[Reader-list] Shameful Torture of 23 Muslims Prisoners on March 26-27 In Sabarmati Jail, Ahamedabad: A Report by Human Rights Activists

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Dear Rakesh
 
My attitude on such matters might be different from yours. I look for bridging divides.
 
Take any ideological representation in India. There will be enough said about them by enough people to try and convince you that they are scum. Do I accept such  generalisations? No, I do not. There will be counter-arguments and denials and interpretations in equal measure that seek to prove that they are not scum.
 
What 'your father said' or 'your grandfather said' might be ably used to win an argument but at best it can only win arguments within narrow perspectives that try to interpret the completeness of the present by selective quotings from the past. We see that happening regularly on this List.
 
Let me give you an analogy. If the precepts and writings and propagation of Islam (from the past) were to be used to make a judgement about Islam for today then there would be a demand (as there is amongst some) that Islam be banned and the Muslim identity erased.
 
Is that what is required for and will ensure the well-being of India? Not for me as a nationalist.
 
I would rather question and attack singly every one of the examples of unacceptable speech or action (based in any ideology) that one is faced with from day to day. Not as a confrontation or propaganda but through due processes of Law. The Law alone is peoplespeake for what 'we the people of India' find unacceptable. If there are deficiencies in the Law or in it's application, those must be rectified.
 
I abhor what I understand Hindutva stands for. But I find it impossible to simply dismiss it because if BJP represents the electoral face of Hindutva, it intrigues me that  people should vote for the BJP. 
 
Are all such people Hindutvavaadis? Are they all communal? Do they all subscribe to (as an example) the Golwalkarian vision as excerpted by you? I do not think so and it was a question I asked on this List that whatever be the judgement on Modi why and with what idea did the people of Gujarat vote him back into power? No one cared to answer that. 
 
Talking about attitudes towards Hindutva extremism, I gave the analogy of Islamic extremism. I will mention a third extremist movement, that of the Naxalites. 
 
It is easy to create compartments into which to shove extremists and then presume that if we lock them up and throw the key away, the crimes associated with them will disappear. They will not, nor will there be an erasure of such identities.
 
That is why I look for bridging the divides rather than reinforcing them
 
Kshmendra
 
 
 
 


--- On Sat, 4/18/09, Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Shameful Torture of 23 Muslims Prisoners on March 26-27 In Sabarmati Jail, Ahamedabad: A Report by Human Rights Activists
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Cc: "sarai-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "Venugopalan K M" <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2009, 10:01 PM


Dear Kshamendra

If you want to rate the Modi government on the conceptions of 'Hindutva based governance', it would be better to first know these statements from M.S.Golwalkar about his ideas of what India should be (A Hindu Rashtra indeed) :

>From the link: http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-guha281106.htm

1) His ideas are summarised in the book Bunch of Thoughts, which draws upon the lectures he delivered over the years (mostly in Hindi) to RSS shakhas across the country. This identifies the Hindus, and they alone, as the privileged community of India. It disparages democracy as alien to the Hindu ethos and extols the code of Manu, whom Golwalkar salutes as "the first, the greatest, and the wisest lawgiver of mankind". 

2) Golwalkar writes that the "hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security than aggressors from outside". He identifies three major "Internal Threats: I: The Muslims; II: The Christians; III: The Communists". A long chapter impugns the patriotism of these groups, speaking darkly of their "future aggressive designs on our country". 

3) Thus, on December 6, 1947, Golwalkar convened a meeting of RSS workers in the town of Govardhan, not far from Delhi. The police report on this meeting says it discussed how to "assassinate the leading persons of the Congress in order to terrorise the public and to get their hold over them". 

4) Two days later, Golwalkar addressed a crowd of several thousand volunteers at the Rohtak Road Camp in Delhi. The police reporter in attendance wrote that the RSS leader said that "the Sangh will not rest content until it had finished Pakistan. If anyone stood in our way we will have to finish them too, whether it was Nehru Government or any other Government... " Referring to Muslims, he said that no power on earth could keep them in Hindustan. They should have to quit this country... "If they were made to stay here the responsibility would be the Government's and the Hindu community would not be responsible. Mahatma Gandhi could not mislead them any longer. We have the means whereby [our] opponents could be immediately silenced". 

5) Golwalkar himself argued that "in this land Hindus have been the owners, Parsis and Jews the guests, and Muslims and Christians the dacoits". He asked, maliciously: "Then do all these have the same right over the country?" 

6) The RSS leader, noted Karaka, "thinks in terms of Hindu India and only Hindu India".

>From the link:

http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/Puniyani6March06.html

1)Golwalkar goes on to assert,"From the standpoint sanctioned by the experience of shrewd nations, the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of Hindu nation i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ingratitude towards this land and its age long traditions, but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead; in one word, they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen's rights." (Ibid p.52).

Going by account on all this, the Gujarat government has actually done quite well. It has certainly decimated Christians and Muslims, and ensured they have to live in constant fear and certainly as second-class citizens of the country.

Hindutva-based governance is pure nonsense. The very word Hindutva was coined first by Savarkar, an atheist. And we who believe in idol-worship now are talking about it. This is totally ridiculous as Savarkar was against any form of idol worship himself. So also is Hindutva devoid of idol worship. 

Hindutva is a threat to India and its conception. Therefore, it should be banned totally from India. 

Regards

Rakesh