by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Saket Suman,
Book: The RSS – A View to the Inside; Authors: Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle; Publisher: Penguin; Pages: 405; Price: Rs 699
In a book released this week, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been projected as “the most influential cultural organisation in India today”. The implications of the Sangh’s functioning on India’s culture, particularly in the context of Hinduism, or what is called Hindutva, is well known but is this projection an appeasement of the all-powerful Sangh by providing them legitimacy in what is billed as a scholarly offering “backed by deep research”, or is it worthy praise bestowed in the light of its work in the culture domain?
The offering at hand is the sum total of all aspects that the authors felt have led the Sangh to take its present shape — that of the ideological parent of the ruling government with country-wide presence and strong political affiliations. It reveals many answers but, for reasons best known to the authors and publisher, it deflects, ignores and often beats around the bush when it comes to tackling the most pertinent issues related to the Sangh in contemporary times.
Let us begin with two chapters in the book titled “Ghar Wapsi” (Homecoming) and “Protecting the Cow”. Both of these issues have gained prominence ever since the current RSS-backed government came to power in 2014 and has led to numerous instances of mob violence and lynching. The horrors arising from some (of many) recorded instances have shaken the nerves of right-thinking individuals and has caused fear among the minorities, but the generosity with which the authors tackle the subject is appalling.
The book elaborates on why protecting the cow and ghar wapsi hold such immense significance for the RSS, charting the beliefs of its idealogues Hedgewar and Golwalkar, and then draws a case study around the BJP’s dealings with the beef issue in the Northeast, where the ruling party sort of accepted it as it is a norm in the region.
It quotes a slew of prominent RSS and BJP leaders who contend, like the Sangh’s prachar pramukh Manmohan Vaidya, that “we (the RSS) don’t tell society what to eat”, adding that even people who eat beef could become its members.
Their assertion, however, is in stark contrast to the ground reality where members of the Sangh’s affiliates have been directly responsible for horrendous acts of violence in the name of the holy cow, dearer to the organisation than those lynched for slaughtering and, supposedly, consuming its meat.
The authors fail to raise tough questions despite their “unprecedented access” to key leaders of the Sangh, who are otherwise largely unapproachable by mainstream media.
And then there is “What Does Hindutva Mean?”, an elaborate chapter on the philosophy of the Sangh. Here again, the Sangh’s leaders paint a rosy picture of all things good in their philosophy. They say, as the book quotes them, that India is “a civilisational nation state” and that the RSS has never talked of making Hinduism a state religion.
The book points, flatteringly, to RSS literature, which, according to the authors, speaks approvingly of the religious and cultural diversities. Again, there is no meeting point between their words and ground realities, and what is more, the authors just let that be, without probing further.
The book goes on to quote RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as saying that forcing others to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai” is wrong and that “all people living in the country are our own and we can’t force our ideology and thinking on them”. Really, the authors should have asked some questions here as well, but they do not.
Moving on, there is a chapter on “Indianising Education”, where the authors claim that within months of the BJP’s victory in the 2014 general election, the then HRD Minister Smriti Irani “met with senior RSS figures” who wanted “the essentials of the Indian culture” to be reflected in school curriculum across the country.
It further mentions that in view of the “importance of the HRD Ministry in implementing the RSS goal of ‘indianising’ education”, the party selected Prakash Javadekar to replace the controversial Irani.
“Just a month after assuming his new post, Javadekar called a meeting that included senior RSS and BJP officials and other constituents of the Sangh parivar engaged in education,” the book says.
The motive of this meeting, says the book, was to discuss “the draft education policy earlier initiated by Irani” and to seek “suggestions to instill nationalism, pride and ancient Indian values in modern education”.
Notably, the over-400-page book’s actual text runs till page 256, after which is the appendix and notes section, which go on for about 150 pages. It also charts brief biographies of the RSS leadership, in glowing terms, and its constitution.
Even though this book is a missed opportunity as there is much more — and of utter significance both to the RSS and the country — that demanded exploration, it is not devoid of merit.
This book’s big achievement is in charting the journey of the Sangh — how the once banned organisation came into the mainstream, mobilised voters and played a crucial role in the 2014 general election, as it is expected to play in the coming election too.
But in its totality, the sense that a reader gets after reading this book is a glorification of the Sangh. It describes the inner working mechanisms of the organisation but fails to point out the outcomes resulting thereby.
The book surely has a lot of substance but can one possibly look at a raging fire and ignore those being burnt in it? This book does just that.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Jaipur : A total of 220 cow carcasses were seized from a warehouse in Rajasthan’s Alwar district early on Wednesday, police said.
The animal carcasses were found buried inside a Govindgarh facility, Sub-Inspector Dhara Singh told IANS.
Other than the cow carcasses, there were also remains of buffaloes and goats seized from the location.
Singh said that beef was supplied to Haryana, Rajasthan and other surrounding states from this place.
The raid was launched following an arrest of a man on Tuesday and his interrogation, Singh said, adding that a probe was on.
The Govindgarh police sub-inspector also said that the Tuesday’s arrest came after three women were arrested on Monday, when they searched a number of houses and seized 40kg of meat found in their possession.
Veterinary doctors and a large number of people were present when the police raided the warehouse on Wednesday.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Representational Image (Google image)
Jaipur : Even as Rajasthan home minister Gulabchand Kataria on Tuesday promised strict action in the Alwar lynching case, his colleague and state Labour Minister Jaswant Singh asked Muslims and the Mev community to “stop consuming beef’ and “keep away from cow smugglers to respect the Hindus.”
“We will ensure punishment to the guilty,” home minister Kataria said while inspecting the site at Ramgarh (Alwar) where Rakbar alias Akabar was lynched by a mob over cow smuggling on Saturday night. Kataria was accompanied by Director General of Police OP Galhotra.
Earlier, Labour Minister Jaswant Singh, who was also in Alwar, said: “These incidents (of violence) are almost a daily occurrence,” adding that since the “root cause” is cow smuggling, “the Muslims should avoid eating beef and not support cow smugglers.”
Kataria met Chief Secretary DB Gupta, DGP Galhotra and special Director General (Law and Order) NRK Reddy to review the situation following the lynching incident. He said that a few lapses have come to the fore on police’s part and an assistant sub-inspector has been suspended. “Action has also been taken against four constables. We will take right action,” he said.
The post-mortem of Rakbar has confirmed that he died due to multiple internal injuries sustained from severe beating, sources said.
Amid a charged atmosphere in Alwar, district Shiv Sena chief Bhupendra Singh Naruka said his party supported the ‘innocents’ caught by the police and would fight their case in the court “on its expenses.” He also questioned BJP on its delay to declare cow as a “national animal” of the country.
Meanwhile BJP legislator from Ramgarh (Alwar) Gyandev Ahuja on Tuesday said that Rakbar had died in police custody and not by a mob. He also said that action taken against four policemen on Monday was to “shield” senior police officers. He also demanded a judicial probe into this matter.
The Rajasthan police late on Monday accepted “error of judgement” by its personnel which delayed the victim’s arrival to the hospital. Rakbar was declared brought dead in the hospital.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
M. Venkaiah Naidu
New Delhi : Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday cautioned against practising intolerance in the name of cow protection, Love Jihad and eating habits, saying such actions spoil the name of the country and people can’t take law into their hands.
“… We need to guard against intolerance on the part of certain misguided citizens. We have been occasionally witnessing such words and deeds of intolerance by some citizens in the name of so-called cow protection, Love Jihad, eating habits, watching films.
“Such incidents lead us to the point that individual freedoms can be in full play only when every citizen respects such freedoms of fellow citizens. Post-Emergency, the State apparatus would think twice before riding roughshod over the liberties and freedoms of citizens. But it is enlightened citizens who would enable fuller manifestation of such liberties and freedoms,” Naidu said.
He was speaking at a function organised by Vivekananda International Foundation to release the Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati editions of the book `The Emergency – Indian Democracy’s Darkest Hour’ authored by A. Surya Prakash, Chairman of Prasar Bharti and a veteran journalist.
The Vice President said such actions of individual intolerance spoil the name of the country. “You cannot take the right to hang anyone. One has to be tolerant of the views of others while one must also be tolerant of the verdict of the people. Dissent also has a place. Freedom must be valued and rights of citizen should be guarded.”
He also referred to the debate over nationalism and patriotism and wondered why some people had problem with even saying “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. The expression is not merely geographical and love for the land but it is love for all opinions, religions, communities and people.
Naidu said India was secular not because of political parties but it was in the DNA of people and added that democracy and secularism were there in the Indian civilization through ages.
Referring to the infamous Emergency of 1975, he said no sensible government would dare to resort to Emergency after the resounding pro-democracy verdict of people in 1977. “Now the threat to individual freedoms is from some misguided citizens. The Emergency was clearly a state-sponsored intolerance to democracy and individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.”
He asserted that the core Indian values and ethos have no place for intolerance due to which all major religions of the world flourish in India.
“On the 43rd anniversary of Emergency, I would like the message to go out that any citizen who violates the freedoms of fellow citizens would have no right to be called an Indian. It is because he is hurting the Constitution of India and all that India stood for.”
Naidu said it was time the “dark age of Emergency” became a part of the curriculum so that the young learnt to value the democratic freedoms they enjoy.
“It is time the dark age of Emergency becomes a part of the curriculum so that present generations are sensitised to the dreaded events of 1975-77 and they learn to value the democratic and personal freedoms they enjoy today.
“While our history books and textbooks talk of medieval dark days and the British Raj, the fallacious causes and consequences of Emergency is not made a part of the learning of the young,” he added.
He stressed that a crucial lesson of Emergency was that it was the responsibility of each citizen to uphold liberties and freedom of fellow citizens and that “intolerance” should not be accepted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Representational Image (file photo)
By Arul Louis,
New York : The US has accused Indian authorities of not prosecuting cow protection vigilantes attacking Muslims suspected of slaughtering the animals or consuming beef amid “reports of hundreds of religiously motivated killings.”
The State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report released on Tuesday said: “Authorities often did not prosecute violence by vigilantes against persons, mostly Muslims, suspected of slaughtering or illegally transporting cows or trading in or consuming beef.”
It added, “There were reports of hundreds of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, restrictions on the right to practice religion and proselytise, discrimination, and attacks on property. Groups most frequently targeted were Muslims and Christians.
“Cow protection groups, many of whose members believed cow slaughter and eating beef were an attack on the Hindu deities representing motherhood, carried out several violent attacks, including killings, beatings, harassment, and intimidation against consumers of beef or those involved in the beef industry,” according to the report.
“Members of civil society and religious minorities said, under the current government, religious minority communities felt more vulnerable to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and places of worship,” the reported said.
The report, however, also noted that the Supreme Court directed state governments to appoint a senior police officer in each district to prevent and respond effectively to incidents of “cow vigilantism” and chief secretaries to report on actions taken to prevent them.
The annual report was a long compilation of mainly news reports about legislative measures considered against minority interests or incidents of violence against or harassment of minorities.
At a news conference on the report for foreign journalists, the State Department official in charge of the report, Samuel Brownback, denounced India, alleging that “there have been unfortunately a lot of religious violence that has taken place in various communities.”
“We have asked the Indian government to pursue more safety to see justice taking place in these cases where these arise and we will continue to pursue that with the Indian government as with all government all around the world,” he said.
“I get reports directly from individuals that are coming from India (about) violence they have experience because of who they are in their faith, and that is wrong,” said Brownback, who is a convert to Catholicism from a fundamentalist Christian sect.
He holds the title of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and previously as governor of Kansas he took controversial positions reflective of his faith by legislating measures restricting abortions and opposing gay rights.
He said that within 90 days after the publication of the report a list for “countries of particular concern” would be issued for possible sanctions or other action.
“Religious minority communities stated, while the national government sometimes spoke out against incidents of violence, local political leaders often did not, and at times made public remarks that individuals could interpret as condoning violence,” the report said.
The report brought up the Supreme Court ruling the “triple talaq” divorce illegal, including it in a list of matters of concern.
“On August 22, the Supreme Court ruled the practice through which a Muslim man could divorce his wife instantly by saying the word “talaq” (Arabic for divorce) three times was unconstitutional,” the report said.
The report noted that in Andhra and Telengana, “authorities may prohibit proselytising near another religion’s place of worship”.
It raked up the case of a Christian organisation, Compassion International, which shut down its multi-million-dollar operation in India after the Indian government revoked its permission for distributing funds in India because of violations of law.
The report said, “Compassion International maintained that the government used the law to restrict the work of Christian charitable organisations”.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
