[sacw] SACW Dispatch #1 | 22-23 Oct. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #1.
22-23 October 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

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#1. Railway Workers Under Attack in Pakistan
#2. India: Saffron is thicker than...
#3. India: Hindu Hard-Liners Pressing to Keep Excluding Muslims
#4. How the RSS's Politics of Purity is Destroying India's Multicultural Heritage
#5. India: Introduction of Astrology Course in Universities
#6. India: RSS and BJP

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#1.

RAILWAY WORKERS UNDER ATTACK IN PAKISTAN

By: Farooq Sulehria

The Mugalpura Police of Lahore have registered a case against 10 labour
leaders on the charges of breaching the peace, sedition and making provocative
speeches against the military government. Rail Mazdoor Itehad (Rail workers
unity, an alliance of all the main unions at Railway workshops) had organized
a public meeting on 18th October, on the call of Pakistan Workers
Confederation against price hike, unemployment, privatization and retrenchment
of workers. 

On 17th October, the rail management for negotiations called the four main
railway labour leaders. As they arrived at the Divisional Superintendent
Workshops, they found a large presence of police. At the negotiation table,
mainly serving military officials, they were asked again and again to postpone
the public meeting. They also promised to solve the problems of workers but
not in writing. The negotiations went on till 11pm. Labour leaders insisted to
take back the austerity measures, cancel the transfer orders of the two main
rail workers leaders. No agreement was reached. The rail management made it
absolute clear that they will not allow the public meeting.

The public meeting was to be held at shed build for workers rest during the
intervals outside the main workshops. During the gate meetings early morning
labour leaders made it clear to the workers that they will not compromise and
if they are called for negotiation, they will go, but the public meeting must
be organized with or without them.

All the main rest sheds were occupied by hundreds of policemen since morning
of October 18th. It was clear to every one that the rail military management
is all out to stop the public meeting. When the lunch break of an hour started
workers came out in processions and after they saw the police at the sheds,
they headed towards the railway workers union office. The canteen next to the
office can accommodate over 300 workers for a meeting. The management thought
that workers would organize the meeting at the canteen. But many militant
workers refused to go the canteen and insisted that the meeting will take
place at the scheduled area. The four railway workers leaders, Fazal Wahid,
Saifu Rehman, Gul Deraz and Sadiq Baig had not yet reached the union office.
It was believed that they are detained. So second layers of union leaders
announced a picket line of the management office instead of the public
meeting.

On hearing the news, that workers are marching towards the management office,
the rail administration allowed the four leaders to go and to restrain them
from doing this. As they arrived at the office, a new confidence was build.

Police stopped the marching workers to the sheds and threatened them with
baton charges. This provoked the workers. Some of them said kill us but we
will not leave this road. ěOpen fire if you want but we will have the public
meetingî some of the elderly workers shouted. 

On this, a wooden bench was brought on the main road and a public meeting
started. Hundreds of police men were watching this bravery of the workers with
shouting of ěNo to Price hike, Down with military government, Take back the
victimization measures, restore the overtime, no to privatizationî and so on. 
Some eight speakers including Choudry Gulzar Ahmed, chairman Pakistan Workers
Confederation Punjab chapter, Farooq Tariq general secretary Labour Party
Pakistan and Altaf Baluch of Mutehida Workers Federation spoke on the
occasion. They vowed to fight back and continue to struggle for a workers
democracy. The meeting went on for half an hour and incidentally or for any
other reason, the one hour of lunch break went on and on until the meeting was
over. 

Police had to watch in desperation, as workers seemed determined to go for
this historic meeting. It was after a long time that workers in Railway showed
their revolutionary potential and a determined willingness to go for a
militant mood.

The police first information report (FIR)

ěOver 500/600 railway workshops under the leadership of Saif Rehman general
secretary Railway Workers Union, Fazal Wahid general secretary CBA union,
Sadiq Baig general secretary Mahnatkash union, Farooq Tariq general secretary
Labour Party Pakistan, Altaf Baluch leader of Workers Confederation, Choudry
Gulzar general secretary All Pakistan Trade Unions Federation, Gul Deraz Khan
Rail Mazdoor Itehad, Haji Mohammed Alam Railway Power House Councilor,
Mohammed Khalid Councilor Carriage shop, Mohammed Iqbal Councilor Carriage
shop came on the Mughal Pura Road. They started a public meeting. They made
speeches. Following slogans were raised against the government ělong live
workers unity, workers like brothers brothers, we are dying with hunger, stop
price hike, The path of Struggle is our path, Atta (wheat floor) Sugar are
going up, down with governmentî. They also raised slogans against the
government. They warned the administration not to stop the workers to raise
their voices. They also demanded to stop victimizations of the workers on
political grounds. 

Police warned them that there is a ban on political activities, but they went
on with the meeting. So with the workers leaders, 500/600 workers have
violated the law. They have violated under section 148/149, 186/341, and 16
MPO (maintenance of public order). So police should take appropriate
actionsî.

The national media printed the news on 22nd October on the day when the
Railway Federal Minister addressed a press conference boosting that railway is
going into profit this year after the restructuring plan of the Rail
department. The restructuring plan first attack was the workers whose several
concessions have been withdrawn. A military discipline has been imposed on the
workshops. Over time has been reduced. The number of concession passes for the
workers have been reduced for travel by train. There has been no wage increase
for the last four years. The union leaders have been transferred to for off
places as a punishment for their union activity. In Rawalpindi, One workers
leader Bashir Bottor has been terminated while 9 other been suspended from
jobs for union activities.

Workers have been told by a letter not to contact the national media and not
to issue press releases. 

The workers leaders are in a process of going to the court for pre arrest bail
as they all have gone underground. These latest attacks once again expose the
real nature of the present regime, an anti workers military government going
on all offence to fulfill the conditions of IMF and World Bank. One such
condition for more aid is to bring the railway out of losses. So all the
burden has been put on workers shoulders. While a large bureaucracy of Railway
administration alongside the recent appointee of Military officials has been
given a free hand to deal the workers. 

The military government and railway administration cannot go very far on this
road as they are buying an unprecedented heatedness of the workers and
masses.

If you want more information
Please contact:

Labour.Pakistan@u...

For more background information please visit

www.labourpakistan.org

Please send your protest letters to

1- Genral Manager Pakistan Railways
dirmispr@p...

2- Federal Railway MInister Lt.Gen.(R)Javed Ashraf
Tel: 92 51 9210322, 9210344
Fax: 92 51 9215740

3- Federal Labour Minister Mr. Umer Asgar Khan
envir@i...
fax: 92 51 9202211, 92 51 9224890

4- Cheif Executive Genral Pervaiz Musharaf
CE@p...

Copies to 

labour.pakistan@u...

______

#2.

The Hindu
22 October 2000
Op-Ed.

SAFFRON IS THICKER THAN... 

The apparently contradictory statements
made by Mr. Laxman and Mr. Advani on
the RSS are being seen as an attempt by
the BJP to keep two options open, writes
NEENA VYAS.

CURIOUSLY, THE Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, which has always
considered itself to be a super patriotic
organisation, cannot explain why it never
participated in the freedom struggle in any
meaningful manner. It did not respond to
the calls given by Mahatma Gandhi, nor
did it organise any independent protests
against the British. And yet, it has never
tired of preaching lessons in patriotism,
especially to Muslims and Christians.

The writings by RSS leaders, beginning
with `Guru' M. S. Golwalkar, reek of a
hatred of Muslims and Christians, and it is
well known that he stopped just short of recommending Hitler's method of dealing
with what he called ``the problem of the minorities''. Writing about the purge of the
Jews by Hitler, he affirmed: ``Germany has shown how well nigh impossible it is
for races and cultures, having differences going to the roots, to be assimilated into
one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.'' 

That may have been a long time ago, but the fact remains that to this day Golwalkar
is revered by the RSS, and even the present BJP leadership, including the Prime
Minister and the Union Home Minister, acknowledge Golwalkar as the ``guru'' at
whose feet they imbibed the lessons in what constitutes nationalism. Let alone
repudiate his views, the portraits of Golwalkar now adorn some rooms in
Parliament House. 

At the Agra camp of the RSS last weekend, its `Sarsanghachalak', Mr. K. S.
Sudarshan, could not help dishing out the old and familiar views. The Christians
must Indianise the church, the Muslims must accept Rama and Krishna as their
heroes, and only then can they become part of the national mainstream. The view
was often expressed by Mr. L. K. Advani during the days of the Ayodhya
agitation. 

This view is hardly different from that of Golwalkar who prescribed the five points
needed to be part of the nation of Hindustan. ``In this country, Hindustan, the
Hindu Race with its Hindu religion, Hindu culture and Hindu language (the family
of Sanskrit and her offsprings) complete the Nation concept.'' And not wishing to
leave anything ambiguous, he further wrote: ``we must bear in mind that so far as
`nation' is concerned, all those, who fall outside the five-fold limits of that idea, can
have no place in national life, unless they abandon their differences, adopt the
religion, culture and language of the Nation and completely merge themselves in the
national race. So long, however, as they maintain their racial, religious and cultural
differences, they cannot but be only foreigners, who may be either friendly or
inimical to the Nation.'' 

Mr. Sudarshan's call to Muslims and Christians to revere Rama and Krishna is a
step in the direction of asking them to adopt the Hindu religion if they wished to be
part of the nation. The war cries of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal
on the conversions issue, the call by the Prime Minister for a ``national debate'' on
the subject, all fall into place. In fact, even the review of the Constitution was a
demand made by Golwalkar barely a few years after it took shape. 

No wonder then that the statement by the new BJP president, Mr. Bangaru
Laxman, at the party's recent Nagpur conclave that ``Muslims were flesh of our
flesh and blood of our blood'' did not go down too well with the hardcore saffron
constituents of the BJP. In fact, fears were expressed by some in the party that
while the Muslims would not be fooled into voting for the BJP, such a stance might
cost the BJP dearly by loosening its grip over the hardcore Hindutva votebank,
especially in the Hindi heartland. 

What happened at Agra last weekend - the reassertion of Hindutva, the
``suggestion'' to the minorities to ``Indianise'' (as if they were not Indians), the
criticism of the Government's economic policies and approval of `swadeshi'
economics, and more importantly the participation by the Union Home Minister -
was perhaps an attempt to keep the Hindutva constituents solidly behind the BJP. 

In fact, given the RSS views over the last 75 years since it came into existence,
what Mr. Sudershan, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat and Mr. H. V. Seshadiri, said was no
surprise. The RSS has never strayed from the Hindutva course, and one could even
say, never will. The difference was that these strident speeches were made to
coincide with the one year of the Vajpayee Government. 

The BJP has been trying to finetune its own views and approach so as not to
frighten its political friends, most of whom have a sizeable support among the
minorities. It does not suit the BJP to come out strongly in support of Hindutva at
the moment, not till it finds itself in a position to form a Government on its own.
But Mr. Advani's presence at Agra seemed to suggest that at least he was very
much in tune with the RSS views, and he could jump back on the Hindutva
bandwagon. 

Ironically, the party seems to have also come to the conclusion that to surge ahead
electorally it cannot continue to alienate the minorities. With the total strength of
minorities around 15 to 20 per cent of the population, it does not make for good
electoral arithmetic to begin with a minus 15 or minus 20 mark. That explained the
``Muslims are flesh of our flesh'' appeal by Mr. Laxman. 

But the new line may not have gone down too well with the BJP's own cadres, and
more importantly the RSS cadres on whom the party still depends for intensive
door-to-door campaigning during election time. There is a view in the party that if
the minority card is played too strongly, it may lose its Hindutva votebank. And the
BJP has been trying to keep the balance, alternately giving the come hither look to
the minorities and then wielding the Hindutva stick to beat them with. 

After the Agra camp, the strong reaction by the minorities against the speeches made
Mr. Laxman jump and say that the BJP's views were ``significantly different'',
although Mr. Advani had only a couple of days earlier hammered home the point
that the erstwhile Jana Sangh had given up the Janata Party experiment rather than
disassociate from the RSS, thus hinting that the BJP may not mind doing it again.
After all, the temple- mosque politics played by the BJP to the hilt was part of the
RSS' ideological stance long before the BJP's Palampur resolution on Ram temple. 

The apparently contradictory statements made by Mr. Laxman and Mr. Advani on
the RSS are also being seen as an attempt by the party to keep two options open -
pursue the soft and on the surface moderate Vajpayee line, or go back to the hard
Hindutva line which became identified with Mr. Advani after he played the lead role
in the Ayodhya agitation. 

More than two years of coalition politics at the Centre has naturally prevented the
BJP from asserting its Hindutva agenda. In Chennai last year the attempt to deny
the Hindutva agenda was resisted strongly by the party forcing the leadership to
change the Chennai Declaration. 

No national political party, including the BJP, can rest content with heading a
coalition Government. The Prime Minister also talked about ``building an India of
my dreams'' when addressing his own VHP-dominated crowd at the Staten Island
meeting in New York. And surely, the India of his dreams, as much as the India of
Mr. Advani's dreams. is pretty much like the India of the dreams of Golwalkar and
Hegdewar and Mr. Sudarshan. 

______

#3.

New York Times
October 22, 2000

HINDU HARD-LINERS PRESSING TO KEEP EXCLUDING MUSLIMS

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Agence France-Presse India's home minister and a party leader, Lal Krishna Advani, left, giving the salute of a Hindu nationalist group at its camp meeting.

The Associated Press Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party president, Bangaru Laxman

EW DELHI, Oct. 21 — Bangaru Laxman, the new president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads India's coalition government, has been trying lately to distance the party from its Hindu nationalist roots and the Hindu chauvinist thinking that has long alienated Muslims and many others in this predominantly Hindu nation.

In his inaugural address, Mr. Laxman argued that his party had hit a plateau in its share of the national vote — about a quarter of the total — and must begin aggressively courting Muslims, who make up about 12 percent of India's population. "Muslims are the flesh of our flesh and the blood of our blood," he declared, quoting a political forebear. He also visited the foreign correspondents club, where he argued that his party should no longer be described as Hindu nationalist.

But events in the past week once again yoked the Bharatiya Janata Party to the very Hindu nationalist identity that Mr. Laxman has been trying to put at arm's length and made it seem that the party was torn between cultivating its hard-core constituency and broadening its base among Muslims and low-caste Hindus — steps it must take if it is ever to hold power on its own.

It started last Sunday in Agra at a camp meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteers Association. This 75-year- old Hindu nationalist organization, known as the R.S.S., is the parent in a "family" of affiliated and like-minded groups that includes a political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

At the meeting, Lal Krishna Advani, second only to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the party's leadership, listened respectfully as K. S. Sudarshan, who heads the association, declared that Muslims must embrace what he described as their Hindu origins.

He also said Muslims should not oppose construction of a Hindu temple to the god Ram on the site of a 16th-century mosque in the town of Ayodhya, a notion that is anathema to them. The mosque was demolished in 1992 by Hindu zealots, whose emotions had been inflamed by leaders in the R.S.S. family, including Mr. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Afterward, Hindu-Muslim riots raged across the country, leaving more than 1,200 people dead.

"Most Muslim society is illiterate and in the hold of mullahs and they do not allow a harmonious relationship," Mr. Sudarshan said at a news conference.

The next day, many national newspapers ran photographs of Mr. Advani, who serves as home minister and who may one day succeed the aging Mr. Vajpayee, giving the salute of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, his hand held stiffly in front of his chest, palm down.

His presence at such a huge gathering of the association's faithful — arrayed across a dusty parade ground in khaki shorts and black caps — served as a reminder that virtually all of the party's top officials, including Mr. Advani, Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Laxman, were themselves for many years members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

It also brought predictably harsh condemnations from the leaders of secular-minded political parties.

Mr. Advani went on the offensive, warmly embracing the R.S.S. In articles splashed across the front pages of the major national dailies on Wednesday, he made it clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party would never sever its ties with the R.S.S. "How could we disown an organization with which we have been associated since our childhood," he asked.

He said the group had provided the Bharatiya Janata Party with the kind of moral guidance that the independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi had given the Congress Party. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a former R.S.S. member who felt Gandhi favored Islamic Pakistan over India. Though the R.S.S. itself was not implicated, it was banned for a time and was considered politically untouchable for many years — a status it has since overcome.

"Why all this hue and cry when we meet R.S.S. leaders?" Mr. Advani asked. "Is everybody not aware of the B.J.P. ideology?"

The next day, in an interview at his home, Mr. Laxman, the B.J.P. president, said Mr. Sudarshan's remarks about Muslims "were not what was needed." And in a statement issued that evening, he said the party's commitment to secularism was "unconditional and irreversible."

Mr. Laxman himself joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a 12-year-old boy and was an active volunteer in the organization until he was 30. He then joined its political affiliate. "The R.S.S. teaches you discipline," he said. "It creates patriotic fervor. It inculcates a sense of belonging to the motherland."

But he insisted that the party he now leads was not dominated by the group. "The R.S.S. membership is open only to Hindus," he said. "The B.J.P. is open to every Indian, to whatever religion he belongs."

Mr. Laxman, who has been a full- time party functionary for three decades, was annointed for the party presidency by the prime minister, who is generally seen as the party's liberal face. As the head of a coalition government that holds together only because the Bharatiya Janata Party has set aside his Hindu agenda, Mr. Vajpayee has led the country away from some of the policies dearest to the hearts of the Hindu nationalist association he sprang from.

It wants an economy more closed to foreign investment, while Mr. Vajpayee has continued to slowly open India to globalization. It wants a Hindu temple to Ram in Ayodhya, a goal the party has set aside for now. It wants a nation united by the idea of Hindu culture, while Mr. Vajpayee has apparently sanctioned Mr. Laxman's pragmatic efforts to reach out to Muslims.

Mr. Sudarshan's pointed comments on Muslims last week seemed intended to pull the party back into the Hindu nationalist fold.

"The R.S.S. finds the B.J.P. diluting the venom and poison they've been giving every year," said Yogendra Yadav, a political scientist at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. "This is the way the pure ideologists remind the impure political wing to come back to its moorings."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

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#4.

DECCAN HERALD 

Saturday, October 21, 2000 

INTRODUCTION OF ASTROLOGY COURSE IN VARSITIES

UGC`s objectionable move

By H NARASIMHAIAH

The University Grants Commission has decided to introduce courses in astrology, palmistry and training courses for pundits in universities. This move should be condemned by all those who are interested in promoting scientific temper and rational thinking.

According to the astrology, planets exercise influence on human affairs. According to astrologers, there are nine planets -- (Navagrahas) sun, moon, rahu, ketu, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter and saturn. But the sun is not a planet, but a star. The moon is a satellite. Besides, 'rahu` and 'ketu` do not exist in the solar system. These are figments of the imagination of astrologers. Thus, out of the nine planets which form the basis of astrology, two are not planets and two do not exist at all.

Apart from these planets, scientists have discovered three more planets -- uranus, neptune and pluto of which most of the astrologers are blissfully ignorant. In addition, astrologers have no clear concept of time and its measurement, which play a very important role in astrology. All these have given a very weak, faulty and shaky foundation to astrology. The superstructure that is built on such wrong assumptions can never be considered as science by any stretch of imagination.

Methods of science are universal and they are powerful tools which can be used in any investigation to know the truth. Application of these methods will have a devastating effect on anything that is unscientific.

Science is universal. There is only one science for the whole world and, if I may venture to say, for the entire universe. Whereas it is not so in the case of astrology. When there is no 'rahu`, there is no meaning in 'rahukala` which is considered to be inauspicious. Assuming for a moment that 'rahukala` exists, then all buses, trains and planes leaving during 'rahukala` should meet with accidents. But everybody knows that this is not true. Accidents do not owe their origin to the departure timings.

Similarly, it is not difficult to prove that no day is auspicious or inauspicious. Every day is innocuous. Similarly we can show that horoscope is a meaningless and useless piece of paper. A critical analysis of some natural calamities delivers a mortal blow to the already tottering and shaky astrology. To come to the conclusion that the horoscopes of all the unfortunate victims of a plane crash tell the same fate for all of them is absurd. It is equally preposterous to believe that all the horoscopes of a cyclone or an earthquake victims will reveal the same date and time of death.

I wish to cite a very important prediction made by Indian astrologers who cried hoarse from the housetops and gave a severe warning to the people that on the conjunction of eight planets -- 'Astagraha koota` -- in February 1962, there would be catastrophe and heavens would come down. This was well publicised nationally and to some extent internationally also. But the day was as uneventful as any other day. Consequently, the astrologers made fools of themselves and astrology met its Waterloo on that day also.

Twentyfive years ago, a statement was made by 186 leading scientists with 19 Nobel Prize winners including the late Dr S Chandrashekar opposing astrology. It said: ''We believe that the time has come to challenge directly and forcefully the pretentious claims of astrological charlatans``. According to David Hilbert, one of the world`s greatest mathematicians when you collect the ten wisest men of the world and ask them to find the most stupid thing in existence, they will not be able to find anything stupider than astrology.

For the information of the people, Buddha and Basava had opposed astrology and Swami Vivekananda called the belief in astrology to be a sign of a weak mind.

I wish to draw the attention of the obscurantist members of the University Grants Commission that there are ten fundamental duties of citizens enshrined in our Constitution. One of the fundamental duties is ''It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to develop scientific temper, spirit of enquiry, humanism and reform``. This shows that introduction of astrology etc., is a gross violation of our Constitution. Tomorrow, the UGC may introduce courses in witchcraft, numerology and many such stupid subjects. The UGC has brought disgrace to our country by introducing such blantantly unscientific and senseless courses.

Dr H Narasimhaiah is former Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University.

© Copyright, 1999 The Printers (Mysore)Ltd.

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#5.

(22 October 2000)

Comment:

FROM PLURALISM TO EXCLUSIVISM: HOW THE RSS'S POLITICS OF PURITY IS 
DESTROYING INDIA'S MULTICULTURAL HERITAGE.

By Farish A. Noor.

That the world is now home to competing and contradictory tendencies towards 
globalisation and isolationism is old news to us by now. Aggravated by the 
poorly regulated process of globalisation, which has brought into being a 
radically new form of communicative architecture hitherto unknown to us, the 
world seems split between those who believe in a future with no more 
political and cultural boundaries on the one hand and those who believe that 
the future depends on strengthening those frontiers even more.

The backlash against globalisation has led to the emergence of a number of 
ethno-nationalist and religio-political movements which have stepped into 
the vacuum once occupied by traditional opponents of Western 
liberal-capitalist hegemony. In many parts of the world, and in the 
developing South in particular, we can see the revival of culturally, 
racially and religiously exclusivist movements that have grown more vocal in 
their demands to police the boundaries of their society at all levels.

India today is a case in point, and the contradictions that exist in the 
Third World are manifest in the problematic domestic political situation of 
the country, particularly after the victory of the Hindu fundamentalist 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The government of Prime Minister Atal Behari 
Vajpayee is now forced to contain the tide of religious and cultural 
exclusivism that was let loose into the open, party thanks to the political 
advances of his own party. But now comes an even bigger threat to the 
multicultural traditions of once-secular India- mainly from the BJP's parent 
organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

However, to claim that all of India's present day problems are due entirely 
to the advances of the BJP and RSS would be to put the cart before the horse 
in a sense. Both the BJP and RSS have been in India for decades, and the 
latter made the headlines of the world when one of its members assassinated 
Mahatma Ghandi in 1948. The RSS has been around for more than 75 years now, 
and its presence on the political landscape of India is hardly a novel 
development.

But what is new about the resurgence of the RSS today is just how popular 
and influential the movement has become, and how it has managed to tap into 
the collective anger and frustration of so many Hindus in India- after the 
apparent failure of so many secular democratic governments that were 
ostensibly dedicated to the modern developmental paradigm. What is also 
interesting is to see how and why the rhetoric of the RSS- which has always 
been predicated on a discourse of authenticity and notions of cultural 
purity- has made such an effective comeback on the Indian political scene.

At its massive nation-wide rally recently, where an excess of 75,000 members 
were said to have attended, the leadership of the RSS called for a return to 
the politics of cultural purity in no uncertain terms. Its main targets, as 
usual, were the non-Hindu minorities of the country who have always been 
blamed for India's internal problems and regarded as 'unpure' elements that 
are somehow alien to India's 'pure' Hindu culture in general.

The leadership of the RSS, beginning with men like K. S. Sudarshan, called 
on the state to force the country's Christian minority to break their 
institutional links with other Churches abroad. The RSS has always claimed 
that the Indian Churches have been funded and promoted by foreign interests 
that are opposed to Hindu hegemony in India, and that India's Christian 
minority are in reality a dangerous fifth column who are actually working 
against the interests of the country. In favour of a closed and controlled 
'national' Church for India, the RSS now seem to be pushing for a local 
Church institution that is similar to that of the Church that is allowed to 
exist in China.

Apart from India's Christians, the RSS has also levelled its critique 
against the Muslims of the country. Long since cast as 'outsiders' and 
'descendants of invaders', India's Muslims share a common fate with their 
Semitic brethren, the Christians. Like the Christians, India's Muslims have 
been accused of trying to undermine the socio-cultural and religio-political 
hegemony of the Hindu majority. Now the RSS plans to push through a series 
of cultural and educational reform measures that would force the 130 million 
Muslims of India to accept and acknowledge the fact that they were once 
Hindus themselves, so that they may 'Indianise' themselves further.

That a party like the RSS can speak of 'pure' Indian culture and 
'Indianisation' programmes without flinching is in itself a reflection of 
the dogmatism and extremism of the movement, whose rhetoric is echoed in 
other far-right extremist movements elsewhere such as in Germany. Yet the 
RSS, committed as it is to its religio-political ideology based on a narrow 
reading of classical Hinduism (as well as an even narrower reading of Indian 
history) continues to launch its incessant polemics against the cultural and 
religious minorities of the country with impunity.

The root of the problem, however, is not so much prejudice, ignorance or a 
hatred of foreigners as such. True, these are all factors that have come 
into play and no other movement in India today is as adroit in manipulating 
these sentiments like the RSS and BJP. But apart from that there remains the 
fundamental problem of the fundamentalists themselves, and their discourse 
of cultural authenticity and purity.

For the underlying logic of the RSS- like many other extremist religious and 
political movements in other parts of the world- is based on categories of 
absolutes. From its inception, the RSS has been promoting the notion of a 
'pure' India that was somehow untainted and uncorrupted until the coming of 
invaders who brought with them different ideas and values, as well as 
religious beliefs. This is how and why the Christians and Muslims of India 
are thought of as 'external enemies' who have come to defile the sacred 
precinct on Indian culture and identity.

Such a thesis works only because it is simple and wrong. Like all extremist 
organisations that preach a culture of intolerance, the discourse of the RSS 
is basically an instrumental fiction that is designed to secure specific 
political goals, regardless of the cost to truth and objectivity. The RSS 
fails to note, for instance, that India herself is more than a country: it 
is, in fact, a great continent whose greatness lies in precisely the melange 
of cultural, religious, economic and political influences that have come to 
find a home there. And in this process of cultural mixing, inter-penetration 
and cross-fertilising, it is the people of India as a whole who have 
benefited.

To claim that India's Hindus have not been touched at all by the process of 
intercultural exchange is a lie, and a dangerous one at that. It denies the 
centuries of cross-cultural borrowing which has helped to enrich the Hindus 
of the country and made them an open, tolerant and pluralistic community. 
The same could be said of the Muslims and Christians of the country, whose 
contact with the dominant Hindu culture has only enriched them in every 
sense. Today, the fruit of this lengthy (and at times problematic) process 
of cross-cultural interaction can be seen everywhere: from the myriad of 
influences evident in the films of Bollywood to the magnificent architecture 
of India.

Yet the RSS, if it were to have its way, is bent on ending all of this for 
the sake of returning to some mythical 'Golden Age' of India which never 
existed. Like their counterparts among the Islamist movements in 
neighbouring Pakistan, who while away their time with empty dreams of a 
mythical 'Golden Age' of Islam that is more the product of contemporary 
Islamist propaganda, the fundamentalists of the BJP and RSS would prefer to 
believe in fictions rather than address realities.

Under such circumstances, it can only be said that the prospect for 
multiculturalism in India seem bleak at present. India's liberal 
intellectuals and leaders are hard-pressed to defend the country's secular 
democratic institutions against the advances of the fundamentalists who have 
come to be known as the 'saffron menace'. The only way out of the present 
impasse would be to intensify the co-operation between progressive and 
liberal Hindus, Muslims and Christians in India in order to safeguard the 
institutions that have shielded them for so long. But during trying times 
such as these, the irony of it all is that truth and objectivity provide 
precious little solace in comparison to the lies of demagogues.

End.

Dr. Farish A Noor is a Malaysian academic and human rights activist. He has 
written on the subject of inter-civilisational dialogue and is currently 
working on a book on the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, PAS.

______

#6.

DECCAN HERALD 

Saturday, October 21, 2000 

RSS and BJP

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, Mr K S Sudershan`s return to the theme of indigenisation of the Christian church at the ''national security camp`` in Agra last week in an indication that the RSS is planning to aggressively propound this view in the coming days. Mr Sudershan had first made the statement in his Vijayadashami Day address at Nagpur. This had invited widespread criticism and created a fresh source of apprehension among minority communities. Mr Sudershan`s demand implies that the RSS has the right to dictate terms to the minority communities on how they should organise themselves and their religious institutions. Mr Sudershan has equated religion with nationalism and, by implication, made all members of the minority communities ''anti-national and subversive`` if they don`t practise the kind of religion approved by the RSS. This is the import of the RSS chief`s position that minorities were free to have their own form of worship but their identity cannot be b!
ased on their religion. The proposition is transparently majoritarian inasmuch as it equates nationalism with adherence to the RSS brand of Hinduism. It is also undemocratic and against the grain of the national ethos which treats all individuals, communities and religions as equal.

The RSS chief`s views gain special significance because the Hindutva organisation is the head of the Sangh Parivar to which the dominant partner in the Central government, the Bharatiya Janata Party, belongs. The Union Home Minister, Mr L K Advani, was present at the venue of Mr Sudershan`s address in Agra. The Union Home Minister`s presence at such a venue can only send out the message that the government endorses the views. Mr Advani and other leaders have in different ways underlined this fraternity of views. The Advani`s assertion that the BJP has firm and traditional bonds with the RSS will be taken to be a full endorsement of the views of the RSS, especially because the assertion was made in the context of the Home Minister`s presence at the RSS camp. Mr Advani also made it clear that the BJP held its relationship with the RSS more important than the survival of its government. While Mr Advani is categorical on this, will the party president, Mr Bangaru Laxman`s statemen!
t that the ''BJP`s views were significantly different from the RSS`` carry conviction with the people? It is known that the party has in the past also projected different images simultaneously in order to appeal to different sections of people. But once the immediate political need for striking different postures passed, the party always faithfully returned to its original moorings defined by the Hindutva ideology. The heightened activity of the member organisations of the Sangh Parivar and the championing of major Hindutva issues like the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya by one or the other organisation keep the politics of Hindutva always alive. The just-concluded Vishwa Hindu Parishad convention in Goa resolved that the Ram temple should be built at Ayodhya soon. The BJP has also, according to its leaders, not abandoned its stand on Ayodhya but only shelved it for the present. Even the Prime Minister, Mr A B Vajpayee, indicated this in his address to a group of Hindu!
tva activists during his recent trip to the United States.

______________________________________________
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