Whatever L. K. Advani did or said as a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party might not have been to the liking of many. His role during the agitation against the Babari Masjid was also reprehensible. But the objection against all this mattered little because he was not part of the government. His views or actions reflected his or his party's point of view. Now it is a different case. He is India's Home Minister, not a BJP functionary. His presence at the sankalp shibir, organised by the RSS at Ahmedabad, has put a question mark against him.
The RSS has never deviated from its goal of establishing a Hindu Rashtra in India. Not only that, the Hindutva is its philosophy and it misses no opportunity to underline this ...
What RSS Sarsangchalak Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiyya) and his lieutenant, H. V. Seshadri, tell their followers is their way of thinking, an ideological stand, which most Hindus do not share ... They have a convoluted logic and they even indulge in 'abuses' against their own community. Still they consider themselves the custodians of the community. Be that as it may, some of the remarks at the Ahmedabad shibir were so objectionable that Advani, as the country's home minister, should have distanced himself from them ...
There has never been any doubt that Advani is closer to the RSS than Vajpayee. And if one were to recall the break-up of the Janata Party, it was Advani's insistence that was responsible for the split in 1979. He did not want members of the Jana Sangh to disown the RSS. He even refused to accept a settlement that the office-holders of the Janata Party would have no truck with the RSS. As India's Home Minister, he has to be seen to be distant from the RSS, which adheres to a policy that runs counter to the principle of secularism as enshrined in the Constitution.
This is what India's first Prime Ministe Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to the state chief ministers: "Every provincial government has had plenty of experience of their (RSS) activities. One does not mind, or at any rate accepts an opponent. But it is distressing that any organisation consisting of large numbers of young men, should be so utterly little-minded and lacking in not only vision but in commonsense or common understanding. The RSS is typical in this respect of the type of organisation that grew up in various parts of Europe in support of fascism. It attracts people, essentially from the lower middle class, many of them frustrated, many of them with vague ideas and little thought behind them."
There is no doubt that the RSS is poisoning the minds of Hindus. Education Minister Murli Manohar Joshi is trying to change textbooks and rewrite history according to the saffron philosophy. In fact, it is in school that students learn the difference between communities. It is in school that a Muslim boy first feels the disadvantage of being in a minority community. He begins to feel that he is a "second-rate" citizen.
History books emphasise "proselytizing activities" of Muslim kings and the "defiant" attitude of their Hindu subjects, the "atrocities" by Aurangazeb, and the 'sacrifices" of the Sikhs ...
The RSS has begun another unedifying debate. This was highlighted at Ahmedabad. The RSS leaders want the government to lift the ban on government servants joining the RSS, a move which the BJP-led government in Gujarat has made. (Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel was sporting the traditional RSS uniform of khaki shorts and white shirt at the shibir) ...
When the conduct rules were framed, the purpose behind them was that the government servants should stay away from political parties or such organisations so that their behaviour and decisions would be objective, not sectarian. In fact, today's need is to free public servants from the pulls and pressures of religious and other considerations because the bureaucracy has already got contaminated. ... (Source: The Indian Expresi 18 January, 2000)
