RSS working on its goal of Hindu Rashtra through the Modi govt
By Krishna Jha
When Mohan Bhagwat said early this month that the primary aim of RSS in its centenary year 2025 would be to build a disciplined and strong Hindu society, he was merely echoing an idea which has long reverberated through the communal rhetoric of the Hindu right.
Such remarks by the chief of an organisation, which is the mentor of the party in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party, only reveals the larger truth – that Mohan Bhagwat is essentially arguing against the very core of the Indian Constitution. It is not a secret that for the first time in independent India we have a government that believes exactly what its backers, the RSS, believe: that a set of citizens has the right to lay down terms of national identity that privilege them over citizens of other faiths.
The Constitution begins by stating that India—that is, Bharat—shall be a Union of States. There is no recourse to history or faith or caste or language or region to prioritise citizens. The Constitution’s clear definition of citizenship is in stark contrast to the remarks made by Mohan Bhagwat and other proponents of Hindutva. “At the commencement of the Constitution every person who has his dominion in the territory of India, also was born in the territory of India; or either of whose parents was born in the territory of India; or who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement, shall be a citizen of India,’’ says the Constitution.
So why is it necessary for the RSS leadership to make any overemphasis on one particular community? The answer is implicit: to keep Muslims, Christians and other minorities out of their definition of India. The Constitution resolutely avoids giving any importance to ethnicity, history or mythology. It defines a geography shared by people who have adopted a set of values enshrined within its pages. Being Hindu has no special significance in this republic.
It is in this context Mohan Bhagwat’s statement, which has been so endlessly and so pointlessly analysed, must be understood. Hindutva allows the RSS chief to speak of inclusiveness without spelling out that Muslims, Christians and other minority communities who are less than equal by definition. Exclusion is built into this rhetoric.
The RSS has to keep saying this because it has no internal legitimacy among all Hindus. And the reason is simple – Hindutva has no real connection with the history of Hinduism. The RSS hates humanity and is completely uncomfortable with secularism, democracy and casteless society. It hates Muslims, Christians and other minorities but doesn’t actually care about the Hindu life outside the sphere of Brahminism. In fact, the Hindutva agenda is to codify Hinduism along Brahminical lines. Thus, it tends to reduce the diversity of Hinduism. The differences between Hindutva and Hinduism are enshrined in these tendencies. This has been the hidden position of the RSS right since its inception.
Groups such as the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits and tribals may fall within the theoretical embrace of the “Hindu Rashtra,” but find themselves excluded in practice. That is why the religious symbols and public rituals that the RSS and the Sangh Parivar really promote do not come from the non-Brahminical cultural context; they are always Brahminical in nature. The battle over nomenclature in the Sangh’s decades-long efforts to co-opt tribals in parts of central India is equally revelatory. The Sangh prefers the term “Vanvasi”, or “forest dweller,” over “Adivasi”, or “original inhabitant,” even when most tribals today are not forest dwellers, because to accept the latter term would mean acknowledging that other groups could have an older claim to this land than Hindus.
This is the reason why the RSS’s claim of speaking on behalf of all Hindus remains seriously handicapped as it is widely perceived to be an organisation through which the Brahminists dream of establishing their rule by converting India into a Hindu Rashtra. The organisation has faced this handicap right since its inception. In fact, the RSS’s adoption of the saffron (Bhagwa) flag of Peshwas – the erstwhile Brahmin rulers of Maharashtra who preceded the British conquest of the area – as its own flag has been seen as an indication of its secret desire. The non-Brahminist Hindus have, therefore, always despised the RSS.
Historically, the RSS arose from within the Brahmin community in 1925 in Nagpur, from where it used the support of Brahminists to spread out in other areas. All its founders – Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, BS Moonje, LV Paranjpe, BB Tholkar and Ganesh Savarkar (the elder brother of VD Savarkar) – belonged to the Brahmin caste. So were most of its original members. Since then the RSS has pursued its core aim to establish the Brahminical hegemony. All through its history, the RSS has flitted evasively through the fault lines of Hindu caste system, showing as if it is against the caste-based discrimination even while working for strengthening the Brahminical hegemony.
Displacing the wrath of non-Brahmins from their real oppressors, the Brahminists, onto imaginary enemies, Muslims and Christians, remains the hallmark of its strategy, both in the past and the present. It has used religious identity and loyalty to attract Hindus, mobilized them to capture political power and guided them to believe not in an inclusive idea of India as enshrined in India’s Constitution but in an exclusivist Hindu Rashtra – an idea that was expounded by VD Savarkar in his 1923 monograph, “Essentials of Hindutva”. (IPA Service)