By Krishna Jha
A public interest plea filed by Justice Anjana Prakash, formerly of the Patna High Court and senior journalist Qurban Ali has been accepted by the Supreme Court for hearing. It is against the hate speeches at the Haridwar Dharma Sansad held on December 17 and again on December 19, in two separate meetings. One was organised by Yati Narsinghanand and the other by ‘Hindu Yuva Vahini’. The court also allowed the petitioners to file complaints against planned similar events in the days ahead.
As in the videos of the Sansad available publicly, the speakers at the Dharma Sansad were calling for the massacre of 20 crore Muslim citizens of India. The gathering itself, by its call for genocide of Muslims was not only violation of our Constitution, but also against the very ethos of our country.
The very fact that this gathering was allowed was a massive failure on the part of state government’s law and order machinery.
Dharma Sansad was called in the name of Hindutva forces, an ideology of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh RSS). It is Hitlerism in the garb of Hinduva. It concentrates only on gaining the absolute state power, reconstructing India as a whole, politically, ideologically, and historically. Sansad is one example of the same. It denies pluralism, thrives on fundamentalism. It believes in the singularity of Hindutva and hence it is not the issue of minorities submitting, it just strives to take the command of entire consciousness of the people in the country. Its cadres are fed on poison of communalism
KR Malkani who edited RSS mouthpiece Organiser for at least five decades, said once while characterising RSS, “ Fact is that RSS is not political. It is if I may coin a word, Metaphysical. It does not express its interest in power as such, but it is very much interested in factors and forces that go into the making of country’s politics.” Meta politics is only an escape route. It only means exercise of power without taking the responsibility. Hence the silence on the issue maintained by the Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and central governments and their refusal to condemn the hate speeches and blood thirsty calls made by Hardwar Dharam Sansad.
All this has marked the beginning of a new phase of politics and religion sharing the same stage and tradition getting a new face. It tries to feed the masses with justifications for fascism, vilifying democracy, freedom and ultimately right to life. Dharma Sansad calls are the blazing examples of the same. But all is not lost, as there is still optimism. There are those who carry the voice of the masses without any fear.
One example is the 13-month dharna of farmers who went through cold and rains, tear gas and tortures, and came out with success. They are the organic leaders, refusing to compromise, and representing real threat to the fascist forces. It was Gramsci who named them ‘organic’ in the war of attrition. Italian government put him in jail as they considered him a threat for their hegemony. In eight years that he was incarcerated, he never stopped serving the masses, and wrote profusely for them. V D Savarkar, after drafting the script for his Hindutva, sought support from the same demonic right wing that served fascism. He did not only support their policy towards jews, but even admired the show of might and brutality with which their entire race was victimised. They call it ‘Holocaust’.
Two of the themes Sawarkar generally picked up were international situation and Hindu-Muslim relations. In Pune, in late 1930s, Savarkar addressed agathering of 20000 people where he spoke on India’s foreign policy. He said political systems were the reflections of the mood of respective people and Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy came because people wanted them. He was actually coming in favour of rule of finance capital that was slowly ushering in the entire world. He also mentioned German minorities in Czechoslovakia referring to the minorities in our country. His speech was very popular among right wingers and was published in German right wing paper.
MS Golwalkar, the venerated figure of the RSS, had admired Germany for its purging of a whole race, of jews. His position was that Muslims should ‘cease to be foreigners’ and stay in the country totally subservient to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, demanding no privileges, not even the citizen’s right in the country.
The same hate stream, kept alive for decades in the post independence days, has come to the fore now as the Dharma Sansad speakers echoed the same fervour when it openly called for the massacre of 20 crore Muslim citizens of India and threatened to ‘cleanse’ villages of this community.
A letter from the retired officials to the BJP government demanding action on such unconstitutional activities threatening the secular weave of our country pointed out that the very fact that this gathering was allowed was a massive failure on the part of the state government’s law and order machinery. Even now, after international outrage, an FIR has been registered under only one section against three people. (IPA Service)