'It is Easy to Abuse the BJP/RSS - Just Ask the Pseudo Secularists'

 - Dr. Ramesh N. Rao

It is difficult to respond to a truism. How can one, for example, disagree with someone who says, "Love your fellow man/ woman"? Or, can you disagree if that same person says, "those who don't love their fellow men are not being nice and decent and honourable"?

However, one need not be frustrated or angry with such "moral highgroundists" (if I may coin a neologism). One only needs to be patient and bring in a little bit of logical rigor to show how such pontificators come with their own agendas, their own hatreds, and their own specially manufactured blinkers.

To give you an example, Mike Ghouse, in a short, simplistic and pompous essay says that anyone born in India is an Indian, and that patriotism is "respecting and honouring every Indian, even if they differ from you in colour, size (sic), language, culture, faith or any other distinction that God (of any belief system) has given them." He then goes on to accuse the BJP and the RSS of, with absolutely no evidence to support, being unpatriotic and un-Indian.

The first problem that anyone will have responding to the Ghouses of this world is that it takes more time to refute such nonsense than it took them time to concoct it. It is the problem that one faces when asked the question, "How long is it since you stopped beating your wife?" It is the most ugly, hateful, and wily tactic but it is also very effective. You, if you wish to use it, will realize how much time the one you have accused or challenged will spend in trying to defend himself. The Ghouses of the world have made it a fine art of throwing around such blame like confetti. It is easy to prepare confetti, and it is even more easier to throw it around. But try clearing and picking that darned thing up!

Now, to the matter at hand. What is wrong with the assertion that we should respect and honour anyone born in India? Let us start with the most obvious and simple problem that this raises: should you respect your corrupt and venal neighbour who takes bribes as a government official? Should you honour a colleague who you know is being unfaithful to his/ her spouse? Should you respect a teacher who doesn't care to teach? You may say that I am stretching the argument to absurd lengths. Am I? Tell me so if you think that after you finish reading this essay.

There is no problem with the assertion that you shouldn't discriminate someone based on their colour, size (?!), language.... But here is the rub: can we respect and honour every Indian even if they differ from you in "culture, faith or any other distinction ..." and even if their culture, faith, religion asks them to dishonour yours? What if the person who differs from you in his faith (religious) tells you that his faith basically tells him that Allah is the only God, and that those who don't believe in Allah as the only God, and Mohammed as the last prophet, are kafirs who have to be converted, even if need be, by force and violence? Or what if this person says Jesus is the only son of God, and that if you don't believe in Jesus you will be doomed and go to hell? Will you still respect this person? Would you still like to honour such a person? And remember this person is accusing you that you are being discriminatory and hateful because you have recognized how his faith discriminates profoundly and dangerously. His religion "permits" him to profess an ugly, violent and discriminatory attitude.

However, your accusing him of that is more discriminatory! Double standards? No, pure, simple, and dangerous cockammery! This is what a mathematician would call a "set theory" problem. Let us say that we put together in a tank of salt water both salt water fish and fresh water fish. You can say that they are both fish. But you know which will survive. However, what if you still insist that that's where they will all be and can continue to survive? You can make it a more powerful analogy if you replace fresh water and salt water fish with sharks and dolphins, but won't there be a hue and a cry that will punch holes in your eardrum!

Don't be worried though. Just look at the history of some religions and what they have done to indigenous peoples in South and Central America, the U.S. and Canada, the Africas -- the world over. The indigenous populations have lost their cultures, their languages, even their names! How many Native Americans even have their traditional names? How many of them speak their languages? How many of the peoples of Central America even remember what their local, tribal, community faiths and beliefs were? They will have to travel to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to catch a glimpse of their past! To come to the point, let us say that we put together in a "tank" (society) all the religions and faiths of the world. The followers of most of these say "you follow your ways and I will follow mine" and you say, "fine". However, some of them tell you that all these other faiths are false, and that they wish to propagate such an idea either through word or the sword and that their "faith" should be considered to be in a secular society "just another faith." This is what could, in ordinary speech, be termed "talking from both sides of your mouth"! That the combined forces of the Left, the pseudo-secularists, the ignorant do-gooders wish to gloss over the dangerous nature of some faiths should make the reader rather wary. Note how these forces use the terms "fascist", "Nazi" and such terms to demonize those who simply say: "Can we read history please, and more carefully look at current events?"

I will not bother readers about the myriad instances recorded by hundreds of historians of the brutal nature of the Muslim invasion of India. Those who seek to find the truth will find it (though the slightly lazy could get in touch with me for some interesting and relevant citations and sources). But I will mention one that happened in the slightly distant past, one this century, and then I will provide some material relating to current events so that you, the reader, can decide if there is any merit to Mr. Ghouse's ululations.

The first. How many of you have visited the site of the Vijayanagara empire? Hampi, the capital of the empire, in northern Karnataka, stands in mute testimony to the wanton destruction by the sultans of the Bahmani empire. Vijayanagara was "more thoroughly sacked than was Delhi by Timur's army" say historians Kulke and Rothermund in A History of India (1993). Those who visit Hampi will be so devastated that few of them will have words to describe their experience. A great imperial capital, of whose wealth, culture, architecture, beauty of its men and women, many have written and sung, and in whose glory days lived the great saint Purandaradasa, the father of modern Karnatak music, was destroyed so thoroughly, and in such a wanton manner that it could be done only by the bigoted, the hateful, the foreigner, and those professing a religion which urges them to do so.

Oh well, you may say, it happened in 1565 A.D. Why bring up old memories, and why lick at old wounds? I say, go visit Hampi and then tell me what you think and feel. I also say, is there any Muslim historian, in India or elsewhere, who has chronicled the sacking and condemned the wantonness? Is there any Imam or a Muslim politician who has pointed to the fact and bemoaned the destruction? There are thousands of them who will beat their breasts about a mediocre little mosque that was built on top of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya and that was torn down by Hindus in 1991. They will point that out to claim it is the end of harmony and mutual respect. But how many of them, even in passing or by mistake have said, "You know, the Muslim invaders brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to this country. They tried to impose their culture, their faith, their ways, their wantonness on another people. They even succeeded to an extent. Maybe, it is time to acknowledge that." Did you expect President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed or President Zakir Hussain to say it? Does any of the preening politicians like Syed Shahabuddin dare talk about it? What about the mullahs and Imams who at the drop of a hat issue a fatwa? Will they acknowledge India's history?

And here we have a Mike Ghouse, sitting in Dallas, and calling the Bharatiya Janata Party unpatriotic and un-Godly because the BJP and the RSS have on their agenda the recovery of the Kashi Vishwanatha temple in Benares, the Rama temple in Ayodhya, and Krishna's birthplace in Mathura; the abrogation of Article 370 that gives special status to Kashmir; and the promulgation of an Uniform Civil Code.

That makes them traitors? Such ugly assertions and name-calling, born in ignorance, cultivated through arrogance, and spread in Goebbelsian fashion should make the objective reader beware. Very beware.

What about the other seminal event, this century, and the second point I wished to bring up? I will let the inimitable Dr. Ambedkar, the God of the Dalits, speak to the matter.

Those of you interested in reading more of this can read his book, Pakistan or the Partition of India, especially chapter 7. Talking about Muslim atrocities between 1920 and 1940, Ambedkar says this about Gandhi: "He has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus" (p. 156). What does he say about Muslim leaders? "The leading Moslems, however, never condemned these criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs and agitation was carried on for clemency being shown to them" (p. 157).

What were some of these crimes? Too many to list, but I will focus on the Mopla massacre (euphemistically called the Mopla rebellion). And I will quote Dr. Ambedkar again: "Beginning with the year 1920 there occurred in that year in Malabar what is known as the Mopla Rebellion. It was the result of the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. Agitators actually preached the doctrine that India under the British Government was Dar-ul-Harab and that the Muslims must fight against it and if they could not, they must carry out the alternative principle of Hijrat. The Moplas were suddenly carried off their feet by this agitation..... The aim was to establish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British Government.... As soon as the administration was paralysed, the Moplas declared that Swaraj had been established.... As a rebellion against the British Government it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of the Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction - in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order.... The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous" (p. 163).

What was the reaction of Gandhi and the Muslim leaders? Here is the Mahatma: "The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. A verbal disapproval by the Mussalmans of Mopla madness is no test of Mussalman friendship..." (p. 158).

So, given the escape hatch what did the Muslim leaders do? Swami Shradhanand (who was murdered by Muslim fanatics) wrote in the Liberator of August 26th, 1926: "The first warning was sounded when the question of condemning the Moplas for their atrocities on Hindus came up in the Subjects Committee (within the Working Committee of the Congress). The original resolution condemned the Moplas wholesale for the killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversion to Islam. The Hindu members themselves proposed amendments till it was reduced to condemning only certain individuals who had been guilty of the above crimes. But some of the Moslem leaders could not bear this even. Maulana Fakir and other Maulanas, of course, opposed the resolution and there was no wonder. But I was surprised, an out-and-out Nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that the Mopla country no longer remained Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplas. Therefore, the Moplas were right in presenting the Quran or the sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Mussalmans to save themselves from death, it was a voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion...." (Quoted in Ambedkar, p. 159-160) (Italics mine).

And why did I bring the Mahatma into the picture? Do I hate him? I have organized in this small Midwestern town, over the last four years, three classical Indian music concerts exactly on October 2nd. The artistes that I was able to bring here were Ustad Imrat Khan, Pandit Ronu Majumdar, and Nandkishor Muley. I have a picture of Gandhi, the only picture of an Indian, in my office, predominantly displayed. I do not even display any picture of my family members as is the wont in this country! Now, why IS the Mahatma important to this discussion?

Because of the constant haranguing by the opportunists that it was the RSS that was responsible for his assassination. You believe it too, right? Let me quote from an otherwise critical treatise by Curran (Militant Hinduism in Indian Politics), published in 1950: "RSS agitation did not diminish in intensity after Partition. It directed bitter criticism against the Congress leadership, accusing Gandhi, Nehru and other Congress leaders of having appeased the Muslims at the expense of millions of Hindus, and of allowing the Muslim League to mutilate "Sacred Mother India." The RSS had considerable prestige during these days, and by its accusations helped to keep communal passions burning furiously. The climactic tragedy was the assassination of Gandhi.... The national revulsion at this deed led the government, in February 1948 to outlaw the RSS and to imprison most of its leaders. It was soon discovered that Gandhi's assassins were not connected with the RSS, but the ban remained until July 1949 (italics mine). And let us see how Gandhi's name has been used by the pseudo-secularists, feminists, and others who love to use his name as a stick to beat the RSS with. Gandhi has been accused of being a sexist, a patriarch, of being psychologically and emotionally confused, of really being a Hindu (because he loved Rama) despite everything else, etc., etc., etc. So, it is fine for the pseudo-secularists, the Leftists, the feminists in India to assassinate the character of Gandhi but their crime is lesser than the crime they have "foisted" on the RSS, huh?! They have, and continue to, commit a double-murder: the character assassination of Gandhi, and the wanton and false accusation against the RSS. So, now you have it as to why I brought into this discussion the Mahatma.

So, now we know a little more of the history. Raw, straight, without the embellishments of pseudo-secular, leftist, and shrill historians bred and nurtured at JNU. So, is it treasonous of me to bring up these facts?

Am I condemning all Muslims? Am I saying they cannot be Indians?

What I am saying is that those who commit the crime get away more easily than those who point out the criminals. What the Hindutvavadis are saying, as far as I can make out (since I wasn't ever a RSS member) is that the land we call India was first influenced by Vedic culture. Vedic culture, or Sanatana Dharma, is grounded in the idea of Sarvadharma Samabhava, i.e., allowing different belief systems to co-exist based on the idea that there are different paths to God. But that was before the Muslims invaded India. Islam does not allow such an idea. At a seminar on "The Muslim View of Spirituality", it is reported that the chief speaker was Prof. Hasan Askari, a noted Sufi expert, and described by some Westerners as "one of the eight most knowledgeable authorities on Islam this century". Prof. Askari spoke of the difference in Islam between the "two forms of Oneness". He said the Qur'an is not merely "One" ("Wahid") but "The One" (Ahad). The relevant passage he is said to have reverted to buttress his point was supposedly, "...Nothing have we ommitted from this book..." (6:38). "Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed? Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt. The word of your Lord is complete, in truth and justice. Nothing shall abrogate His words. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient." (6:114-115). So, what would you as, the reader, as a proponent of goodwill and believer in co-existence have to say about this aspect of Islam?

Finally, I come to the events of recent vintage, and of the supposed atrocities committed on Christians after the BJP came to power. The Ghouses, the shrill screamers of the "BJP Government Watch" and others of their ilk would like you to believe that the country is being torn apart by the BJP and the RSS. They have pretty well succeeded in their propaganda. Cunning, systematic, persistent, immoral, and blinkered, these people who would make Goebbels proud, have besmirched and continue to castigate those who wish to challenge their version of history and their version of Hinduism. To make my task easier, I am going to quote from Shourie's articles (The Law of the Land vs. Their Singular Focus) in which he, in his usual painstaking manner, details the chronology and the relevant facts. Here it goes:

There were seven sets of incidents. The first -- the one that most blackened the name of the country -- was the rape of four nuns in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh Government has completed investigations, and arrested the suspects. It turns out that there are as many Christians in the wretched lot as non-Christians, and that the rapes were committed not in furtherance of any religious cause, but because of local animosities -- two groups were contending with each other, one side concluded that the local church people were siding with the other group, and decided to teach them a lesson.

"Jhabua re-enacted in Jhajjar," proclaimed a four-column headline of The Hindustan Times in regard to the second incident. It reported -- on the authority of one of the chief propagandists of Christian organizations, he also doubles up as an Editor -- that nuns in Jhajjar, Haryana had been set upon and molested. The Observer of Business and Politics sent its correspondents to follow up the story. They found that the story was a complete fabrication. The nuns had arrived in Jhajjar some two-three years earlier. They had started teaching sewing to the local girls -- we will hear more of setting up such services as we proceed. There was an election for the local mahila mandal. Two groups were locked in a spirited contest as through the mandal they could get control over the profitable tailoring business. The nuns began to espouse the candidate of one group. Members of the other group came, shouted at them, remonstrated with them, and asked them to stay out of local rivalries. No one was molested. The entire conversation with the nuns was taped by the reporters. The paper published the facts. Neither the propagandist-Editor nor The Hindustan Times returned to the story they had played up so much.

"The third incident originated in a story put out by the Associated Press. An American doctor, Dr. John Sylvester, working in Allahabad attacked by Hindu fundamentalists, the agency reported, has had to seek shelter in a Baptist Church, his clinic broken up.... Sylvester is not a medical doctor, he has a Ph. D. in Economics. He is not an American, his wife is. He has no clinic, instead he runs two schools. Neither he nor his wife, nor their schools had ever been attacked. But the assault was the talk in atrocity-circles : in the papers, on Internet.

In the fourth incident, a nun was said to have been raped in Baripada, Orissa. Again, in less than a flash, the incident was all over -- in the papers, on Internet. The local missionary was in the forefront in giving it currency : he declared that "local communal outfits" were the ones who had raped the lady. Everyone ran with this, and the rape was projected as a continuation of the attacks by Bajrang Dal types on helpless Christians. The medical examination disclosed no signs of rape, not even of struggle : the marks were reported to be "superficial and self-inflicted". Police were also struck by a telling detail. The lady was asked for the garments she had been wearing - these were the items that were most likely to have had the decisive evidence to nail the culprits : semen and all - the investigators were told that all the clothes had been burnt immediately after the assault. Police and district officials were said to be non-plussed about how to handle the matter - lest the state government take umbrage.

In the fifth incident, a young girl and boy were found murdered in Kandhamal, also in Orissa. Although the murders had taken place in a remote forest, one TV channel had pictures by the evening bulletin -- not just of the bodies but of policemen hacking their way through the forest to them. The local officials said that there seemed to be no communal angle to the murders, but they were portrayed in our papers and those abroad as part of continuing attacks on Christians by militant Hindus. The incident got redoubled prominence : it became a butt in the factional war within Congress -- local Congressmen found in it the ultimate weapon in their efforts to replace J. B. Patnaik, the Chief Minister. Soon, the murderer was arrested -- he turned out to be from the same community, and the same religion as the victims. And the killings seemed to have been triggered by the usual, not just local but personal jealousies. I would sincerely request you to scour the back-issues of your papers, and compare the prominence that was given to news of the murders originally with the way news of the suspect having been found, and of his having confessed to the crime was treated.

The sixth incident was in fact not one but a set of attacks on Churches in Dangs. Reports in our so-called "national", that is English papers portrayed the attacks as the handiwork of militant Hindu organizations affiliated to the RSS. Reports in the papers of Gujarat pointed in an entirely different direction. The local Sarvodaya leaders who have been working in the area for over forty years put the responsibility at the door of the missionaries and their aggressive proselytizing activities. In the English press, an organization styling itself as the Hindu Jagran Manch was held to have executed the attacks. The VHP said that the organization had nothing to do with it. The Indian Express showed that this organization had been listed in an RSS-brochure as one of its affiliates. The suspects have all been arrested.

The seventh incident -- the one that resounded all over the world like the rape of the four nuns -- was of course the brutal killing of Staines and his little sons. The killers are yet to be caught. The principal suspect has been widely named -- rival organizations have alleged that he has been affiliated to the opposing organization: Hindu organizations have alleged that he has been close to "progressive" politicians of UP, the latter have alleged that he has been a member of the Bajrang Dal. The press in India and the world over has portrayed the killings as part of the same series of assaults on Christians.

I think five conclusions are in order. The first five incidents show that it is wholly wrong to rush to conclusions, in particular one should not build a pattern out of one or two incidents, and then see or portray events as being part of that pattern. There was a meeting of Parliament's Consultative Committee on Home Affairs a few days ago. The murders of that young girl and boy in Kandhamal, Orissa, were much in the air. I happened to inquire of the Home Ministry officials how many murders take place in India in a year. They telephoned to get the figure: thirty one thousand and...., they said. That being the case, we should pause before we fit the latest murder taking place in some remote forest into the theory of the moment.

Second, it is evident that in this instance, a pattern came to be so swiftly constructed and every incident projected as being part of that pattern, in part because there is a very well-knit network for disseminating information as well as miasmas -- in India and the world over. Recall how the shortfall in the onion crop came to be made into a national "crisis". Because of natural factors there had been a shortfall. Suddenly, story upon story began appearing : from Nasik -- disastrous losses in the crop; from Haryana -- ruinous loss....; traders sensed the opportunity to make a killing, and held back what they had; the price climbed another notch; consumers rushed to shops; the evening TV bulletins showed long queues; prices shot up again.... Elections over, the stories just disappeared from the front pages of papers, the cover pages of magazines. How come?

Third, in the present instance of Christians, it became that much easier for that network to project the incidents as being part of a general assault because of the foolish, incendiary statements of a few who presumed that they were speaking up for Hindus.

Fourth, as a Commission of Inquiry headed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court is in place, at least now, instead of trading allegations, whoever has information on the Staines' killings -- including journalists who may have gathered primary evidence -- should furnish it to the Judge.

Fifth, in regard to the rapes at Jhabua and the attacks in Dangs, we should all press for action on proposals which the Prime Minister and Home Minister have urged. In his Address on so sacred an occasion as Martyrs' Day, the Prime Minister said that he was for day-to-day trials in such cases : as suspects in both sets of instances have already been rounded up, all should join to ensure that the trials do in fact take place at this pace. The Home Minister has said that he is for prescribing death-penalty for rape : Jhabua is an excellent case from which to commence this change. But there is a real problem, and if it is neglected -- as the growth of Bhindranwale was neglected for three murderous years, as the Babri mosque matter was neglected for decades -- grave consequences are bound to follow. That is not a warning, not a dhamki. It is a forecast -- exactly at par with the forecasts which persons like me had made in regard to Punjab, the capitulation to fundamentalists on Shah Bano, the shutting of eyes to the conversions in Meenakshipuram, and, of course, the Babri mosque. On each of those occasions, our forecast -- that the capitulation and neglect would stoke a mighty reaction -- was dismissed as the hallucination of communalists. In regard to each matter, those forebodings turned out to be true. I do hope that that will not be the sequence again.

The problem is this. The singular objective of all churchmen in India is conversion, or, to use their term, the harvesting of souls for Jesus. Their documents and publications show that in their faith everything they do is, and should be an instrument for attaining this singular objective. Moreover, because of severe problems which the Church is facing in places like Europe, church-groups have made India a special target for the coming decades. One point is that this sort of activity flies in the face of our law. The more serious point is that conversions on the scale they are aiming at, conversions by means they claim as warranted in what they insist is a "divinely ordained" task are bound to invite a grim reaction. And this is where the "success" of our secularists in preventing the State from taking corrective action -- on this matter as on infiltration from Bangladesh, on the activities of Islamic fundamentalist groups, on reform of civil law -- is pushing society into taking the law into its own hands. And in that lies a fatal difference. In contending with a problem, a State can act, it usually acts in an orderly manner. Society is too disorganized for its action to be orderly. Inundated by infiltrators, people cannot get to the authorities in Bangladesh, they will get at their neighbour in the adjoining slum. Incensed by mounting conversions, they cannot get to the Pope in Rome, or the evangelist headquarters in the USA, they will leap at the poor convert next door.

A long quote, a very long one.

I don't apologize to you the reader, but I apologize to Mr. Shourie for relying on him to do the work of explaining, clarifying, and debunking.

I also bet that the intellectuals on crutches at the "BJP Government Watch", the organizers of pseudo peace marches, the people who have held power for the last 50 years don't read Mr. Shourie.

Have you read the wild and vile abuse that the historian Romila Thapar has heaped on Arun Shourie? But have you also noticed that she and her ilk have not had one, NOT ONE clear refutation of Shourie's research into their program of abuse against Hinduism, their concoction of history, and their calculated plots to enrich themselves at the expense of the Indian tax payer?

Posturing, I propose, comes more easily and takes little effort to the pseudo secularists of this world. They spout some romantic stories about minorities not wanting any red carpet treatment, and some hilarious humbuggery about the "erstwhile and Eveready Congress Nationalistic party." The Congress, from Indira Gandhi's time, if not from earlier times, has institutionalized caste, corruption, collusion between politicians and criminals, and dynastic rule. That many pseudo-secularists have no problems with any or all of these, and instead try to slap the RSS and the BJP in their face should get the same deserving response.

But who will deliver it? I ask this rhetorically to point out how easy it is for the poorly educated, badly informed, prejudiced and blinkered of the world to call someone unpatriotic and un-Godly. The humbuggery they try to pass off as "wise counsel" will easily be gobbled up by the romantic, the easily carried away, and those wet-behind-the-ears reader. I say, "Beware"!

This article was originally published at Sulekha.

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