAG had promised to rid the country of bhook (hun¬ger), bhay (fear) and bhrashtachar (corruption). A year on the country and the people find the situation much worse on every score. Let us take the issues one by one.

Patronising Corruption
Bombastic claims were made to tackle the cancer of corruption. The first in this connection was the Lokpal Bill. This has not seen the light of day despite the fact that the Bill was drafted and was ready for presen¬tation and adoption at the time of the United Front government’s time. Secondly, the equally publicised Money Laundering Bill though significantly diluted and truncated has also not been brought forward for adop¬tion.

Regarding the so-called pursuit of corruption cases, there has , on the contrary, been no government in Indian history that has so brazenly protected and patro-nised corrupt people. The same Jayalalitha, against whose corruption the BJP railed against in the past, is today indispensable for their government’s survival. Corruption cases have been transferred and judges re¬tired in order to appease the AIADMK and thereby ensure its support to maintain the government at the Centre in office. The same Sukhram, whose telecom scandal was highlighted by the BJP to stall Parliament for two weeks in the 11th Lok Sabha, is today an ally in Himachal Pradesh. Their own hand-picked former Advisor to the Finance Minister, Mohan Guruswamy, has exposed a number of unscrupulous deals involving large sums of money and has charged Advani, Jaswant Singh and Mahajan with nepotism. The former Naval Chief Vishnu Bhagwat who was arbitrarily dismissed in an unprecedented manner has directly charged the Defence Minister with high level corruption in arms deals. The deal struck with Japanese multinational Suxuki to virtually take over Maruti is just one instance of this government’s mercenary ap¬proach. Indeed, the BJP has written a new definition of political `morality’ during this short space of one year in office.

Videshi' in the name ofSwadeshi’

The NAG had declared that this government would give the economy “a strong Swadeshi' thrust". A year later it has now become amply clear that this slogan was only meant to mislead the people while the real intentions were to pursue a policy of systematic sale of India's best assets to multinational corporations, something which the MNCs have always wanted but which was denied to them till this last year. Now it is the insurance sector which is to be opened up to foreign equity participation. In the 11th Lok Sabha, the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Bill was brought forward by the United Front Finance Minister. The Left parties opposed the bill and the BJP too, in the name ofSwa¬deshi’, opposed it. The bill had to be withdrawn. Now, in a total volte face, the BJP itself has initiated this disastrous move which will severely damage India’s economy and place it at the mercy of international capital market players. Worse still, such a move comes despite the recent experience of the South-East Asian countries where just this volatility of short term and fluid international capital has wreaked havoc in their economies by sudden withdrawal.

A similar attitude has been shown by the BJP towards the Patents Amendment Bill. The party had supported the Left earlier when the Congress government brought this bill which forced the government to withdraw it. In fact, the present Minister for Human Resource Develop¬ment was the Convenor of the Parliamentary Forum oppos¬ing this Bill! Again, in a shameless turnabout the government brought this Bill which was adopted with the support of the Congress.

Worse is its record in terms of opening up the country to foreign capital. Apart from giving automatic clearance for 75 percent equity participation to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and 100 percent to the NRIs, this government has taken measures to facilitate the penetration of foreign capital in all areas of our economy. The decision to make mergers and acquisitions easier in the current budget spell disaster for Indian industry. This will further intensify efforts by for¬eign capital to take over Indian industries thereby transferring the ownership of India’s assets to foreign hands. Already many a leading Indian player has sold out to foreign companies. A few instances will high¬light this: Birla’s automobile unit Hindustan Motors has been taken over by US giant General Motors; Mahindras by Ford; Tata’s TOMCO by Unilever; Parle by Coca-Cola and so on. So much for this government’s Swadeshi commit¬ment.

The Loot of the
Public Sector

Another sector in which unprecedented loot of the Indian people’s assets is taking place is the public sector. This is being done through massive disinvestment in public sector units where shares in the most productive and profit-making undertakings are being sold to pri¬vate interests, as well as the proposals for cross holding of shares through which the government siphons off thousands of crores of public assets to meet its expenditure. This can only lead to the country’s insol¬vency. It is like a farmer selling his land to meet his extravagant expenditures only to starve to death later when he ceases to own any more land.

With this attempted dismantling of the public sector undertakings, what is the outcome for the workers pre¬sently employed in these PSUs? They are being advised to opt for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS), ie, convert themselves from employed to the ranks of the unemployed. Furthermore, the proposal is that the VRS settlement would not be made in cash but in government bonds, redeemable at a future date! Workers, in other words, are being told to leave their jobs without monetary compensation that is due to them, against a promise of some payment in an undefined future. So much for their assertion in the NAG that they would make labour “an equal and proud partner in the production of nation’s wealth and its progress”.

Growing Unemployment —
Berozgari Badhao

The NAG also contains the ambitious slogan of berozgari hatao (eradication of unemployment). But the government has failed to take a single step in this direction. Rather it has done quite the opposite. The decision to increase the retirement age by two years means fresh employment by the largest employer, ie, the government and its agencies will be frozen for this period. Through the VRS scheme, as noted earlier, more people are being converted into the ranks of the unemployed.

Then there are the employment generation schemes. Em¬ployment is best generated through higher capital expen¬ditures by the government for instance on public works which strengthen the economic and social infrastruc¬ture. Not only has this government taken no measures in this direction but during the past year it has actually cut down on spending in a big way. Of the Central Plan Expenditure announced in the budget last year, almost Rs 17,000 crores remained unspent (See Table 1). This means that employment generation has actually been negative during the course of this year. Compounding the crisis for the coming year, this government has allocated Rs. 5000 crores less than last year’s alloca¬tions. Therefore, far from moving towards berozgari hatao, this government’s policies are taking the country to a situation of berozgari badhao.

Growing Miseries

The major impact of these economic policies has been on the people’s livelihood. Relentless price rise has seriously eroded the real earnings of the people. Apart from the open patronage given to unscrupulous traders and hoarders that resulted in the spiralling of veget¬able prices, the government has increased the adminis¬trative prices of every single essential commodity. Wheat, rice, sugar, diesel, urea, cooking gas, railway freight and postal charges are items that constitute an essential part of the common man’s consumption (see Table 2). By following policies that allow the increase in the prices of all these commodities in the course of this one year, the government has ensured that the life of the vast majority of the Indian people becomes more miserable. So much for their promise to eradicate bhook.

Undermining Parliamentary Democracy

During this year, a systematic attack has been mounted on the Indian polity, on the Constitution and on insti¬tutions of parliamentary democracy. The efforts to review the Constitution are nothing but a naked attempt to go in for a presidential system which is inimical to the interests of a democratic, pluralist India and would facilitate the imposition of a “Hindu Rashtra”.
The suggestion for a compulsory five year term for the elected Parliament also stems from the same undemocratic instinct. Such a move is to ensure that governments can be formed through opportunist and pecuniary deals by¬passing the people. The democratic rights of the people can would be violated and replaced with behind the door manipulations and manoeuvres. This will only lead to undermining parliamentary democracy. Scant respect is being shown to parliamentary traditions and practices. Even when the Parliament is in session, the BJP-led government manoeuvres to bypass the Rajya Sabha and issues the Prasar Bharati Bill through an ordinance. Such an ordinance raj, practiced by the Congress in the past, was stridently opposed by the BJP when it was in the opposition.

The past year also witnessed the authoritarian charac¬ter of the BJP in dealing with States. For the first time since independence aand in complete violation of the Constitution, Central teams were dispatched to states which had governments not supporting the govern¬ment at the Centre. And then there was ther brazen manner in which Article 356 was sought to be misused with regard to Bihar. Many a time in the past, the BJP and its chief ministers had attacked this article and sought to prevent its misuse through drastic amendments. But the same party sent back to the President of India its earlier recommendation of dismissing the Bihar government, which was returned by him earlier. Such moves have set in motion a new authoritarian threat during the last year.

Further, the Indian polity is being weakened through a insidious process of infiltration of communal- minded persons in key administrative capacities. The systemat¬ic overhauling of all research bodies by placing commu¬nal elements of dubious academic credentials, especially in higher institutions of historical research; the changing of the syllabi and curricula in schools; the appointment of top RSS functionaries to key governmental positions, including as Governors; the sacking of Chiefs of Armed Forces on communal grounds are all instances of how the country’s administrative apparatus is being steadily communalised.

These put together constitute the gravest ever assault on India’s secular democratic republican polity. They seek to weaken, if not disintegrate, the system in order to pave the way for the emergence of a rabidly intoler¬ant autocratic `Hindu Rashtra’.

Shameless Surrender to US Imperialism

At another level, this one year has been one of complete surrender of India’s interests to US imperialism. The pseudo-nationalist jingoism that was sought to be whipped up with Pokhran-II was projected as an assertion of India’s pride. In the wake of the international and domestic outcry at such undisguised jingoism and the imposition of sanctions, this BJP-led government has led India into a course of deceitful compromises made behind the back of Parliament and the people. It is, indeed, shameful to learn from US officials that this government has agreed to unilaterally violate the standing politi¬cal consensus of not signing discriminatory treaties like the CTBT. Apart from jeopardising India’s inter¬ests and forfeiting its sovereignty, this government has also vitiated good neighbourly relations and to a great measure lowered India’s prestige in the international fora.

Media Control

Another hallmark of this BJP rule has been its undis¬guised effort to control the media. The BJP has jetti¬soned Prasar Bharati and autonomy of the official media. It has imposed an unwritten censorship and doctors the news. Aware that their exit from office is only a matter of time, the BJP leaders are now proposing to start a new 24-hour news channel by Doordarsan to act as their mouthpiece in the coming elections. Hitler’s propaganda minister Geobbels would, indeed, be a very satisfied man to learn that his followers are surpassing his own achievements in the field of fascistic disinfor¬mation.

Communal Onslaught

The most pernicious impact of this government has been its relentless implementing of the RSS agenda seeking to convert India’s secular democratic republican polity into a rabidly intolerant and autocratic `Hindu Rash¬tra’.

Recollect the chronology of events during the year. First came the frenzied activity of building the temple through pre-fabricated pillars to be installed at Ayod¬hya at the appropriate time, irrespective of the pending judicial verdict. The BJP-led government, instead of taking any action, went to the extent of saying that it is a private activity and, hence, cannot be interfered with. Simultaneously, the Bajrang Dal announced the decision to train Hindu patriotic' youth against culturalinvaders’ and activities of missionaries. Within weeks came the large scale attacks against the missionaries. These ranged from the brutal rape of nuns in Jhabua, the forcible disrobing of a Christian mis-sionary in Dumka to the inhuman torching of the Steins in Orissa. Elsewhere in Karnataka, communal passions were roused in the name of “liberating” a centuries old Sufi pilgrimage centre. This was followed by the Surat¬kal communal riots. While the Srikrishna Commission was summarily rejected, the issue of saraswati vandana, vande mataram have been used to deepen the communal divide. The year also saw the Shiv Sena’s virulent campaign against the Pakistani cricket team, the obnoxi¬ous digging of pitches, the forcible stopping of the screening of the film Fire, the attacks on M.F. Hussain and the disruption of Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai. Large scale infiltration of RSS loyalists in educational institutions and research bodies was accompanied by changing the syllabi and curricula with heavy communal overtones. The attacks on Christian minorities, howev¬er, have been unprecedented in independent India.

Terming these attacks as aggressive and its scale and magnitude as bestial, the United Christian Forum for Human Rights has listed over a hundred incidents of violence against the Christian community since the present government assumed office. In a scathing attack, the Forum says: “the State has failed to do its duty in protecting the life, dignity and property of the victims. At many places, it seems as if the Central and the State governments have tacitly supported the commu¬nal groups”.

The situation has deteriorated to the extent that the Statutory National Commission for Minorities in its report released on November 24, 1998, observes:

“We are disturbed by and distressed at the current minority situation of the country. The growing polari¬sation of society on communal lines is a cause of deep anxiety for us.

“We take a serious view of the growing trend of commu¬nalisation of crimes and are anguished by the misbelief of criminals that crimes against particular communities may not be firmly dealt with by the authorities con¬cerned under the country’s general laws.

“We regret to observe that the Constitutional provisions relating to rights and safeguards for minorities are not actually in force in full. They are often violated under various pretexts including arbitrary public policy and presumed administrative expediency. Clear provi¬sions of the Constitution calling for affirmative action in favour of minorities — who are weaker sections of the society — have taken a back seat.”

Rewriting and
Distorting History

Apart from such minority bashing, the most diabolic attempt that has been going on during the last year has been the attempt to re-write Indian history and appro¬priate India’s plurality into an illusory Hindu mono¬lith.

In the first category falls the blatant attempt by the Uttar Pradesh BJP government to rewrite history to suit the political project of `Hindu Rashtra’. 25 history books meant for students upto Class VIII are being rewritten by a dubious organisation called the “Lekhak Mandal” believed to be a adjunct of the RSS. The UP Minister for Basic Education had the temerity to state, “Yes, we are rewriting history in order to remove the distortions. The history being taught to children at present has been distorted deliberately and it is be¬cause of this that our children have no sense of nation¬al pride.” It was the same Minister who was responsible for making the recitation of the saraswati vandana compulsory in primary schools earlier this year. This decision is unashamedly defended by stating that such rewriting will magnify the role of the Hindu kings and rulers and marginalise the Muslim rulers and their contribution to the evolution of India’s syncretic culture.

The BJP, as the political wing of the RSS, is following to the dot the famous dictum of George Orwell that, “those who control the past, control the present and those who control the present, control the future.” The inspiration for this is not far to seek. Golwalkar in his chilling communal treatise with fascist content — We, or Our Nationhood Defined bemoaned, “Unfortunately such misconceptions (read secularism) are stuffed into the brains of our young ones through text books appoint¬ed by various Universities in the country. It is high time that we studied, understood and wrote our history ourselves and discarded such designed or undesigned distortions”.

In a similar vein, the attempt to impose saraswati vandana or vande mataram is a part of this overall strategy. Amongst the rich diversity of Indian culture and tradition, the Saffron Brigade deliberately chooses only these hymns in order to deepen the communal divide. Even within the rich historical tradition of Hinduism itself, saraswati vandana represents just but one stream. Even if we were to discount, for a moment, the rich non-Hindu legacy of Indian culture, it is clear that the imposition of the saraswati vandana is nothing but the attempt to strengthen the brahmanical tradition and consequently its tyrannical social order based on caste oppression. In other words, it is not only a communal `Hindu Rashtra’ that the RSS seeks but simulta¬neously a social order based on caste oppression that not only reverses whatever little that the oppressed castes have gained since independence, but threatens to heap greater repression.

With regard to vande mataram, it should be borne in mind that this song was part of the famous novel (Anand Math) by Bankim Chatterjee based on the sanyasi or fakir rebellion. It gained popularity in the early part of this century in the historical context of the Swadeshi movement, following the British division of Bengal on communal lines. On the one hand it roused the masses against oppression and tyranny and for independence. But it also contained references that may be injurious to non-Hindu religions, particularly the Muslims. More important, however, is the manner in which vande mataram was misappropriated and used by the communal forces to inflame frenzied communal passions in post independent India. The most common slogan that rents the air in any communal holocaust is, “bharat mein rehna hai toh vande mataram kahna hai”. It is this memory that leaves a powerful imprint on the Indian mind, not so much the origins of this song. Thus, in such a situation, the imposition of this song is nothing but a way to increase comunal strife. Not surprisingly, even the most enlight¬ened Muslim sections have reacted sharply against this.

With regard to the attempts to assimilate forcibly the non-Hindu elements of Indian historical tradition, one must note the strident manner in which L.K. Advani claimed that Buddhism is only an offshoot of Hinduism and does not deserve the status of a separate religion. Speaking to an international gathering at a seminar on Buddhism at Sarnath marking at the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha’s first sermon recently, Advani made an outrageous statement saying: “Buddha did not announce any new religion. He was only restating with a new emphasis the ancient ideals of the Indo-Aryan civilisa¬tions”. Not surprisingly, there was a virtual unanimous condemnation of such an understanding with one particip¬ant saying that Advani was “making a political state¬ment that is 100 per cent wrong. I may call it 101 percent wrong”.

It should be borne in mind that the size of the Muslim minority population in India is more than the popula¬tion of Britain and France put together. The 102.6 million Indian Muslims are those who had opted to stay in a secular democratic India. Similarly, the 10 mil¬lion Indian Christians carry with them a legacy which is older than the growth of the Christianity in many parts of Europe. Likewise, despite systematic hounding that resulted in the virtual expulsion of Buddhism from Indian borders, there are some seven million Buddhists in the country who carry with them a legacy that is, in India, twenty five centuries old. To deny these people their rightful existence and freedoms enshrined in our Constitution is tantamount to negate the very idea of a secular democratic modern India.

Debate on Conversions:
Diversionary Tactics

Instead of taking action against the perpetrators of inhuman violence against Christians, the Saffron Brigade has, once again, called for a national debate. This time on “religious conversions”! They take recourse to such a tactic whenever they seek to destroy the secular democratic foundations of modern India and negate its Constitution.

The chilling similarity of the present developments to the run-up leading to the Babri Masjid demolition cannot be missed. The Saffron Brigade has perfected its fascistic methodology and Goebellisian propaganda tact¬ics (Goebell’s was Hitler’s minister for propaganda, whose dictum was “if you tell a big enough of lie, frequently enough, it becomes the truth”). The run-up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid was punctuated by demands for a national debate on secularism. Slogans such as appeasement of minorities',pseudo-secularism’ were all given circulation to buttress the whipping up of hatred and communal frenzy against the Muslim minori¬ty. The bloodshed and mayhem that followed still con¬tinues to shame the soul of India. And, all this was done to gain political and electoral advantage at the expense of destroying the very vitals of a pluralistic society and its syncretic ethos.

Just as the Babri Masjid was described before its de¬struction as “a disputed structure”, churches in Gujarat today are described as “prayer halls”. The charge being levelled by the Saffron Brigade is that conver¬sions of tribals are taking place through allurement and coercion. If such is their concern for people changing their faith, one wonders why the Saffron Bri¬gade is silent over people deserting Indian nationality and clamouring after the US `green card’ lured by the glitter of the west. After all, such Indians (many of whom incidentally constitute the bedrock of the reac¬tionary communal international support base of the Saffron Brigade) have betrayed and deserted their Bharat Mata. In the RSS terminology, they have betrayed their matrubhoomi, janmabhoomi and punyabhoomi. Surely, aghast at people converting from their religious faith, they should be equally, if not more, outraged at the thousands of Indians betraying their motherland being lured by the west! If the question is of banning conver¬sions, then the first on the agenda should be to ban the conversion of one’s nationality!

The so-called propaganda that the Hindu order is being threatened by conversions is contrary to facts. The regular census figures show no dramatic rise in the pro¬portion of minority population. For instance, in the 1961 census, the Muslims constituted 10.5 percent of the population. In 1971, it was 11.2 percent and in 1981, it was 11.4 percent. At this rate, it will take 3626 years for the Muslim population to become 50 percent of total Indian population! By this time, however, the Hindu population would have grown many more times than what it is today. Likewise, over these years, the Christian population remained around 2.5 percent of the total population.

However, let us turn to the question of tribal conver¬sions. As everyone is aware, with the process of eco¬nomic development and modernisation, many of the tribes are drawn into the mainstream of societal development. In the process, they change their customs, their tradi¬tions, and assimilate with the mainstream. Many of them have their original tribal animistic religions and form of worship which become integrated or converted' in this process. Some may adopt, in a multi-religious country like India, Hinduism while some others may adopt Christianity, Islam or any other religion. For in¬stance, consider the fact that the deity at the famous Bhadrachalam temple in Andhra Pradesh is called Kodan-darama. It is a black figure and as legend has it was the local presiding deity of thekoya’ tribe who still inhabit this forest region. Over centuries, it has assimilated itself into Hindu religion and rituals and is now considered a version of Rama. Similar interpreta¬tions abound regarding various other deities who are considered central to the Hindu pantheon including Lord Jagannath of Puri.

Therefore, to presume that every tribe is essentially a Hindu tribe is the first travesty of truth. It is precisely this untruth that the Saffron Brigade spreads to further its communal agenda.

Further, consider the fact that Mahavira, Guru Nanak or Lord Buddha were all born in Hindu families. The fact that new powerful religions emerged from their teachings cannot be described as `conversions’. In fact, Buddhism was embraced by millions of Indians as an escape from the torturous brahmanical caste oppression being prac¬ticed by Hinduism. No less a person than Swami Viveka-nanda confirms this. For nearly ten centuries, the brahmanical order fought to decimate Buddhism. They eventually triumphed only by the seventh century AD, by virtually banishing Buddhism and Buddhists from Indian borders. This is what explains the spread of Buddhism immediately beyond Indian borders towards the far east. The violent destruction of Buddhist viharas and centres of glorious civilisation and wisdom is eloquently recorded in history.

Similarly, it was against such tyrannical, brahmanical caste oppression that the architect of modern Indian Constitution Baba Saheb Ambedkar led his dalit followers to embrace Buddhism.

The issues being raised by the RSS have been answered many decades ago by Swami Vivekananda who said “without the Buddhist revolution what would have delivered the suffering millions of lower classes from the violent tyrannies of the influential higher castes.” (Works, vol-4, pp-462).

On the question of the current campaign against the minorities on the so-called “forcible conversions” Vivekananda had to say: “(Mohammedianism) came as a message for the masses… the first message was equali¬ty. There is one religion — love. No more question of race, colour, (or) anything else.” (Works, vol-1, pp-483)

Further, “my experience is that if ever any religion approached this equality in any appreciable manner, it is Islam and Islam alone.” (Works, vol-6, pp-415)

“The Mohammedan conquest of India came as a salvation to the downtrodden, to the poor. That is why one fifth of our people have become Mohammedans.” (Works, vol-3, p-294)

Therefore, he shaped his vision of India’s future by stating: “I see in my mind’s eye the future perfect, India arising out of its chaos and strife, glorious and invincible with Vendanta brain and Islam body.” (Works, Vol-6, pp-416)

The soul of India is, thus, far removed from the RSS vision of a `Hindu Rashtra’.

It needs to be emphasised that national debates on secularism, on conversions, were conducted for many years preceding the adoption of our republican Constitu¬tion and settled when an independent India was based on secular democratic foundations. By seeking to re-open these issues, the Saffron Brigade today is only seeking to carry forward its pernicious ideology and political project of establishing its “Hindu Rashtra”. The naked hatred against all non-Hindu religions has been repeated consistently by the RSS since its formation in 1925. Golwalkar in a later book, “Bunch of Thoughts” devotes an entire chapter to what he characterises as the three `internal threats’ to India — Muslims, Christians and Communists. The hatred against Communists is not only because they are the most steadfast and consistent upholders of secularism but also because they had alleg¬edly spurned Hinduism to become atheists. By this logic, Golwalkar is, in fact, spurning the entire wealth of Hindu Indian tradition itself. Being a devout votary of the tyrannical, brahmanical order, the RSS conveniently forgets philosophers like Charvaka and the entire Lo¬kaykta school of Indian philosophy. Its followers not only revolted against brahmanical oppression but also openly embraced and propagated atheism. Of course, since such parts of Indian heritage negate the Saffron Brigade’s political project, these are discarded con¬temptuously.

VIOLENCE: RSS CREDO

Further, in their effort to establish such a religious intolerant brahmanical oppressive social order, the Saffron Brigade adopts violence as its credo. In 1952, Golwalkar justifying violence as an integral part of their philosophy said, “It should be used as a sur¬geon’s knife … to cure the society” (Spotlights, p. 110). Report after report of the Judicial Enquiry Committees instituted by the government to probe commu¬nal riots have indicted the RSS for directly preaching and indulging in violence against the minorities. To name a few: Jaganmohan Reddy Commission (Ahmedabad riots, 1969), D.P. Madan Commission (Bhiwandi, 1970), Vithayathal Commission (Tellichery, 1971), Jitendra Narayan Commission (Jamshedpur, 1971), Venugopal Commis¬sion (Kanyakumari, 1982), and Srikrishna Commission (Bombay, 1992-93). The attacks against the Christian community that the country is witnessing today are just the continuation of such inhuman methods adopted by the RSS and the Saffron Brigade to fulfill its reactionary objective of converting a secular democratic India into a rabidly intolerant “Hindu Rashtra”. In fact, it is they who are resorting to `forcible conversion’.

It is, indeed, a matter of anguish and shame that the country is under siege by such forces at a time when millions of our brethren are groaning under oppressive economic conditions. Instead of directing its attention to solving the people’s problems, or atleast seeking to alleviate their miseries from poverty, disease, squalor and illiteracy, this BJP-led government is imposing an agenda that only deepens the communal wounds aggravating people’s miseries. One can only be aghast to note that the communal forces who consumed the life of Mahatma Gandhi are today seeking to observe the 50th year of his assassination not by popularising his vision of communal tolerance but by setting up a national level commission for the welfare of cows! This proposal to set up the national cow welfare commission (Gau Seva Ayog) has been unanimously recommended by a national committee under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister (Asian Age, 12 January, 1999). It is, indeed, ironic that we Indians, are to suffer such a minority government whose priori¬ties and pre-occupations are far removed from the day-to-day realities of the Indian people. Worse still, as we move into the last year of the 20th century, as the world braces itself to reach higher civilisational levels, we, in India, have a political leadership that seeks not to take India forward but to take it backward towards medieval barbarity.

As the world moves towards the third millennium, it will be interesting to recollect, as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen informs us, the transition from the first to the second millennium, according to the Islamic Hejira calendar (corresponding to 1591-92 in the Roman calen¬dar). In the year 1000 Hejira, Emperor Akbar was on the Mughal throne. Amongst the many pronouncements he issued on this occasion stands out his famous edict on religious tolerance: “no man should be interfered with on account of religion and any one (is) to be allowed to go over to a religion he pleases”. Like the synthetic religion of Din-i-ilahi, Akbar’s attempt to evolve a new synthetic calendar, the Tarikh-i-ilahi did not survive for long. However, the important point to note is that Indian civilisation, even 400 years ago, was seeking to break from all expressions of religious intolerance and advancing to higher levels of human civilisation. In¬stead of such an advance being carried forward, we are today in the grip of retrograde communal forces, who unfortunately hold the reins of State power, who seek to take India back in time and history.

For 50 years, since the establishment of a secular democracy in free India, the vast majority of Indians taking pride in their pluralistic and syncretic ethos have tried to strengthen the unity of our country and peoples. What seems to be forgotten today is the simple truth that the unity of a pluralistic India can only be strengthened by strengthening the bonds of commonality amongst this diversity. India’s unity and social harmony can never be strengthened by seeking to impose a uni¬formity over this diversity. However, this is precisely what the communal forces seek today. Their efforts to impose a monolithic majoritarian religion and culture can only lead to powerful fissiparous tendencies that will dissipate our country’s and people’s energies in mindless strife and hostility.

Fascist RSS Vision

Behind these controversies and campaigns lies the funda¬mental diabolic strategy of the RSS and the Saffron Brigade to impose their vision of a `Hindu Rashtra’ negating the very basis of a modern Indian state based on secularism and democracy. A vision that is clearly revealed in the following passages.

“…The conclusion is unquestionably forced upon us that ….. in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu Nation (emphasis added). All those not belonging to the national i.e. Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and Lan¬guage, naturally fall out of the pale of real `National’ life”.

“There are only two courses open to the foreign ele¬ments, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so, and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. … From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or they may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights. There at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country”.

These chilling words were written 60 years ago by the then RSS Sarsanghchalak in a book titled “We or Our Nationhood Defined” and published in 1939 and later, after independence in 1947.

In unambiguous terms, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar has spelt out the RSS vision of a rabidly intolerant `Hindu Rashtra’. For the past six decades, the Saffron Brigade has been steadfastly pursuing this political project.

This has been more than evident in the last one year of the present BJP-led government at the Centre. Notwith¬standing the near anarchy in the country due to total misgovernance by this government, the one agenda that it single-mindedly pursued has been to foment communal passions and deepen the communal divide leading to unprecedented insecurity amongst the minorities.

The Indian people cannot be subjected to such agonies any longer. The people and the country today are seek¬ing deliverance from this government. The sooner this happens, the better it is for India and its patriots.

Rise in crime

During last year as many as 38000 murders were commit¬ted. leading the figures is Uttar Pradesh under BJP rule. Delhi, whose law and order situation is directly under the control of the union home ministry has at¬tained notoreity for having the highest crime recod in the country. According to the statistical analysis conducted by the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of crimes during last year is around 60,000. Mumbai, under BJP-Shiv Sena rule, is close second, with shoot-outs in broad daylight having become a daily occurence. Nearly a thousand complaints of extortions were registered in Mumbai last year.

So much for their promise of eradicating bhay(fear).
Bhay is gripping the psyche of not only millions of minorities but a much larger section of the citizenry. The growing crime rate under BJP rule is illustrated in Table 3.

Conclusion

The Indian people cannot be subjected to such agonies any longer. The people and the country today are seeking deliverance from this government. The sooner this hap¬pens, the better it is for India and its patriots.

However, the people cannot hope that this will happen automatically. We need to recollect ancient wisdom that has filtered down the ages — “for evil to succeed the good only need to be silent”. This is the time for all patriotic Indians to act in unison to rid this country of a virus that is eating into our very vitals.

We are compelled to recall the chilling words of a German intellectual Pastor Neimoeller during the rise of Hitlerite fascism.

“First they came for the jews
and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
then I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Catholic.
Then they came for me –
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.”

The contemporary relevance for India today cannot be missed. Passivity in meeting this challenge can only mean peril for the individual and the country. All patriots will have to rise to the occasion and defend India’s unity and integrity and its hard-won democratic secular ethos.