THE TRUTH OF RSS IN ITS’ OWN WORDS
The AISA Collective
Introduction
All wings of the hydra-headed Rashtriya Swayamasevak Sangh (RSS), be it the student front ABVP, or Bajrang Dal, or BJP or its numerous vahinis and senas share the ideology of the RSS.
All these organizations claim to be “nationalist” and brand anyone who disagrees with their ideology, “anti-national”.
Under the current regime of BJP-Sangh, all dissenting voices are branded as “anti-national”: the attempted assassination of former JNU student Umar Khalid, the lynch mob attack on Dr. Sanjay Kumar, former JNU student and now faculty at the Central University in Motihari, the assassination of Gauri Lankesh – all these and more are defended by Sangh supporters as the outcome of “nationalist” rage against “anti-nationals.” Through violence and frenzy, the RSS brigade is desperate to prove that “nationalism” and RSS are synonymous. So it is very important to find out the truth behind the RSS’s self-declared love for the country. Let us look at RSS’s own words and documents for this.
RSS was established in 1925. Let’s investigate the RSS’s point of views about our freedom struggle and the martyrs of the freedom movement, what its views are about the national flag and Indian Constitution, and what are its views about Dalits and women. The Sangh brigade constantly invokes national symbols and slogans to incite frenzy, violence and hatred. In this context, it would be significant to know RSS’s true point of view about those national symbols from their own documents.
We all have seen the violence orchestrated by BJP and Sangh leaders in Aligarh University in May, 2018 in the pretext of a portrait of Jinnah! But it is interesting to note that both Sangh parivar’s Hindu Mahasabha and Jinnah’s Muslim League were proponents of the British Government’s “two-nation” theory. Both were willing tools of the British conspiracy of “divide and rule” policy. During the “Quit India Movement” of 1942, when Gandhiji’s call for Do or Die to drive out the British swept the nation, Congress was banned and its leaders thrown to jail and the entire country was turned into a prison, the RSS remained away from the movement, and more interestingly, Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League shamelessly stood with the British Government, openly opposing the Quit India movement. They also continued to run united Governments in Bengal, Sindh and North-east Frontier. Not only that, RSS’s hero, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, as a member of the Bengal cabinet wrote a letter to Bengal Governor on 26 July, 1942 urging him to suppress the Quit India Movement, offering his assistance!
Then, RSS was loyal to the British Government, and today BJP shows its meek subservience to US diktats, foreign capital, corporate looters and those entrenched in corruption. There are numerous examples of this: the current BJP Government’s moves to make the country’s education dependent on the diktats of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the same Government’s absolute silence on the attacks on Indians in Trump’s America, legalising unlimited and anaonymous corporate funding and foreign funding without scrutiny for political parties, massive corruption in the Rafale defence deal for corporate profiteering, offering coal-mining projects to Adani Group in Jharkhand and the Government’s brazen cronyism in allowing Reliance Jio’s non-existent Institute to get an ‘Eminence’ tag. When people resist the Government and expose its betrayal of the interests of India’s people, RSS and its various outfits try to brand all the protesting people as ‘anti-national.’ Using the charade of “nationalism”, RSS not only tries to cover up its past treachery with the freedom movement, but also wants to hide its present anti-people and pro-corporate character. In the name of ‘nationalism’, they create frenzy to suppress protesting voices and spread communal venom across the country.
Let us call their bluff. Let us find out and understand the truth of the RSS, through its own words and documents.
RSS’s Non Participation in and Betrayal of India’s Freedom Movement
For RSS, our freedom struggle against the British colonial rule was not a marker of patriotism but ‘reactionary’. M.S. Golwalkar was the RSS ideologue and the second Sarsanghchalak (Supreme leader) who led RSS after Dr. Hedgewar during 1940-73 and is revered as Guruji.
In Bunch of Thoughts (1966), the comprehensive ideological treatise of the RSS, Golwalkar explicitly wrote:
“Anti-Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom movement, its leaders and the common people”. (M. S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (1966), Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996 edition p. 138)
Golwalkar reminds and emphasises that the ‘RSS pledge’ “talked of the freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of the British in that”:
“Many people worked with the inspiration to free the country by throwing the British out. After formal departure of the British this inspiration slackened. In fact there was no need to have this much inspiration. We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of the freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of the British in that.”(M. S. Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan, Nagpur, Volume IV, p. 2)
RSS founder Hedgewar’s official biographer, CP Bhishikar clearly testified about RSS agenda of keeping away from freedom struggle:
“After establishing [the] Sangh, Doctor Saheb in his speeches used to talk only of Hindu organisation. Direct comment on the government used to be almost nil”. (CP Bhishikar, Sanghavariksh Ke Beej: Dr. Keshav Rao Hedgewar (Hindi), Suruchi, Delhi, 1994, p. 24.)
Golwalkar categorically admitted how RSS stayed away from the 1942 Quit India Movement:
“In 1942 also there was a strong sentiment in the hearts of many. At that time too the routine work of Sangh continued. Sangh vowed not to do anything directly. However, upheaval (uthal-puthal) in the minds of Sangh volunteers continued. Sangh is an organization of inactive persons, their talks are useless, not only outsiders but also many of our volunteers did talk like this. They were greatly disgusted too.” (Golwalkar,Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan, Vol. IV, p. 40).
Quit India Movement of 1942 and the Role of RSS’s Hero Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
During the 1942 Quit India Movement, when Congress leaders were being jailed and country witnessed massive popular upsurge against the British Govt, two supposedly polar-opposite groups – the Hindu Mahasabha & Muslim League were running coalition govts in Bengal, Sindh, & NWFP! Not only they opposed Gandhiji’s Quit India call, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee of Hindu Mahasabha, as the minister in the Fazul Haque’s coalition ministry in Bengal, actively offered help and advice to the British govt to crush the Quit India Movement. In a letter dated 26 July 1942 to Sir John Herbert, the Governor of Bengal, Mukherjee wrote:
“The question is how to combat this movement in Bengal? The administration of the province should be carried out in such a manner that in spite of the best efforts … this movement will fail to take root in the province.” (Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Leaves from a Diary,OUP, 1993, p.183)
In the same letter, Mukherjee expressed his unequivocal support for the British rule in the following words:
“As regards India’s attitude towards England, the struggle between them, if any, should not take place at this juncture. …Anybody who plans to stir up mass feelings resulting in internal disturbances or insecurity, must be resisted by any Government…” (Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Leaves from a Diary, OUP, 1993, p. 179).
RSS’s Disrespect Towards the Martyrs of Freedom Struggle
Golwalkar said that the martyrs are not to be held as ideals for the society:
“…..such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideals and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” (Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, op.cit. p. 283)
“But one should think whether complete national interest is accomplished by that? Sacrifice doesn’t lead to increase in the thinking of the society of giving all for the interest of the nation. It is borne by the experience up to now that this fire in the heart is unbearable to the common people.” (Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan, Nagpur, Vol 1, pp. 61 – 62)
Golwalkar also mocked Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal ruler in India and the fighter of the 1857’s first war of freedom:
“In 1857, the so-called last emperor of India had given the clarion call:‘Till the warriors remain faithful to their commitment/ Indian swords will reach throne of London’. But ultimately what happened? Everyone knows that.” (Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagra Darshan, Nagpur, Vol. 1, p. 121).
RSS Denigrating India’s Tricolour National Flag
Just on the eve of independence on 14 Aug 1947, RSS’s official mouthpiece Organiser wrote, denigrating the national flag:
“The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.” (Organiser, Aug14, 1947)
RSS believes that the entire nation will bow before its’ saffron flag:
“It was the saffron flag which in totality represented Indian culture. It was the embodiment of God. We firmly believe that in the end the whole nation will bow before this saffron flag.” (M. S. Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagra Darshan, Nagpur, Volume 1, p. 98)
RSS icon Savarkar asserted that the tricolour can never be recognised as the National Flag of Hindusthan:
“It (the tricolour) can never be recognised as the National Flag of Hindusthan … the authoritative flag of Hindusthan our Motherland and Holyland, … can be no other than the Bhagava (saffron flag)… Hindudom at any rate can loyally salute no other Flag but this Pan-Hindu Dhwaja, this Bhagava Flag as its national Standard.” (S.S. Savarkar edited, Historic Statements by Veer Savarkar (1967), p. 127)
Even decades after independence the RSS continued to demean the National Flag. In the section titled ‘Drifting and Drifting’, in the book Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar wrote in 1966:
“…Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating. How did this flag come into being? … It was not inspired by any national vision or truth based on our national history and heritage. … Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly, we had. Then, why this void, this utter vacuum in our minds?”
Support for the Two-Nation Theory
Three years before Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan in 1940, Savarkar supported the two-nation theory while addressing the 19th Session of Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937:
“As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India. Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supporting that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for mere wish do so. … India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.” (Collected Works of Savarkar, Hindu Mahasabha, Poona, 1963, p. 296)
Savarkar supported Jinnah in a Conference in Nagpur on 15 August 1943 said:
“I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah’s two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations” (Indian Annual Register, 1943, Vol II, p. 10)
Savarkar’s support for the separate “Hindu State of Travancore”: Today, the RSS & Co. keep raising the slogan of “akhand bharat”, but just before the Independence, RSS’s ‘nationalist’ icon Savarkar was supporting the conspiracy to destroy India’s territorial unity on religious line. Let’s see the Savarkar-Travancore episode:
Towards our Independence, Mountbatten once in private mooted a plan to Nehru (on May 10, 1947) for transfer of power directly to each of the Provinces of British India leaving it to them to decide whether to form a Union or not. This was a sure recipe for Balkanisation of India. Nehru vehemently opposed the plan. Nehru demanded and obtained transfer of power directly to the Union of India. (The Transfer of Power in India by V.P. Menon; 1957; page 361). At that time, C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar, the repressive Dewan of the state of Travancore and who was detested by its people, plotted secretly to declare Travancore independent of India. On June 11, 1947, he announced the State’s decision to declare itself independent once the British quit India. (“C.P. and independent Travancore”, Frontline, July 4, 2003). The people whom he had subjected to brutal repression were dead against this course. It is interesting to note that both Jinnah and Savarkar welcomed the move of the Dewan. Jinnah welcomed this move in a cable dated June 20, 1947. That very day C.P. received a cable from Savarkar, who enthusiastically supported “the far-sighted and courageous determination to declare the independence of our Hindu State of Travancore”. One wonders “what would have happened to India’s unity if other princes had followed this course. Fortunately, Travancore acceded to India and C.P. had to quit the State.” (A.G. Noorani, ‘A National Hero?’ Frontline, Oct 23-Nov 5, 2004).
What is RSS’s Cultural Nationalism?
RSS calls itself a cultural organization and says its’ ideology is cultural nationalism. But their cultural nationalism is an imposition of Hindu majoritarianism with no space and no rights for other religions, cultures, languages and races. In his very first book, We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939), Golwalkar categorically theorised:
“… the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment -not even citizen’s rights.” (M.S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939, p. 47-48)
Sangh brigade’s “nationalism” is a frenzied division of people in the name of religion. Sangh brigade hero Savarkar, addressing a students’ gathering in Kanpur, said:
“What is called Nationalism can be defined as in fact the National communalism of the majority community which has been ruling and still aspires to rule this country. Thus, in Hindusthan it is the Hindus, professing Hindu religion and being in overwhelming majority, that constitute the National community and create and formulate the Nationalism of the Nation.” (“Hindu Mahasabha records, NMML” cited in Dixit, P.(1986), “The ideology of Hindu nationalism”, in Thomas Pantham and K. Deutsch (eds), Political Thought in Modern India, New Delhi : Sage Publications, pp. 122-123.)
RSS Hailing Hitler and Fascism
Golwalkar unequivocally praised Hitler’s fascist purge of Jews in Germany and proposed it as a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by:
“German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews. …Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by” (M. S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939, p. 35)
Savarkar termed Hitler’s fascism ‘the most congenial tonic’:
“There is no reason to suppose that Hitler must be a human monster because he passes off as a Nazi…The very fact that Germany and Italy has so wonderfully recovered and grown so powerful as never before at the touch of Nazi or Fascist magical wand is enough to prove that those political ‘isms’ were the most congenial tonics their health demanded.” (Savarkar in his Presidential address to the 22 Session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Madurai in 1940.)
RSS’s Repeated Undermining of India’s Constitution
RSS always insulted India’s Constitution. Golwalkar in his Bunch of Thoughts (1966) notes:
“Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing, which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No!” (Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, op.cit. p. 238).
RSS mouthpiece Organiser wrote an editorial declaring Manusmriti better than the Indian Constitution:
“But in our constitution there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.” (Editorial in Organizer, 30 November, 1949)
Savarkar too demanded the anti-women, anti-Dalit Manusmriti to be made Hindu Law:
“Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worshipable after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law.” (Savarkar, V. D., ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samagar, Vol. 4 (Collection of Savarkar’s Writings in Hindi) New Delhi: Prabhat, p. 416.)
RSS opposed the federal structure of our Constitution, Golwalkar wrote:
The present federal system generates and feeds separatist feelings. … It must be remedied and the Constitution amended and cleaned so as to establish Unitary Form of Government.” (Golwalkar, ‘The Nation And Its Problems’ in Bunch of Thoughts, op cit. p. 142)
RSS denounces the idea of equal rights to citizens enshrined in India’s Constitution. In the pamphlet “Why Hindu Rashtra” (1960) RSS chief Golwalkar wrote:
“Unfortunately…our Constitution has…given equal rights to everybody, just as a person without understanding may give equal rights to his children and to the thieves in his house and distribute the property among all”. (Golwalkar, Why Hindu Rashtra, text of speech given in 1960. Source: AG Noorani, RSS and BJP: Division of Labour, LeftWord Books, 2000, reprinted 2001, p 23)
The RSS oath actually demands allegiance of its members to a mission that runs counter to the plural, secular, democratic essence and provisions of India’s Constitution:
“Before the all powerful God and my ancestors, I most solemnly take this oath, that I become a member of the RSS in order to achieve all round greatness of Bharatvarsha by fostering the growth of my sacred Hindu religion, Hindu society and Hindu culture. I shall perform the work of Sangh honestly, disinterestedly, with my heart and soul, and I shall adhere to this goal all my life. Bharat Mata Ki Jai. (RSS, Shakha Darshika, Gyan Ganga, Jaipur, 1997, p. 1)
“RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology, lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.” (M.S. Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan, Nagpur, Volume I, p. 11)
RSS: Cultural or Communal?
RSS disguises naked communal ideology and practice as ‘cultural.’ But RSS’ role in communal violence was recognised by India’s first President and first Home Minister.
Dr. Rajendra Prasad (who later became the first President of India) wrote a letter to the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, on 14 March 1948:
“I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly, there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create a conflagration.”(Dr. Rajendra Prasad to Sardar Patel (March 14, 1948) cited in Neerja Singh (ed.), Nehru-Patel: Agreement Within Difference—Select Documents & Correspondences 1933-1950, NBT, Delhi, p. 43)
India’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel said in December 1948:
“It is our determined resolve that we will not allow R.S.S. or any other communal organization to throw the country back on the path of slavery or disintegration” (‘Sardar Patel Warns R.S.S.’, Hindustan Times, 20 December 1948)
Sardar Patel also firmly said the RSS created the communal poisonous climate responsible for Gandhiji’s murder and distributed sweets after his death:
“All their speeches (of RSS men) were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison and enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the valuable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. … Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions it became inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS.” (Sardar Patel’s letter to Golwalkar, September 11, 1948)
The family of Gandhiji’s killer Nathuram Godse insisted that he belonged to the RSS:
“All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah [intellectual worker] in the RSS. He has said in his statement that he left the RSS. He said it because Golwalkar and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS.” (Gopal Godse, brother of Nathuram Godse,in an interview to Frontline, January 28, 1994)
RSS propagates and advertises the views of Gandhiji’s assassin:
On October 5, 1997, (RSS English organ) Organiser published an advertisement by a Delhi publisher for six ‘Readable Attractive New Books’ – including a book by Gopal Godse, brother of Gandhiji’s assassin Nathuram Godse, titled Gandhi Ji’s Murder And After, and a book reproducing Nathuram’s statement in court titled May it Please Your Honour, justifying Gandhiji’s murder. (AG Noorani, The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour, 2001)
RSS believes that Sikhs are ‘Hindu Communalists’ and held that Sikhism and Neo-Buddhism were examples of ‘perverted anti-national attitudes’ and ‘communalism’ that Hindus must rightly oppose:
“There are communalists in Hindu Society itself, who originally came into existence in the form of creeds as a manifestation of the many-sided Hindu genius, but who later on forgot the source of their inspiration and creation and began to consider themselves as being different from Hindu samaj and dharma… Neo-Buddhists and Sikhs are of this type.” – (Golwalkar, ‘The Nation And Its Problems’ in Bunch of Thoughts, p 139 in the online pdf edition).
RSS’s Tirade Against Women’s Rights, Freedom and Equality
A Gita Press book “How to Lead a Household Life”, widely circulated by the RSS network, preaches against equal rights and jobs for women and remarriage, but approves of wife beating and a man remarrying. Let us look at one such excerpt:
“Question: What should the wife do if her husband beats her and troubles her?
Answer: The wife should think that she is paying her debt of her previous life and thus her sins are being destroyed and she is becoming pure. When her parents come to know this, they can take her to their own house because they have not given their daughter training to face this sort of bad behavior.
Question: What should she do if her parents do not take her to their own house?
Answer: Under such circumstances what can the helpless wife do? She should reap the fruit of her past actions. She should patiently bear the beatings of her husband. By bearing them she will be freed from her sins and it is possible that her husband may start loving her.” (Swami Ramsukhdas, How to Lead a Household Life, Geeta Press, Gorakhpur, p. 74)
Endorsing domestic violence on women: Noted journalist Neha Dixit, in her much acclaimed story “Holier than Cow” (The Outlook, 28 Jan 2013), documents how RSS’s women’s wing Rashtra Sevika Samiti rationalises domestic violence. On being asked by the journalist, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?”, the RSS sevika answered,
“Don’t parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband’s moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. The sevika says, “Our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”
RSS rejects the Indian Constitution and talks about turning the anti- women Manusmriti the constitution of the country.
Golwalkar led the RSS in opposing the Hindu Code Bill (1949) – which was the first though a partial step towards giving Hindu women equal rights to men.
Golwalkar claimed that granting of rights to women would “cause great psychological upheaval” to men and “lead to mental disease and distress”. (see Paula Bacchetta, Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues, p.124).
On 11th December, 1949, RSS organized a rally in Delhi’s Ramlila Ground where one speaker after another, spoke against the Hindu Code Bill. One speaker even called it: “an atom bomb on Hindu society’… The next day a group of RSS workers marched on the assembly buildings, shouting ‘Down with Hindu code bill’… The protesters burnt effigies of the prime minister and Dr Ambedkar.” (Ramchandra Guha, “Bhagwat’s Ambedkar”, Indian Express, December 10, 2015)
Golwalkar ridiculed the idea of women’s equality and liberation calling it “sexism” and comparing it with casteism:
“There is now a clamour for ‘equality for women’ and their ‘emancipation from man’s domination’! Reservation of seats in various positions of power is being claimed on the basis of their separate sex, thus adding one more ‘ism’-’sexism!’- to the array of casteism, communalism, linguism, etc.” (Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, p 104, online pdf edition)
UP CM Adityanath’s tirade against women’s freedom: Marching on the path of Golwalkar, BJP’s latest posterboy UP CM Adityanath, in his piece ‘Matrashakti — Bharatiya Shakti ke Sandarbh Mein’ quotes from the Manusmriti to assert that women must never be allowed freedom: ”women are not capable of being left free or independent…women need male protection from birth to death… a woman is protected in her childhood by her father, by her husband in her youth and by her son in her old age….
He adds, “Just like if you leave energy free and uncontrolled and unregulated, it may become useless and destructive, similarly ‘shakti swaroopa stree’— woman as the epitome of power — does not really need freedom, but a meaningful role with protection and channelisation.”
Then he quotes scriptures saying ”uncontrolled, free women who acquire man-like qualities become devilish.” (Economic Times, Mar 20, 2017).
RSS’s Defence of Casteism and Varna System, Demeaning of Dalits and Undermining of Reservation
We have seen how brazenly RSS rejects the Indian Constitution and wishes to replace it with the Manusmriti. Manusmriti rationalizes inhuman behavior against Dalits and institutionalizes this hatred as social code of conduct. RSS glorifies the inhuman varnasystem as a boon from the God.
Golwalkar defends the social hierarchy and graded inequality:
“… the Almighty Purusha Sukta wherein it is stated that the sun and the moon are His eyes, the stars and the skies are created from his navel and Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. This means that the people who have this foretold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu people, is our god. The supreme vision of god-head is the very core concept of ‘nation’ and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique concepts of our cultural heritage.” (M. S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, op.cit. p. 61)
Golwalkar supports the idea of racial superiority of Namboodiri Brahmins and propagates racist idea of cross-breeding among human beings for superior progeny: Golwalkar was invited to address the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he emphasized the importance of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history:
“Today experiments in cross-breeding are made only on animals. But the courage to make such experiments on human beings is not shown even by the so-called modern scientist of today. If some human cross-breeding is seen today it is the result not of scientific experiments but of carnal lust. Now let us see the experiments our ancestors made in this sphere. In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahmans of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.” (Organizer, January 2, 1961, p. 5)
In the same lecture, Golwalkar also glorified Varna system which spawned the much despised regime of casteism down the centuries:
“Today we try to run down the Varna system through ignorance. But it was through this system that a great effort to control possessiveness could be made…In society some people are intellectuals, some are expert in production and earning of wealth and some have the capacity to labour. Our ancestors saw these four broad divisions in the society. The Varna system means nothing else but a proper co-ordination of these divisions and an enabling of the individual to serve the society to the best of his ability through a hereditary development of the functions for which he is best suited. If this system continues a means of livelihood is already reserved for every individual from his birth.” (Organizer, January 2, 1961, pp. 5 & 16.)
Golwalkar opposed reservation:
“Dr. Ambedkar had envisaged the special privileges for “Scheduled Castes” for only 10 years from the day we became a Republic in 1950. But it is going on, being extended. Continued special privileges on the basis of caste only, is bound to create vested interests in them in remaining as a separate entity. That would harm their integration with the rest of the society.” (M. S. Golawalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (1966) p 271 in the online pdf edition)
Deendayal Upadhyay’s shameful defence of caste system: RSS ideologue, co-founder of Jan Sangh (the earlier version of BJP) and the latest icon for the Modi govt for renaming govt schemes and railway station, Deendayal Upadhyay was a strong defender casteism describing it as not only natural but also practical. He went to the extent of equating it with swadharma (one’s own religion). In fact, he declared inequality to be natural to human society, thus treating casteism also as a natural institution. He said:
“Even though slogans of equality are raised in the modern world, the concept of equality has to be accepted with discretion. Our actual experience is that from the practical and material point of view, no two men are alike… Considerable bitterness could be avoided if the idea of equality as conceived by Hindu thinkers is studied more carefully. Even if men have different qualities and different kinds of duties allotted to them according to their qualities or aptitudes, all duties are equally dignified. This is called swadharma, and there is an unequivocal assurance that to follow swadharma is itself equivalent to the worship of God….. If the duty is done without selfishness, no blame attaches itself to the doer.” (C.P. Bhishikar, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Ideology and Perception: Concept of the Rashtra, Vol. 5, Suruchi Prakashan, Delhi, p. 169)
Modi “Spiritualising” Caste Oppression: Endorsing and further propagating RSS and Deendayal’s thoughts, Narendra Modi terms the practice of manual scavenging imposed on Dalits as God’s order and ‘an internal spiritual activity’ for Dalits! ‘Karmayog’ is a collection of Narendra Modi’s speeches to IAS officials at various points, published by the Gujarat govt in 2007. In the pages 48-49 of this publication,Modi says:
“I do not believe that they (Valmikis) have been doing this job (manual scavenging) just to sustain their livelihood. Had this been so, they would not have continued with this type of job generation after generation….At some point of time, somebody must have got the enlightenment that it is their (Valmikis’) duty to work for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods; that they have to do this job bestowed upon them by Gods; and that this job of cleaning up should continue as an internal spiritual activity for centuries. It is impossible to believe that their ancestors did not have the choice of adopting any other work or business.” (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/true-lies/entry/modi-s-spiritual-potion-to-woo-karmayogis)
We deeply acknowledge the decades of painstaking research and archival documentation put up in the public domain by Prof. Shamsul Islam through numerous books and articles on the issue, some of which have been used in the preparation of this pamphlet.
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