Politicization of Students in Karnataka - Hindutuva is NOT Hinduism : Part 2

Unemployment rate is rising in alarming rate, jobs are retrenched and prices of essential commodities are touching the sky; the economy is struggling because of low consumption, the RBI is projecting lower GDP growth and daily life of an ordinary Indian become stressful because the world and Indian economy is stumbling. Every Indian is expecting the state and the union government to do something to stabilize the economy. With this prevailing condition, in Gujarat, Minister of State for Women's Welfare Mayaben Kodnani and State Vishwa Hindu Parishad general secretary Jaideep Patel seeking anticipatory bail for the case in which 90 Indians were burned alive in 2002 and in Karnataka, on January 24th, young Ram sena activists attacked innocent girls in pub in the name of moral policing. Muslims, Christians, people from socially and economically lower classes and women are attacked in various contexts BUT the charge is same; they are demoralizing the Indian society, they are traitors. Who are attacking the above mentioned Indians? Are the Hindus attacking them? No, they are NOT Hindus, they are Sangh Parivar and whose ideology is Hindutuva.

Hindutuva is NOT Hinduism. Hindutuva is a political ideology of Sangh Parivar. The term Hindutuva was coined by Veer Savarkar in 1920s in the pamphlet, Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Veer Savarkar was the president of Hindu Mahasabha. The Hindu Mahasabha was founded in 1915. The RSS has been formed out of Hindu Mahasabha in 1925 and Bharatiya Jana Sangh(known as Jana Sangh) was formed as political wing of the RSS in 1951. The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) is formed out of Jana Sangh in 1980 since the Jana Sangh was NOT able to show any electoral results. The present president of Hindu Mahasabha is Himani Savarkar, the daughter of Gopal Godse and niece of Nathuram Godse(the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi). She is married to the late Ashok Savarkar, nephew of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Now, the RSS, the VHP and the BJP are represented as Sangh Parivar. They have many fraternal organizations such as Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena , Ram Sena Rashtrawadi, Sriram Sena, Bharatiya Jana Paksham et al. The list is in fact very long.

Hindutuva is a political ideology of Sangh Parivar which says India is a monolithic society; nationalism and Hinduism are one same. It exhorts the Indian nationalism and the Hindu nationalism are one and the same. They are doing everything in the name of Hinduism NOT for the Hindus BUT to achieve political power. It's NOT necessary to do something good to the Hindus by destroying Muslims, Christians, other low caste people. Until, 1980s these outfits were NOT able to show any electoral gains so they honey coated their agenda which is popularly known as 'Hidden Agenda'. In later 1980s and early 1990s when India was facing touch time in economy in which inflation was out of control and rupee started losing it's value, these Sangh Parivar outfits raised Ram temple issue and carried out Rath yatra in Japanese made vehicle. People across India were killed as result of this temple issue. L.K.Advani used the Rath yatra as ruse to counter then the Prime Minister V.P. Singh's proposal to implement Mandal commission's recommendations. Mandalization has the potential to divide the Hindus vertically between upper caste and other backward classes and it'll damage the BJP's Hindu (backward class) vote bank. The BJP provided the outside support to the V.P.Singn government. In 1992, these very outfits destroyed the Babri Majid and responsible for communal riots followed by that. It's NOT something new; that these outfits ignore the need of the country and peruse their lines to distort the common national goal. When the Indians were fighting against British imperialism these outfits betrayed the Indian national movement and supported the British. The British were NOT traitors of Indian society!

Toiling working class, starving farmers and despondent unorganized masses expressed their angry and voted the congress out of power in 1998. In 1998, the second Hinduva government was installed in the centre as a coalition government; the first government which took power in 1996 is last for 13 days. It's mainly because of then the congress government failed to perform and the Hindutuva forces were able to mobilize the people easily since the opponent was weak. In 2004, the BJP led NDA government was voted out of the office since they also failed to perform. Rampant corruption, inhuman atrocities against Muslims, Christians and other minorities, the US prone foreign policy were examples of the mismanagement. The BJP intruded the Indian military and educational institutes. The BJP used Kargil heroes for election campaigns.

India is a multi cultural, multi religious, multi linguistic plural society. We have a common goal to make our nation prosperous. We have to provide employment to everyone and to eradicate the poverty. We've to provide world class education and health care. We've to industrialize the nation by large scale industrialization and to encourage entrepreneurship. The Sangh Parivar is always against such national goals and exports the feeling of rage and goad communal riots among the Indian people and make their political benefit.

The students have to reject these pseudo nationalists. The collapse of Sangh Parivar is NOT automatic. The people and students have to organize themselves to reject such anti-indain ideology, Hindutuva and stood for the plural and secular Indian society. It's the time for the students of Karnataka to be aware of Hindu terrorism and extremism which is based on Hindutuva and to reject them. The students have to organize themselves under secular and democratic political forces and fight against religious terrorism.

Report of awareness campaign against Communalism & Terrorism

People for Secular Democracy conducted an Awareness campaign against Communalism & Terrorism in Bangalore on Feb 7th. Around 150 people from different sections from Bangalore participated and the program was enlightened by the talks of High Court Justice Nag Mohandas & Professor for Astrophysics Dr. Sabyasachi Chatterjee. The program also had Cultural Programs by various groups, documentary show of "Ram ke Nam" & distribution of the book "The Real Face of Terrorism in India" published by People for Secular Democracy. Those who want the hard copies of the book "The Real Face of Terrorism in India" please contact seculardemocracy@gmail.com. (it is absolutely free of cost).

Shri Ramsena – Hooliganism of Hindutva

Activists from the ultra-conservative Hindutwa group Sri Ram Sena (Ram's Army) released a serious of vicious attack against women in Mangalore on different occasions. The camera footage shows women happened to be in pub were slapped, kicked and pushed to the ground and in some cases attempted to strip them by dozens of men. In another incident, a PUC II student and daughter of an MLA in Mangalore was kidnapped and harassed for talking to a muslim boy who is her brother's friend in a bus. The boy was later brutally assaulted. Suicide committed by a school going girl of age 15 years due to these anti social elements' harassment and public humiliation is the latest event in the whole episode. These reports show how gravely these groups are talibanizing our society. As Valentine’s day is nearing, Hindutva groups announced to oppose the same at any cost, as it is not part of the ‘culture’. They went ahead to warn such a way that if they see any two girl and boy together, they would make sure that they would marry each other!

These attacks and warnings were to protect Hindu morality and traditional Indian culture!! It does not end there, Pramod Muthalik - head of Shri Ram Sena justifies the attempt and informs whoever has done this did a good job and girls doing these activities are not acceptable.

India is a vastly diversified country and a multi cultural society with people speaking different languages, have different ways of life, different food culture, has belief in different religions, different identities etc. It was and is not a homogenous entity. Society is always going through pain staking evolution for betterment. It always created new thoughts, culture, morals etc for a better collaboration of people among the society in search of a stable political and economical setup which gives happy and equality among the people. India also was not an exception from the above process, and again History confirms same.

The question of progressive nature of the evolving culture and further validations are not coming under the scope of this write up, This is an attempt to portray the Sanghparivar’s ideological bankruptcy and their political aim; we are trying to answer an important question “Why Indian culture’s proprietary ownership is taken up by SanghParivar and other Hindutwa organizations?”

Hindutva groups and Ramsena’s attempts of equating culture with a polished predefined monolithic form is a vicious attempt and let us see what they are indented to do. Hindutwa groups’ version of ‘culture’ has two fold. First one is - it should be according to medieval dharmashastra book “Manusmruthi” and different other manuscripts (and traditional law books) which told us “No woman deserves freedom”, “Shoodra has no rights to study Veda (sacred books), If he does, his tongue has to be pulled off”, "Animals, drums, illiterates, low castes, and women are worthy of being beaten", etc. Society in subcontinent was subjected to social stratification and social restrictions in which social classes are defined by thousands of hereditary groups, often termed as jatis or castes. Society was completely ruled and constructed and based on Chathurvarnyam. The top cast – Brahmins, and Kshatriyas enjoyed power and benefit of work of masses – shoodras and Vaishyas. It was exposed to numerous kinds of anacharas and was evidently male dominant. Sati, child marriage, non allowance of widow marriages, multiple interpretation of law to different caste and genders were part of that Dark Age. Majority of people were suppressed under the worst form of casteism.

Second one is that, only they should be part of the new economic liberalization process, so the profit and business would be accumulated on them to attain a super class stature in current society. All front runners of the hindutwa’s cultural and political offshoots are part of this run. In short, they require a society which is in compliance with Manusmruthi, which would satisfy their economical/ political aspirations. Continuous involvement of Cultural arena is aimed to attain this target.

This is not first time Hindutwa splinter groups are showing this rowdyism and moral policing (for achieving above said political target). Attack against M.F Hussain the world acclaimed painter (it would be good to remember the murals and sculptures in Khaguraho and other part of India which portray different aspect of the society that had been prevailed in Indian subcontinent.), attack aginst Deepa Mehtah’s film screening, attacks against Sahmath groups activities are other examples of this aspect.

Apart from this, their interpretation of tradition and culture does not allow to live people who does not believe in their interpretations and thoughts. Especially other religions do not have any rights to live this sacred land, as they are not ‘indigenous’ in this land!! Gujarat pogroms, Babri Masjid demolition, attacks against Christian missionaries in different states are products of this stand.

It is shocking but not surprising that organizations like the Sri Ram Sene now act with complete impunity. The State Government which views their criminal acts with benign unconcern is responsible for this state of affairs in which hooligans acting in the name of 'culture' and 'tradition' are allowed not only to trample upon the rights and dignity of young women but now to abduct them at will. This has to counter. We should not allow Sanghparivar and other Hindutva groups’ attempt to wrap up culture in a room. This is the very fascist ideology to capture power by invasion of cultural and historical arena of our country. Let us understand this and unite against this agenda. We request all readers to speak out and uphold the democratic rights and dignity of women and minorities.

The Real Face of Terrorism in India