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"They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t
a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I
wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a
Jew;
And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to
speak up." --Martin Niemöller
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July 28, 2010
Interview with D.R. Goyal (Frontline 31 July
2010)<http://communalism.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-dr-goyal-frontline-31.html>
Frontline, 31 July 2010
*Culture of hate *
AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA
*Interview with D.R. Goyal, author of an authoritative narrative of RSS
history. *
SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
*D.R. Goyal. He says the militant ideology of the majority is more vicious
than those of other sections. *
D.R. GOYAL, at present with the Qaumi Ekta Trust, an anti-communalism front,
wrote an account of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in 1978, tracing
its history and its politics. It is seen as the most authentic account of
the RSS as he himself was an RSS member from 1942 to 1947. He left the
organisation after realising that it was corrupt, prevented inventive
thinking and propagated a culture of hatred among Hindus. He has also
written a biography of Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani of Dar-ul-Uloom and is
now working on a book on Indian madrassas.
In an interview to *Frontline*, the author of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
elaborates on how the Hindutva hand in the Ajmer, Hyderabad and Malegaon
blasts is nothing new and explains how Hindutva as a political ideology
breeds terror.
*The investigations in the Ajmer, Hyderabad and Malegaon blast cases point
towards the involvement of Hindu fundamentalists. Over the past five years,
we have heard a lot about fundamentalist Hindu organisations plotting bomb
blasts in Muslim areas across the country. This kind of secret plotting
seems to be a new development in India. What could be its political
repercussions?*
First of all, bomb-making and such other acts are not a new thing for these
organisations. For example, in 1947, Mr L.K. Advani, then an RSS swayamsewak
and not a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, ran away from Karachi because in
his house bombs were being made to kill Mr Jinnah. Many of his associates
were arrested and punished. He was able to get out. Now he says that he came
by plane to Gujarat after the incident. But in his first biography by Atma
Ram, it was said that he took a boat from Karachi to Gujarat and then could
go to Rajasthan and other places in India.
It is not only bombs. Terrorism can take many forms. What happened in
Gujarat in 2002? Is it not terrorism? See Kandhamal. Are they not
terrorising Muslims and Christians? I would say that it is not Hindu
terrorism, as most of the media have coined it, but it is Hindutva
terrorism, which is political in nature.
*Do you recollect any other instances in history where the RSS and other
such Hindu organisations engaged with such forms of terrorism?*
Many such instances can be noted. What was Madanlal Pahwa doing when he
threw a bomb at Mahatma Gandhi? Was he not inspired by the RSS? After that,
Nathuram Godse fired at Mahatma Gandhi and killed him. The RSS tried to
wriggle out of the matter by trying to dissociate itself from Godse. But
later, Frontline quoted Godse's brother as saying that they were all members
of the RSS family. All the brothers, not only one. So, it is not a question
of something new happening. They say that they are trying to be friendly
with Muslims. The fact is that they can never do that ideologically. M.S.
Golwalkar, the RSS' most important ideologue, in his book We or Our
Nationhood Defined says the minorities in this country should be treated as
Hitler treated Jews in Germany. So the Muslims and Christians should be
treated the same way.
*The RSS and other Hindutva organisations have started attacking media
offices. For instance, the Headlines Today office was attacked in Delhi and
Zee 24 was attacked in Mumbai. We saw the same kind of attack last year at
the CNN-IBN office.*
This, too, is nothing new. In pre-Independence days, they were against
publishing any news about the RSS. Even if some newspaper published a report
of Golwalkar arriving somewhere, it was attacked. Journalists were attacked
for publishing news about the RSS. It is true that until 1947 there was
hardly any news published about the activities of the RSS, which means that
they were trying to work secretly. Secret work is always the mark of
terrorists. They started open work only after 1947. The scheme was to set up
a political front. Various issues of the RSS mouthpiece Organiser in the
late 1940s clearly show a debate within the RSS whether to enter politics or
not. The argument in favour of setting up a political party was that when
the RSS was banned, there were no political voices to condemn the ban and
defend it. It was with this objective that they formed the Jan Sangh. But it
was not a regular party with a constitution, a concrete political programme,
and a foreign policy stand. The Jan Sangh's only programme was to defend the
RSS. And then they started taking up the issues of Akhand Bharat and
abolition of Article 370. It was Atal Bihari Vajpayee who first stated that
history could not be changed and Pakistan would have to be accepted as a
nation state. Before that, they [Hindutva leaders] did not even accept
Pakistan as an independent state. They wanted to have Pakistan just as
Pakistan wanted to have Kashmir. But the BJP still publicly states that it
draws its inspiration from the RSS.
I would say that their attitude towards social life is the same as that of
the Taliban – those who are not Hindus have to be punished. Either you
convert to Hinduism or you will be punished.
*What explains the time gap of such terrorist action by the RSS and its
sister groups? All the examples you gave were pre-Independence and the
recent terrorist acts are not more than five years old.*
In between, they were actively involved in engineering riots. If you look at
the pattern of the Sangh Parivar-led riots, detailed planning and execution
were involved. Babri Masjid demolition means for them a statement that
unless they get back all the temples destroyed in history, they will
demolish all the mosques. What does it mean? The RSS is creating an
atmosphere where fear prevails and other people are expected to act out of
fear through riots and carnage like in Kandhamal. See what is happening in
Karnataka. The RSS, as an organisation, has not been properly understood
both by our state and by our people.
*The RSS, in rhetoric at least, has dissociated itself from organisations
like Sanatan Sanstha, Abhinav Bharat or Sri Ram Sene, which have been linked
to bomb blasts and rioting.*
The RSS has always said that it is a social and cultural organisation and
not a political one and that it does only social work. But the question to
ask is: When did it start saying this? Only after it was banned. Golwalkar
and Savarkar were arrested for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and were
released only on the grounds that the prosecution could not produce enough
witnesses. Some of the witnesses ran away. If Godse's brother is to be
believed, all of them were RSS workers. Then it was the teachings of the RSS
that prompted Nathuram to kill Gandhi. Madanlal Pahwa could also be cited as
a case in point. It was banned because Sardar Patel himself wrote in a
letter to [Jawaharlal] Nehru that saving Hindus was one thing but creating
an atmosphere [of hatred] against Muslims was wrong. He also wrote that the
worst thing the RSS did was to create an atmosphere that led to Gandhi being
assassinated.
To get the ban withdrawn, the RSS submitted a constitution to the Home
Ministry saying that it accepted the national flag and the Indian
Constitution. Until 1949, the RSS had no constitution. The organisation had
operated for almost a quarter of a century without a constitution. It was a
secret organisation.
According to their constitution, they had to keep a record of its members.
They have no such record as yet. Their constitution is not even known to
many members. In 1967, there was a court question to the RSS about its
finances and whether it paid taxes. The RSS replied that its work was akin
to politics and it was not liable to pay taxes. Their accounts are all
secret. When I was in the RSS, no one except Golwalkar was allowed to write
anything. My fault was that I wrote three letters to a senior person in the
RSS asking the organisation to help Hindus when the famine had broken out.
This was criticised. My habit of reading was also severely discouraged. I
was then asked to come to the central office where I saw all kinds of
corruption. Money laundering was very much there. All these organisations
are Hindutva carriers and members of the RSS. Dissociating itself from these
organisations, therefore, would hardly prove the RSS' innocence. For
instance, in 1969, riots broke out in Ahmedabad. There was a separate
organisation called “Support for Hindus” to lead the riot. Similarly, when
there were riots in Jalgaon and Bhiwandi, a similar organisation was set up.
However, if you look at their composition, all the members were also members
of the RSS. The parent organisation of such groups that engineer such riots
is always the RSS.
*In the teachings and writings of the RSS, do you see enough instigation for
militant action?*
The RSS was formed at the request of Savarkar, who had written the book
Hindutva. But because Savarkar was not able to function openly owing to his
house arrest, he asked K.B. Hedgewar to start a youth organisation as an
affiliate to the Hindu Mahasabha to propagate Hindutva politics. It is well
known that until 1937, the RSS was a volunteer organisation under the Hindu
Mahasabha. But after Golwalkar lost an election for the post of secretary of
the Hindu Mahasabha, he severed all relations with the Hindu Mahasabha.
Golwalkar wrote We or Our Nationhood Defined and Bunch of Thoughts.
In Bunch of Thoughts, he clearly identifies three enemies – Muslims,
Christians, and Communists. If you have defined enemies, it is assumed that
you have to fight and kill them. He also wrote that sacrificing your life is
not heroism but success is. He wrote about “parakramavada” (aggressive
bravery). You have to be aggressive and win to become heroic.
When I was an RSS member as a child, I was very averse to bloodshed. They
used to teach us how to kill pigeons as if we should start with pigeons, and
then graduate later to killing bigger mortals.
*In recent times, the appointment of Nitin Gadkari as president of the BJP
is being seen as the RSS asserting its control over its political front
again.*
The job of the Jan Sangh was to defend the RSS. Power was never its
objective. It so happened that in 1977 it was able to collaborate with other
political parties. They [Hindutva forces] started getting into power. Then,
in 1998, they got power at the Centre. When this happened, their old leaders
Vajpayee and Advani started to see RSS chiefs and leaders as their juniors.
As long as Golwalkar was alive and until Balasaheb Deoras was there in the
RSS, these two leaders of the BJP revered them and were also afraid of them.
After Golwalkar and Deoras, they felt that they were senior to the RSS
chief. This led to some differences between the RSS and the BJP. Former RSS
chief K.S. Sudarshan even went ahead to say that these two should take
retirement. After Vajpayee became too ill to be politically active and the
BJP lost the last parliamentary elections under Advani's leadership, the RSS
used it to its advantage to impose its own man, Gadkari, on the BJP.
Factionalism, however, has grown in the RSS. Mohan Bhagwat is seen as a
junior person. Students who go to colleges and schools prefer to go to Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad [student wing of the BJP] rather than an RSS
shakha.
*Could you tell us more about the process of indoctrination in the RSS?*
The speech made by the RSS chief at the annual Dasara function in Nagpur is
circulated to all the shakhas and the members are made to hear it many
times. If you compare what Nitin Gadkari is talking about and what Bhagwat
spoke of in the last meeting, they are similar. He talked about China,
Maoists, failure in security arrangements – the same thing. They say that
not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.
*What, according to you, will be the political repercussion of such a
militant trend in the RSS and other Hindutva groups?*
When they came to power at the Centre, they gave up the demands of a Ram
temple [at the Babri Masjid site] and abolition of Article 370. Then a
person like Kalyan Singh also declared that they were cowards. The Vishwa
Hindu Parishad [VHP] refused to invite Advani to a function in Haridwar,
complaining that he did not push the Ram temple issue. Both the RSS and the
VHP are trying to revive the issue in another name, “Hanuman Jagaran”, but
the BJP is reluctant. The VHP is planning to hold a meeting of sadhus and
sants in Ayodhya to revive that. They may not be able to do that, but they
are trying.
*How do you differentiate between Hindutva terrorism and Islamist terrorism?
*
Terrorism always starts when a community identifies itself as a nation. The
same is the case with the Taliban in Pakistan. The militant ideology of the
majority section of population, however, is more vicious in nature. In
Ludhiana, I remember a Muslim leader called Ludhianvi who was close to
Nehru. When there were riots in Ludhiana, he sheltered many Muslims at his
house.
Muslims thought since their leader was there, there was no need for them to
leave their original homes. The RSS realised this, and every night fire
torches and stones were thrown at his house. Subsequently, Nehru requested
him to leave Ludhiana and come to Delhi. Now, there is hardly any Muslim
population in Ludhiana.
Islamist terrorism, as I see in India, was not organised until recently.
They were mostly reactions. You could see individual reactions from goondas
like Dawood Ibrahim who held the torch of the Muslim cause. It was because
Muslims were marginalised and discriminated against, the cause of which
could be attributed to organisations like the RSS.
>From 1950 onwards, a trend started wherein a riot results in polarisation
and consolidation of Hindu votes in favour of the Jan Sangh and later the
BJP. The inquiry commissions set up after every riot failed to point out
that a particular organisation was behind it. Whenever the Sangh Parivar
combine finds itself in a politically weak position, it does such things.
See how the BJP, pushed to a corner in politics, is once again trying to
revive the Hindutva debate through such terrorist acts. Hindutva forces have
always used terrorism to their political advantage and not because they
suffer socially and economically like the Muslims in India.
Posted by c-info at Wednesday, July 28,
2010<http://communalism.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-dr-goyal-frontline-31.html>
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