hussain.mahammed
a lonely traveller
THE RASTRIYA SWAYAM SEVAK SANGH AND VIOLENCE
Violence is a core aspect of the Sangh’s Hindutva ideology. The RSS (rastriya swayam sevak sangh) has never been shy of advocating violence for the achievement of its goals of a Hindu Rashtra. With a history of inciting and conducting violent campaigns going back to the partition of India and Pakistan, there is no greater exemplar of Hindutva as a fundamentally violent movement than the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: on January 30, 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, a prominent Hindutva exponent. After Gandhi’s murder, the RSS made many public denials of its association of Godse, but the falsity of these denials is clear from many associated facts:
Godse’s assassination of Gandhi was not the first but the sixth attempt on Gandhi’s life by the Hindutva movement.90 The thesis that Godse was an exception and a misguided young man marginally associated with Hindutva, fades in light of this history of attempts from within the movement. The reaction of the RSS to the murder of Gandhi was one of open elation: RSS members celebrated openly on the streets. Even the then Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was not entirely unsympathetic to the RSS, felt compelled to express his disgust to the then RSS supremo, M.S. Golwalkar, in a letter dated September 11, 1948:91
As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. In fact, opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death.
Years later, Gopal Godse, one of the co-accused in the Gandhi murder case and Nathuram Godse’s brother, confirmed that both he and his brother were actively involved with the RSS at the time of the assassination. In an interview in 1994, he stated:92
All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah [intellectual worker] in the RSS. He has said in his statement that he had left the RSS. He said it because Golwalkar [the then RSS Supremo] and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS.93
So Hindutva, which began its work in a newly independent India with the murder of activist of peace and respect for all communities, has today surfaced in its open and naked form—as a fundamentally fascist movement. It depicts Hinduism as constantly under threat from external, foreign forces (of Islam, Christianity and Secularism), and hence, portrays violence against Muslims, Christians and advocates of pluralism in India as a form of self-defense. This “self defense” is further positioned as the process of regeneration of Hindu manhood. This twin trope of “self-defense” and “lost manhood” that is in need of recovery are part of the daily rhetoric of Hindutva. This psychological justification of violence is under-girded by a more open strategic and essential appreciation of violence, whether it be Golwalkar’s open appreciation for the efforts of the Nazis in Germany towards “purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews,” or Moonje’s hope that the RSS would create conditions of a “military regeneration of Hindus”, and prepare “our boys in the game of killing masses of people.”94 Violence for the Sangh is clearly essential to ensure that the minorities live in fear and seek no privileges of citizenship.
There is ample evidence that this essential and strategic understanding of violence is central to the Hindutva project. Numerous government reports have clearly indicted the Sangh for fomenting communal violence.95 Violence for the RSS is part of a strategy of destroying an integrated multi-religious society and creating polarized communities of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. In a recent film on the RSS, “Men in the Tree,” filmmaker Lalit Vachani records a series of critical interviews with former RSS members. These men speak openly of how it was part of their work as RSS swayamsevaks (volunteers) to create and spread rumors that would produce conditions conducive for a communal riot. The gradual but continuous polarization of the religious communities through violence is a fundamental fact of the Sangh strategy.
As the RSS has grown more powerful and gained legislative power through its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its strategic use of state power and riots to polarize religious communities has started the process of fundamentally destroying and displacing minority communities. Religious violence in India is no longer mobs fighting in the streets, as unfortunate as that was, but is increasingly taking the form of organized pogroms to eliminate and reduce minority communities to rubble. In 1998, when the BJP-led coalition formed the Central Government, attacks against Christian communities escalated significantly.96 But Gujarat 2002 marks the most vicious, brutal and meticulously planned Sangh-led pogrom against the minorities. Starting on February 28, 2004, and continuing for months afterwards, the Sangh orchestrated the massacre of thousands of Muslims, while over 150,000 Muslims were made homeless, thousands of Muslim women raped, mutilated and killed, and Muslim businesses specifically targeted, destroyed and annexed. The BJP state government did nothing to protect the Muslims; it actively colluded with the killers. Numerous autonomous human rights groups have documented the genocide and the Sangh involvement in it. According to the Human Right Watch:
The groups most directly involved in the violence against Muslims include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the Gujarat state government. Collectively, they are known as the sangh parivar, or family of Hindu nationalist organizations. … Numerous police reports filed by eyewitnesses after the attacks have specifically named local VHP, BJP, and Bajrang Dal leaders as instigators or participants in the violence.
Violence is a core aspect of the Sangh’s Hindutva ideology. The RSS (rastriya swayam sevak sangh) has never been shy of advocating violence for the achievement of its goals of a Hindu Rashtra. With a history of inciting and conducting violent campaigns going back to the partition of India and Pakistan, there is no greater exemplar of Hindutva as a fundamentally violent movement than the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: on January 30, 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, a prominent Hindutva exponent. After Gandhi’s murder, the RSS made many public denials of its association of Godse, but the falsity of these denials is clear from many associated facts:
Godse’s assassination of Gandhi was not the first but the sixth attempt on Gandhi’s life by the Hindutva movement.90 The thesis that Godse was an exception and a misguided young man marginally associated with Hindutva, fades in light of this history of attempts from within the movement. The reaction of the RSS to the murder of Gandhi was one of open elation: RSS members celebrated openly on the streets. Even the then Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was not entirely unsympathetic to the RSS, felt compelled to express his disgust to the then RSS supremo, M.S. Golwalkar, in a letter dated September 11, 1948:91
As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. In fact, opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death.
Years later, Gopal Godse, one of the co-accused in the Gandhi murder case and Nathuram Godse’s brother, confirmed that both he and his brother were actively involved with the RSS at the time of the assassination. In an interview in 1994, he stated:92
All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah [intellectual worker] in the RSS. He has said in his statement that he had left the RSS. He said it because Golwalkar [the then RSS Supremo] and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS.93
So Hindutva, which began its work in a newly independent India with the murder of activist of peace and respect for all communities, has today surfaced in its open and naked form—as a fundamentally fascist movement. It depicts Hinduism as constantly under threat from external, foreign forces (of Islam, Christianity and Secularism), and hence, portrays violence against Muslims, Christians and advocates of pluralism in India as a form of self-defense. This “self defense” is further positioned as the process of regeneration of Hindu manhood. This twin trope of “self-defense” and “lost manhood” that is in need of recovery are part of the daily rhetoric of Hindutva. This psychological justification of violence is under-girded by a more open strategic and essential appreciation of violence, whether it be Golwalkar’s open appreciation for the efforts of the Nazis in Germany towards “purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews,” or Moonje’s hope that the RSS would create conditions of a “military regeneration of Hindus”, and prepare “our boys in the game of killing masses of people.”94 Violence for the Sangh is clearly essential to ensure that the minorities live in fear and seek no privileges of citizenship.
There is ample evidence that this essential and strategic understanding of violence is central to the Hindutva project. Numerous government reports have clearly indicted the Sangh for fomenting communal violence.95 Violence for the RSS is part of a strategy of destroying an integrated multi-religious society and creating polarized communities of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. In a recent film on the RSS, “Men in the Tree,” filmmaker Lalit Vachani records a series of critical interviews with former RSS members. These men speak openly of how it was part of their work as RSS swayamsevaks (volunteers) to create and spread rumors that would produce conditions conducive for a communal riot. The gradual but continuous polarization of the religious communities through violence is a fundamental fact of the Sangh strategy.
As the RSS has grown more powerful and gained legislative power through its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its strategic use of state power and riots to polarize religious communities has started the process of fundamentally destroying and displacing minority communities. Religious violence in India is no longer mobs fighting in the streets, as unfortunate as that was, but is increasingly taking the form of organized pogroms to eliminate and reduce minority communities to rubble. In 1998, when the BJP-led coalition formed the Central Government, attacks against Christian communities escalated significantly.96 But Gujarat 2002 marks the most vicious, brutal and meticulously planned Sangh-led pogrom against the minorities. Starting on February 28, 2004, and continuing for months afterwards, the Sangh orchestrated the massacre of thousands of Muslims, while over 150,000 Muslims were made homeless, thousands of Muslim women raped, mutilated and killed, and Muslim businesses specifically targeted, destroyed and annexed. The BJP state government did nothing to protect the Muslims; it actively colluded with the killers. Numerous autonomous human rights groups have documented the genocide and the Sangh involvement in it. According to the Human Right Watch:
The groups most directly involved in the violence against Muslims include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the Gujarat state government. Collectively, they are known as the sangh parivar, or family of Hindu nationalist organizations. … Numerous police reports filed by eyewitnesses after the attacks have specifically named local VHP, BJP, and Bajrang Dal leaders as instigators or participants in the violence.