[sacw] RSS... AND THE CHRISTIANS

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
Harsh Kapoor
------------------

RSS... AND THE CHRISTIANS: A LOVE-TO-HATE RELATIONSHIP
By Frederick Noronha
[26 December 1999]

Christians, long content with being an apolitical community, are
suddenly being thrown in the midst of a lot of allegations,
controversy and potential conflict. Saffron-oriented fringe
groups have been making it out that Christians' activities are a
severe threat to the national interests.

Since 1998, it started as a trickle. Soon, within months, there
were reports or sporadic attacks on Christians from various parts
of the country. It's not surprising that after a long campaign
through in-house publications of the Sangh Parivar that a small
minority of 2.4% in a country of a thousand million people
suddenly assumed menancing proportions.

But to cope with the situation, it's important to understand the
issue in proper context. For doing so, one has to delve into how
Christians are seen in the eyes of the saffron fringe groups,
which of course are only one extremist point of view and do not
represent the position of the wider Hindu community.

Hindu revivalism, a growing force in India, is rooted in the
belief that Hinduism is endangered. This perception comes from
many sources: the political assertiveness of minority groups like
the Sikhs and Muslims, efforts to convert Hindus to other faiths,
suspicions that the political authorities are 'pandering' to
minority groups, and the belief that 'foreign' political and
religious ideologies undermine community bonds.

Today, a key player in the entire issue is the RSS. The Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh ('National Volunteer Corps') is the best-
organised and largest group committed to Hindu revivalism in
India. Today its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has
managed to cling on in power at Delhi.

Linked to the RSS in India are several affiliated organisation,
referrred to in the RSS literature itself as the "family" (or
Sangh Parivar).

The RSS began as a Hindu revivalist organisation started in 1925
by a handful of Brahmins in Maharashtra, with the aim of "uniting
Hindu society". Today it is increasingly being referred to as the
real power behind the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.

According to 'Khaki Shorts, Saffron Flags', a book on the RSS
edited by Neeladri Bhattacharya, "The stories told in the shakas
(RSS branches) are always charged with communal meanings, the
inculcated values of absolute loyalty -- the submission of self
to the leader, the submergence of the individual to the community
-- create a basis of authoritarianism; marital training allows
the possibility of a militarization of society."

The RSS' concept of Hindutva itself has come under severe
criticism. While many term it antagonistic and anti-minority,
RSS leaders like Seshadri argues that Hindutva is a way of life.
"Hindu is not the name of a religious faith like Muslim or
Christian," he conveniently argues, calling it the "national way
of life here..."

But the problem starts as the RSS sees Christians as one of the
groups it would love to hate.

RSS theoreticians maintain that the social body functions well
only when individuals perform their economic, social and
religious duties (dharma). Founders of the RSS concluded that the
Hindu social body was weak and disorganised because dharma was
neither clearly understood nor observed.

One recurrent theme in its belief systems is the identification
of "hostile" forces which plot against the nation, causing the
"disruptive" strains in the country. These forces are often
identified with particular social groups, who are usually defined
as different, united and powerful.

RSS writers identify two general types of potentially
'disruptive' forces in contemporary Indian society: (i) Muslims
and Christians who propagate values that might result in the
denationalisation of their adherents, and (ii) the Westernized
elite who propose capitalism, socialism or communism as solutions
for Indian development.

Christians consider themselves a community. It is this community
orientation -- not the dogma itself -- that is considered a
possible impediment to their identification with the "larger
nation".

RSS writers allege that Christian values have tended to distance
Christians culturally from the national mainstream in some parts
of the country. From this proposition, a subproposition is
deduced: because some Christians do not consider themselves
culturally Indian, they do not experience a sense of community
with other Indians.

One could phrase the proposition in the more esoteric terms of
the belief system: Because Christians are culturally different,
they have separated themselves from the 'national soul'.

One weekly journal affiliated to the RSS charged that the
subjects taught in the Christian schools of a tribal area in
northeastern India "are typically Western with no relation
whatsoever to the Indian environment... It is these students who,
on coming out of the missionary institutions, agitate for the
creation of an 'Independent Nagaland'," said the Organiser issue
way back on September 3, 1963.

Echoes of such charges are heard repeatedly, whether it is in the
debate over the Pope's forthcoming visit to India, against the
NCERT textbooks which were strongly but unsuccessfully fought
against some years back in Goa, or on the campaign against having
English-medium for primary schools in this state.

Another writer noted that Christian converts "were given not only
psychological affinity with the people of Western countries, but
were weaned away from the national society -- the language, the
script, the dress, other modes of life, the festivals, names and
nomenclature -- all undergo a change." (See Shripaty Shatry's A
Retrospect, Christianity in India. An Exposition of the RSS'
views on the Relevance of Christianity in India Today, Pune, 1984).

Suspicion about Christians and their religious activities is a
long-standing agenda of the RSS.

During its Karnataka Conference some years back, the VHP urged
the government "to expel all foreign missionaries from the
country forthwith and not to permit their further entry".

In the late 'seventies, when the then Jana Sangh got a toehold in
power at Delhi through the Janata Party government, efforts for a
'Freedom of Religion' Bill aiming at banning conversions were
also put forth.

Since the early 1970s, the VHP has concentrated its resources on
northeastern India, a region with a large tribal population.
Prompting the VHP is its fear that various tribal groups are
suspectible to "foreign" ideologies which could trigger the
formation of separatist movements. To counter this, the VHP has
established schools, orphanages, clinics, temples, and the like,
in an effort both to block the further expansion of Christianity
and to enhance "national identity".

Comments journalist Sunil Adam: "In sum, the RSS has evolved from
being a secretive, upper-caste, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, xenophobic
and ultra-nationalistic organization confined to a few
Brahminical boroughs five decades, into a force which has a
national perspective, a political programme, economic strategy,
social policy and a pragmatic leadership."

But has it really? Time will tell... (ENDS)