Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
The Bhagwa bhaglas (saffronites) keep us reminded every waking hour that we, the former Indians, are all Hindus, no matter whether we are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs or Jains; we ,all of us, are Hindus because we are living in Hindustan, a major saffron Sant clarified a day after a similar pronouncement had come from a Goa BJP Minister.
Truthfulness being part of the Bhagwa creed, he forgot that he doesn’t normally refer to the country as Hindustan. It has always been Bharat Mata and Bharatiyata. Hindustan is essentially the creation of one of the colonisers who spelt it as Hindoostan. If recall still serves, Hindustan was celebrated by the poet Iqbal with his great nationalist song “sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamara”. The Bhaghwas always stuck to Bharat Mata and even the walls of Bhagwa offices routinely flaunt pictures of Bharat Mata attired as a Devi, a divine figure. The only option thus left to all of us, Indians, is to describe ourselves as Hindus or, at the Bhagwas accommodative best, as Hindu Muslims, Hindu Christians or Hindu Sikhs, if you please.
It is a menacing situation and enjoys the blessings of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindutva brigade and doubtlessly of the Modi government. Not one BJP personage of note has to date cautioned the Bhagwa brigands against this gross display of intolerance. L.K.Advani, some years ago, offered us the comforting thought that the word Hindu was derived from Shindhu. And he even initiated a Shindhu yatra from Ladakh the few years he was a Minister. Those probably were different times. Besides, Advani hails from the now Pakistani province of Sindh, home of the ancient Shindhu civilization of yore, and hence his preference for Shindhu. Mr. Advani himself has few peers as a committed devotee of Bharatmata and therefore an ardent believer in Hindu nationalism.
The Hindu rashtra baton though has continued to remain in the hands of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh all these decades. Its control over all the organs and frontal organizations, BJP its political arm included, has exercised unquestioned control. Yes, the same RSS which was banned by Sardar Patel, currently owned up by Modi and the BJP, after Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Godse. If you ask me I am not at all surprised by the non-secularist, rabid pro Hindu Rashtra ‘samvad’ forced on us by multiple Bhagwa mouthpieces. It, again, did not come as a surprise to me that the focus has now been shifted to history books, school textbooks and the use of rashtra bhasha Hindi for all official work, particularly in the so-called Hindi belt which includes the national capital. That there should be a clamour for Hindi being made the medium at all entry points to Central services via the UPSC.
Then comes moral policing : like what one, women particularly, should wear and when, how late should the women stay out (to escape rape), why beach suits should be avoided, abhorrence of late night dance sessions etc. etc. All these acquire a top priority in the new scheme of things. At least that is what the saffronites ayatollahs do expect. And do take a look at the shenanigans of the indefatigable Prof Batra, who have one man army out to rewrite Indian history.
Cultural nationalism predictably is the bedrock of RSS’s thought process. It has been so for the decades of its existence. Hindu rashtra, or Bharat Mata is home to all those who inhabit it, Hindus or alternatively, the progeny of foreign aggressors, in the physical and cultural sense. All this apart, the emergence of, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political arm of the RSS as the single largest party in this year’s parliamentary polls, it was only to be expected that the saffronites and their front organizations should feel free to flex their muscles, often menacingly. Hence the odd riot here and there, the chauvinistic battle cries elsewhere and consolidation of the Hindutva forces all over the land.
Lest you see Hindutva as a negative force you are reminded that it denotes a way of life. A reminder of this is always on hand : the Supreme Court has held it that way. So, with the political arm in charge of the nation’s governance and other lads manning sister organizations, the Bhagawas feel they are free to test the ground for the achievement of the ultimate objective : a Hindu rashtra. An ugly prospect’, made frightening by the disarray in secular ranks with the Congress decimated and yet unwilling to revive itself and others too scared to face the challenge posed by regressive forces committed to subvert the institutions charged with upholding the secular democratic aspirations of the people. Unsurprisingly, the dream of achhe din (good times) held out by the BJP is accompanied by subtle moves which clearly have long-term objective : dilution/downsizing of the values epitomized by our constitution.
Forget the rash of communal clashes (nothing new) significant moves are on to further the saffron agenda. And the ideal spot to have a go at it is via school textbooks. Also, since we have been told that the Gujarat model is the prescribed route where else to start from but Prof. D. N. Batra, the man who specializes in getting any book, Indian or foreign, deemed critical of Hinduism, taken off from Indian bookshelves.
Lo and behold the Gujarat government where Prime Minister Narendra Modi did all his achhe din experiments for nearly a decade and a half, his handpicked successor has since published nine of Prof. Batra’s books for free distribution among primary and secondary students. Four out of these books are compilations of anecdotes like the one about India’s second President Dr. Radhakrishnan telling a British audience how Hindus were “well-cooked” rotis by God himself. “Friends one day God felt like making rotis. Cooking the first one, it was undercooked and the English were born; cooking the second one, it was over cooked and the Negroes were born. Alert from his first two errors God went on to cook the third roti and it came out right and the result : Indians were born”, Radhakrishnan averred to go by Batra’s yarn.
Or the one you have the other Batra yarn where a hungry lion is about to make a meal of a cow but was prevented from doing so by a gau-sewak king who offered himself as the replacement for the cow. The lion was so impressed that he spared both. The benign cow it seems had been so well served by the king that it had granted him the boon of having a son to succeed him. There are similar gems galore in the compilation.
Reminded me of an afternoon in Parliament’s Central Hall many, many years ago the professor of physics turned BJP MP, Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi was holding forth most eloquently recalling the stunning achievements of pre-historic Bharat. Did we know, he asked that at the time of Mahabharata vimans were flying at speeds of today’s jet aircraft, or that TV was a commonplace and the ultimate weapon, brahmastra, was no different from today’s thermonuclear bombs.
This, from the Allahabad University Professor. And as any RSS worker will confirm, he was well on way to have history of India rewritten when he was the minister for HRD. I can personally vouch for his commitment to standby his swayamsewaks men to the extent that he wouldn’t hesitate to order a music teacher from a Delhi Kendriya Vidyalaya transferred to then earthquake-hit Bhuj to help a party worker come over to Delhi in a much higher rank than that of a music teacher. So the merry men of bhagwa land, now in unrestrained power, or indeed making merry playing kho kho, as they are with the education system currently. It is just the beginning aage aage dekhiye hota hai kya. We are a long way away from the Gujarat model, lot more things to do, lot of ground to cover.
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