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The Hindu fascists led by the
R.S.S.have always been dreaming of rewriting Indian history. It has been in
their blood ever since they were born and was theorised by the RSS founders and
ideologues K.B.Hedgewar, M.S.Golwalkar, Veer Savarkar & Co. since the 1920’s.
‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’, ‘one nation, one people, one culture’, and ‘Hindu
Rashtra’ have been their pet themes from their very birth. They believe that
Indian history is to be rewritten to fit into their concept of ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
It means: the Muslim and Christian minorities are to be shown as aliens to this
Indian(Hindu) culture; that they can never fit themselves into the Indian ethos
and hence must be treated just as the Jews were treated in Hitler’s Germany. No
wonder, M.S.Golwalkar, the guru of the RSS and the author of the Panchajanya or
‘Bunch of Thoughts’—the most chauvinist, unscientific and perverted
interpretation of history and the future of India—was an unabashed admirer of
Hitler.
The latest victims of the
Hindutva attack are the historians of the Indian Council of Historic Research (ICHR)
— Prof. Sumit Sarkar and K.N. Panikkar — along with a film maker, Deepa Mehta.
The two controversial volumes of "Towards Freedom" edited by these authors and
which cover the history of the country from 1937-1947 were withdrawn abruptly
from the Oxford University Press where they were to be printed. Sarkar who had
edited the volume on 1940 and Panikkar on 1946, were not even informed by the
ICHR which is now run by a VHP stalwart, Professor BR Grover.
It was in January 1999 that the
BJP-led government appointed a three-member commission to look into the
manuscripts of the two volumes. It was a pre-hatched conspiracy of the Sangh
Parivar. The Committee, ironically, had only one historian and hence had hardly
any professional authority to make a credible recommendation on the subject in
question.The cultural fascism that had always been on the agenda of the Sangh
Parivar, has come home to roost with the BJP coming to power at the Centre and
in a few states. As soon as it assumed power in UP, these hindu chauvinists led
by none else than those now occupying the highest seats of power in the Central
Government—Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister LK Advani—led the barbarous
attack on the 450-year-old Babari mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, thereby
destroying forever the hopes of the Muslims to lead secure lives in India. This
was followed by a series of communal riots instigated by BJP and other Hindu
chauvinist forces that saw several thousands of Muslims dead.
The attacks on Christians and
Christian institutions reached a peak in 1998 and have been continuing ever
since. On December 25, 1999 the ‘shilanyas’ (foundation-laying ceremony) for Ram
temple was laid in Halmodi village in Surat district of Gujarat after pulling
down a Christian pentecostal church a fortnight earlier. The VHP had fixed up a
deadline for the completion of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on November 9, 2001—a
veritable time bomb ticking away towards another bout of massacres and
blood-bath of Muslims. The RSS declared at its latest Sankalp Shibir in
Ahmedabad in the first week of January that building the Ram temple in Ayodhya
was very much on their agenda.
The RSS, as is well-known,had no
role whatsoever in the people’s struggle against British colonialism. Obviously,
it wants to rewrite history to show itself in a favourable light. But its
intentions are even more deep-rooted. The sangh parivar is itching to rewrite
history right from the time of the Indus Valley civilisation which, it claims,
was founded by the Aryans. It can never digest the historical facts that prove
Aryans were barbaric invaders from Central Asia who had to confront a culturally
superior pre-Aryan people. Like Hitler, it wants to prove that it is the ‘Aryan’
blood that flows among the Indians; that the Muslims and Christians were foreign
invaders who can never fit into the ‘one people, one nation, one culture’ sheme
of things.It wants to rewrite history to show that these religious minorities
have origins in foreign soil and hence they should either submit to the
superiority of the Hindus and of the "Aryan"race, or leave the country for good.
Fed with lies, rabid hatred for religious minorities and blind nationalist
frenzy in their daily shakhas, the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal-Hindu Jagaran Manch-BJP
cadre cannot think in any other way.Hence the unending pogroms and massacres of
non-Hindus and desperate attempts of reconversion of the religious minorities
into the Hindu fold.
In fact, history has already
been rewritten in the text books prepared by the RSS and its Hindu fascist
affiliates in the 14,000-odd schools that they run all over the country. And
after coming to power in four states in 1991,the hindu fascists began
saffronising official history text books by using state power.
In UP, text books began to be
rewritten so that all that was Hindu was glorified and anything connected to
Islam was denigrated. This led to a furore especially from the Muslim community.
The research slots in ICHR began
to be filled up with Hindu zealots, replacing the secular-minded liberal and
left historians. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry appointed an RSS
activist to the post of a selector of teachers in the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The campaign to "Indianise,
spirutualise and nationalise"(what it actually means is "Hinduise, saffronise,
fascise") all primary and secondary education is being spearheaded by the RSS
ideologue at the helm of the HRD ministry, the Hindu fascist Murali Manohar
Joshi.
Emboldened by the support the
BJP is assured of by almost two dozen-odd allies who, it knows, cannot but
continue to extend support to its regime, come what may, the Sangh Parivar has
steped up its attacks on all that has still something secular to speak of.
The growing attacks by the
Hindutva forces— whether on the minority Muslims and Christians and their
institutions, secular historians and film makers who don’t fit into their vision
of a Hindu India — hold dangerous portents for the country’s future. It shows
the gradual drifting of the country into the quick-sands of fascism. What was at
one time still a fringe phenomenon, religious intolerance has now been brought
to the mainstream by the Hindutva forces after they occupied the citadels of
power.
The hindu fascist forces are now
marching aggressively by abusing the state power that they have in their hands
to saffronise the whole state machinery too. An example is the lifting by the
Gujarat government of the ban on its employees participating in the activities
of the RSS on January 4, when the Keshubhai Patel government amended the Gujarat
Civil Servants Conduct Rules, 1971 while the ban continues on the All India
Muslim Majlis—E—Mushawarat and 25 other organisations. By lifting the ban on the
employees from joining the RSS, the BJP government in Gujarat intends to further
communalise the state machinery, particularly the police force, with disastrous
consequences.
That the police force in Gujarat
is already communalised to a great extent is proved by the confidential letter
sent by the state’s DGP of Intelligence to all the police stations in the state
that asked the police to collect information regarding the number of christians
in their jurisdiction, where they lived, which foreign countries were trying to
influence them and what kinds of ploys were they using for conversion, and so
on. The letter had to be subsequently withdrawn following a public outcry. The
Hindu Jagaran Manch has taken up an aggressive campaign for reconversion of
Christians into Hindus. The RSS displayed its strength by taking out a 25,000
procession in Ahmedabad on January 8.
These moves in Gujarat: the
aggressive campaign against the Christians by the RSS-HJM and others; the
whipping up of communal frenzy with the open support of the state government;
the lifting of the ban on employees from participating in RSS activities, and so
on show the shape of things to come in the near future in the entire country.
The RSS and its various outfits including the BJP, have tried out their game
plan on an experimental basis in Gujarat. They found that even a supposedly
rabid anti-RSS and anti-Aryan outfit like the DMK in Tamil Nadu has now become
chastened and went as far as justifying the move of the Gujarat government, even
likening the role of the RSS with that of the Dravida Kazhagam(DK). It was only
after a public outcry in Tamil Nadu that Karunanidhi had to retract from his
earlier statement.
Given such a situation, it is
clear that the RSS will push the BJP-led governement at the Centre to implement
the same at the central level too. It is only the united resistance by all the
democratic and secular forces that can stop these evil designs of the Hindu
chauvinist forces to rewrite history, in a communal language, throttle freedom
of expression, communalise the state machinery and impose fascism on the people
of India.
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