The ... Sangh Parivar outfits ... love playing with the absurd. These absurdities can flow from anywhere. In case they do not exist then they are also quite good at inventing one or many, from time to time, as the occasion demands. For instance, this could be their ... considering the entire Muslim population in the country as Babar ki aulad or (their) believing that the natural conditions for any one in this part of the globe is to live the life of a Hindu ..
In the recent past, one notices a paradigm shift in (the Parivar's) approach towards the Muslims. This shift was a watershed for both the Muslims and the Sangh Parivar. In the past, the Muslims were their enemy number one. After the BJP assumed power at the centre and more so after the Sonia-led Congress sent the two BJP-ruled States of Rajasthan and Delhi packing and retaining the hold over Madhya Pradesh in the November 1998 Assembly polls, there has come a change in their approach towards the Muslims. Since the Parivar cannot do without a whipping boy for long, they had to invent another vulnerable enemy to keep the communal hatred alive. Hence the numerically weak Christians become a soft target.
Reasons are not much harden to fathom as to why Christians became their target. Firstly, for the reason that they cannot sustain themselves without Hindutva ideology and for that they must invent anti-Hindutva forces; secondly, in their perception this community is insignificant both politically and numerically and; thirdly, their tirade against Christians will hardly affect their prospects during the elections. Whereas' in the case of the Muslims, it was exactly the opposite. On the contrary, the Christians are dispersed all over the country unlike the Muslims, exception certain pockets like in some of the north-eastern States - Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur - where they are in majority. After all, the north-eastern States have only seven MPs. In Goa, (Christians) form a massive 40 per cent of the total population ..
The 1989 General Elections were a political watershed for one and all. The elections catapulted the two-member party that the BJP was after the 1984 polls into an 85-meinber strong political bandwagon, enabling the saffron league to lick from the power cake for the first time. This again forced the Parivar to remould their communal and political stratagem. That was the time when the Parivar began to realise the need for a wider political acceptability among the masses, especially, in the · northern India. For, they know that it was always the north which had decided the political destiny of this nation.
They were also aware that the southern States were dominated by regional parties, which have had a general nti-Hindu and anti-Hindi feelings. And the BJP's growth during the five-year period has been unprecedented ... the culmination of this phenomenal growth was ... the most blatant act on December 6, 1992 ... the onset of the coalition era changed the very fabric of the national polity. The Parivar had to chalk out a new cunning method to remain floating. This was further necessitated by the 13-day wonder of the Vajpayee government.
They realised that Ram could not fetch them numbers and that the idols of Ram and Sita had to be relegated to the background if they were to remain at the forefront. This again necessitated another hunt for a new villain. But ... the Parivar has been preparing grounds for this pogrom against the Christians as back as from 1964, when the RSS created the VHP. The Parishad was formed with two major objectives i.e. to prevent the overseas Hindus from getting assimilated into the Western/Christian mould and to prevent the Christian ... proselytisation in the tribal areas ... The VHP formed the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra in 1971 ... In 1977, the RSS formed yet another outfit, the Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, to reconvert the tribals who had got converted to Christianity ... The formation of the Bajrang Dal in the mid '80 gave the VHP the much-needed mass base and social following ...
But the irony is that ... the Sanatana Dharma ... does not believe in proselytising in any manner. The VHP is still going ahead with this move and terms it parivartan, a turning back, which even meant bringing into its fold even non-Christian tribals. But the fact is that majority of tribals are not Hindus ... Leave alone the 6th-9th centuries' Hindu oppression of the Buddhists, the decade of '70s saw the VHP indulging in reconversion of Muslims of the Cheeta-Merat-Rajput Muslims in Udaipur, Pali, Bhilwara and Ajmer districts of Rajasthan. The VHP claims that by 1981-82, the number of reconversions had reached 22,000 of whom 13,000 were Rajput Muslims from Rajasthan. In other States the reconversions were of Christians, who were of either Scheduled Caste or tribal origin ... In July, 1998 ... the much-publicised 'homecoming' of the tribals in MP's Chhattisgarh region, turned out to be a damp squib
However, ... the anti-Christian pogroms have not reached an alarming proportion as was in the case of the Muslims ... The explanation for which lies in the power politics. Once the Parivar feels that the BJP can stand on its own, they will not hesitate in going berserk with their agenda.
(Source: The Microrosmic, December, 1999)
RSS Not a Social or Cultural Organisation
Shahabuddin's Letter to The Pioneer, 14 Jan., 2000
Shri Maloy Dhar's apologetic article in defence of the RSS (11 January, 2000) is largely irrelevant. The simple question is whether RSS is a non-political, social, cultural and religious association. Though steeped in both micro and macro politics, it is not a political organisation is as such as it does not contest elections in its own name but the services of its permanent cadre are lent to its political front, the BJP and in fact the BJP is largely run by them.
Secondly, according to Dr. Dhar RSS tried to add Indian identity to the struggle for freedom. This is absolutely untrue. RSS then and now endeavours to impose 'Hindu identity' over all things Indian. It stands for and preaches Hindu Nationalism, not Indian Nationalism; it teaches its members to treat non-Hindu citizens as foreigners and as adversaries; it tries, through brainwashing, to create a Hindu mindset which looks upon India as the exclusive land of the Hindus; it distorts Indian history as a continuing struggle of the Hindus vs the non-Hindus, it rejects age-old cultural synthesis and jeers at non-Hindu elements in the composite Indian culture and tries to efface all traces thereof. It is the antithesis of what an Indian cultural organisation should be.
It is not a social organisation because it divides the Indian society on religious lines and teaches the Hindu community to distrust and even hate the minority communities for what they are and for what their forefathers allegedly did to the country.
It is wrong to say that the RSS played a positive and constructive role during the Partition disturbances. A senior civil servant the late Mr. Rajeshwar Dayal has written about how the RSS planned to force out the Muslims from western UP. In riot after riot, the Swayemsevaks have participated in rumour-mongering and incitement of violence against the non-Hindus.
The RSS ideology and its long-term mission are based on the writings of Shri Golwalkar. My simple question is: Has the RSS disowned the thoughts of Shri Golwalkar?
And if an organisation has the reputation of being against a section of the people, should any decent government prepare the ground for its penetration in the administration? Is it the way to make governance credible in the eyes of the religious minorities?
May I add that any organisation which works positively for the uplift of any community is not per se communal. It becomes communal only when its activities are negatively directed against another community which is projected in the darkest possible colour.
A True Muslim Forgives .....
Mehmood Khan Saves Aurangabad
The heartbeats of Aurangabad, a town of over eight lakh people, stopped when it heard on December 11 that 26-year-old Ayub Khan had been killed. Memories of nightmares from the city's past came rushing back: burning houses and bodies, blood on the streets; men hunting men. Then, Mehmood Khan spoke. After laying his son to rest at the Nawabpura graveyard, he said: "If it be the wish the Allah that my son should die thus, then so be it. But let no one else meet with the same fate. Let us seek insaaf through the rule of law and not revenge."
The three brief sentences restored peace in the town, one of the most communally sensitive places in the country, in a way no law and order machinery could have done. Ayub was the victim of the brutal police lathi charge on a morcha on December 6, the anniversary of the demolition of the Babari Masjid. There were at least 75 more, who had sustained severe injuries in the incident.
Except for a handful, all of them were Muslims ... The police (had) delayed the announcement of Ayub's death for five days ... Mehmood, a Class IV employee with the Aurangabad's People's Cooperative Bank, says " ... I have seen enough of these bloody battles in my lifetime. They don't bring back your lost children". Realising that passions were running high (he) chose a shorter route for the funeral process (and to offer Namaz-e-Janaza) at the graveyard itself ...
Mehmood also did away with the practice of holding a condolence meeting that follows a burial, at his house ... "The tension and anger in the crowd was palpable", says Manzar Moinuddin, a renowned academician and former principal of the Maulana Azad College who was present at the burial.
"The mob seemed too restless to listen to anybody. Is really feared for the worst to happen. In the end the passionate words that came from the heart of an illiterate man overpowered all other emotions that day." Special Inspector General of Police, S.S. Suradkar ... says ... "the way Mehmood took charge of the situation that day only goes to show how much a common man values peace in society. (Source: The Indian Express, 3 January, 2000)
