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BETWEEN THE LINES

The Pressure from Within

Kuldip Nayar writes from New Delhi, j
***Communal poison, which has been dripping into Indian politics, is destroying the country’s ethos. The result is that the roots of tolerance are weakening day by day. Those believing in secularism should work in the field to inculcate the attitude to keep religion separate from politics.***
***The BJP-led government does not have to mutilate history to dilute the ethos of independence struggle: a secular polity. The party has its own goal, the Hindu Rashtriya. It should be open about it. The argument that Hindutva is secular in character indicates that the BJP lacks courage, if not conviction, to present itself as it is.***
IN his bio-data. Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi lists "belief in Hindutva" as one of his qualifications. The biodata. sent by his office, was distributed at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar at a recent convocation function. Wearing religion on one's sleeves does not disturb me so much as making a fetish out of it and pursuing it single-mind-edly. For this is what fundamentalism is. It shuts out any idea which comes into conflict with Hindutva.
But this should not come as a surprise when the minister himself prods the Indian Council of Historical Research (1CHR) to withhold the two volumes in the series on the freedom struggle. The fact is that the national movement had a mass base, with no religious contours. And the RSS was nowhere in the picture.
The BJP-led government does not have to mutilate history to dilute the ethos of Independence struggle: a secular polity. The party has Its own goal, the Hindu Rashtriya. It should be open about it. The argument that HlndutvaAs secular in character indicates that the BJP lacks courage, if not conviction. to present Itself as It Is. In a way. it pays compliments to the concept of tolerance when It tries to steal the clothes of secularism to cover Hindu fanaticism.
The role of (he RSS, the guiding hand behind the BJP, Is still worse. It does not want to be even accountable for what It does. In the name of culture, it operates politically. When the
organisation nominates ministers. chalks out the strategy on alliance and selects candidates for assemblies and parliament — 70 per cent of the BJP assembly members and MPs are RSS nominees — why should it feel shy of owning the responsibility for doing so? After the imposition of the emergency in 1975. the RSS has even Included the name of Mahatma Gandhi in its morning-prayer. It uses all methods to project an image which is contrary to Its characteristics.
In a similar way, the BJP plays the game of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in Parliament. It defends RSS but does not utter a word about Hindutva lest the mask should come off. That Law Minister Ram Jethmalini, not a BJP member, lavishes praise on the RSS does not give credibility to the party. He is a lawyer who can take up any brief. Many have heard him praising secularism with the same vigour. His argument that the non-BJP parties in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were not worried tuned out to be incorrect. The allies like the Telugu Desam, DMK and the Trlnamool Congress objected to BJP's underpinning of the RSS. Tho clarification by RSS chief Raju Bhalya that his organisation Is not bothered whether a government employee Joins It or not Is an admission of failure.
Home Minister L.K. Advani s praise for the RSS does mean much. He has said more than once that he is proud to have an RSS background. His certificate to it for patriotism Is neither here nor there. Nobody has ever blamed the RSS for siding with enemy countries. But there are very lew who do not hold it responsible for damaging the country's ethos of secularism. In fact, the RSS has done something worse, it has inducted the sadhus into the political scene to fundamentallse the atmosphere, as certain parties in Pakistan have done by playing up to the Maulvls. Jayaprakash (JP). whom Advani and Defence Minister
George Fernandes have quoted as praising the RSS. felt cheated towards the end of his life. The Jana Sangh, now the BJP, did not cut off its relations with the RSS even after merging in the Janata Party in 1977. This was the undertaking given to JP.
In fact, the Janata gave respectability to the Jana Sangh. Its mentor, the RSS. was shunned after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi because of the atmosphere of communal hatred it had built. The same game is now being played in a different way. The BJP has ridden on the shoulders of some regional parties to reach every nook and corner of the country. The lust for power
has made leaders of these parties so blind that even the avowed socialists have compromised with the forces which they had denounced as communal till yesterday.
The success of the RSS is that it has been able to hoodwink many people. First It was the slogan. Garb se kaho hum Hindu nain (say with pride we are Hindus). Then it was-the right to pray at "the place" where Lord Ram was born. Now it Is the leeway given to public servants In Gujarat to Join the RSS. The Vajpayee government would have extended the same concession to Central employees but for the wide protests it created. Still It is not clear whether the Gujarat cadres of IAS and IPS, (he two all-India sen-ices, can attend the RSS shakhas (training classes) when posted in the state. (And what one does about a former CBI director who inaugurates a Bajrang Dal meeting?)
UP. ruled by the BJP. is also witnessing the’RSS fervour. The Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the' state has announced that it proposes to hold the RSS shakhas for students in Lucknow University campus. State BJP president Oin Prakash Singh, also the state Irrigation Minister, says he seems nothing wrong In the holding of shakas. The manner hi which some girls in Jeans at Kanpur were heckled shows the
beginnings of a fundamentalist society that the RSS wants.
It is a pity that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has a liberal image, has called the RSS a cultural organisation. Is it because of pressure from within? At times, he makes one feel what BJP's ideologue Govindacharya has said about him is correct: Vajpayee is only a mukut (mask).
How one wishes that the Hindu zealots would concentrate on the removal of ills In the Hindu society, whether that of caste or that of widows’ death-like living, but they are not interested in reforms. Their purpose is to convert India into a state of their thinking, with their own interpretation of religion and their own narration of history. What defeats them is the diversity of Hindu society, its real strength.
Communal poison, which has been dripping into Indian politics, is destroying the country's ethos. The result Is that the roots of tolerance are weakening day by day. Those believing In secularism should work In the field to Inculcate the attitude to keep religion separate from politics. It was naive to think that communalism would disappear the moment the British, who pursued the divide-and-rule policy, were thrown out. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. India's first education minister, says In his book. India Wins Freedom. that once (he country was free the differences between the two communities would go. But be realised after independence that the problem was not so simple.