[Reader-list] An Open Letter To Indian Cricket Team Captain Rahul Dravid By Shamsul Islam

[Sanjay Kak]

An Open Letter To Indian Cricket Team Captain Rahul Dravid

By Shamsul Islam

13 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org

Dear Rahul Dravid,

Namaskar!

You, presently, lead the cricket team of India and wear the National Flag,
Tri-colour while playing for India in different parts of the globe. You must
be well aware of the fact that this Tri-colour represents a
Secular-Democratic India and team led by you which includes players from
different religions and regions of the country, undoubtedly, symbolize the
same reality. I hope you are familiar with the glorious heritage which the
National Flag and a Secular-Democratic polity represent. These are the
products of great anti-colonial struggle and ruthless fight against
theocratic politics represented by organizations like the Muslim League, the
RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. Despite the partition of India on the basis of
religion mainly forced by Muslim League and dastardly killing of Father of
the Nation by persons affiliated to the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, India
chose to remain a non-theocratic state. That is the significance of the
Nation which you and your team represent and the Flag which you display on
your costumes.

I am sorry to write that by participating in the birth centenary programme
of M. S. Golwalkar (Guruji), the ideologue of the RSS, in Nagpur on January
20, 2007, you have not only violated the trust which this country has put in
you but also saddened large sections of your fans who love and adore you
because you and your team represent a Secular-Democratic India. According to
a report which appeared in the Hindi organ of the RSS, Panchjanya (February
4, 2007, p.11), 'Indian cricket captain inaugurated the Surya Namaskar
Mahayagya programme in the Vidarbh region (of Masharashtra)'. This campaign
was organized by RSS 'to commemorate the birth centenary of Shri Guruji' who
happened to be the second chief and the most prominent ideologue of the
RSS.The cover page of Panchjanya also shows you lightening the lamp before
the garlanded photograph of Golwalkar.

I do not know who led you to join this programme of the RSS but I feel
duty-bound to bring to your notice few crucial facts about the RSS and
Guruji who led it from 1940 to 1973.

The first Home Minister of independent India, Sardar Patel, held the RSS
responsible for the assassination of Gandhiji. He in a letter to Golwalkar,
dated 11 September 1948, clearly stated that it was communal poison spread
by the RSS which was responsible for this tragedy. Without mincing words he
wrote: '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.' I hope you know that
consequently the RSS was banned for its role in the assassination.

Dear Rahul Saheb! Golwalkar whose birthday centenary programme you
inaugurated was a die-hard fascist who rejected any talk of a
democratic-secular India. In 1939 he penned a terrible book We or Our
Nationhood Defined which ousted minorities like Muslims and Christians from
the Indian nationhood. Even after Independence, in another book his Bunch of
Thoughts, Golwalkar declared Muslims as enemy number one and Christians as
enemy number two of the country. I wish you had boycotted such a programme
as you can vouch to the fact that many Muslim and Christian players playing
cricket with you have done proud to the nation.

Golwalkar also glorified dictators like Mussolini and Hitler and insisted on
adopting their methods for cleansing minorities in India. In his 1939 book
while eulogizing Hitler he wrote: 'German race pride has now become the
topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture,Germany
shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races - the
Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also
shown how wellnigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having
differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a
good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.' It is really
astonishing that a renowned sportsperson like you went to be part of
programmes dedicated to such a nasty person.

I also would like to draw your attention to what RSS thinks about the
Tri-colour which you so proudly wear. When the Indian Parliament decided to
have Tri-colour as the National Flag, the English organ of the RSS,
Organizer, ('Mystery behind the Bhagwa Dhawaj', August 14, 1947) denigrated
this great choice in the following words: 'The people who have come to power
by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never [sic]
be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a
flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological
effect and is injurious to a country'. The RSS has been demanding the
adoption of saffron flag as the National Flag of the country. It also needs
to be known that when the Constituent Assembly of India finally passed the
Constitution on 26 November 1949, the RSS demanded that it should be
replaced by the Codes of Manu (Organizer November 30, 1949) which openly
glorified Casteism, upheld persecution of Untouchables and denigrated women.

Dear Mr. Rahul! You went to commemorate the birth centenary of a RSS leader
who hated democracy and declared (while addressing the top cadres of the RSS
at its Reshambagh headquarters, Nagpur in 1940) that Hindu India of his
dreams needed only 'one flag (saffron), one leader and one ideology'.

Let me end with the hope that a great cricketer like you who stands as a
symbol of Democratic-Secular India will not betray the trust the country has
shown in you and fall prey to the designs of Hindu Separatism.

Wishing you all the best.

Shamsul Islam.

February 6, 2007.
notointolerance at hotmail.com


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http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-islam130207.htm