By Shamsul Islam

Baba,

At the outset I must congratulate you for making big strides so far as your personality is concerned. You have really become a MARD; MAN in capital, now. On June 6, 2011 afraid of Delhi police you ran away in female attire from Ram Lila ground, leaving hundreds of your followers at the mercy of Delhi Police. But now as press reports from Rohtak, Haryana disclose you are courageous enough to chop heads of millions for not chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. (1) It really shows the farsightedness of your wisdom that in a meeting which was held to create ‘sadbhav’ or fraternity among different Castes/sections of Hindus which was shattered in last February you did not budge from the main agenda of Hindutva; teaching Indian Muslims a lesson. As a master performer of the Hindutva bandwagon you focussed on Muslims despite the fact that latter had no hand in the February blood bath in Haryana. Baba! you and your friends were perfectly right in asking Anuradha Beniwal, the UK based chess trainer-cum-writer originally from Haryana to stop when she said, “We [Hindus] have burnt the establishments of our neighbours, our friends, our brothers. To get the bottom of the matter, and to resolve it, we have to ask certain questions to ourselves, to our society and our government”, as she was deviating from your anti-Muslim agenda. (2) Baba! You are a true Hindutva rising star!

Baba!Allow me to touch few petty issues. Just enlighten ignorant persons like me on these few minor things which I will summarize in the following:

(1) Where were you and your RSS bandwagon when Haryana burnt for more than 10 days in February 2016 in which countless women were violated, more than 30 killed and property worth, 30 thousand crores was looted/burnt? I hope you remember that Haryana during this critical period was abandoned by the BJP/RSS political leadership and Indian Army whose job is to secure Indian territory against enemies was called to control this civil anarchy. Indian Army had to shoot Indians killing more than 20. You and RSS were seen nowhere chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.

(2) Moreover, since you declared your intention of chopping heads (to quote your words’behead lakhs of those’), who refuse to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, in a RSS organized meeting, it can be assumed that RSS is too committed to this chant. It is a blatantly lie baba! Forget about this chant, RSS never participated in the Indian Freedom Struggle. Let me quote directly from the contemporary RSS documents to prove this fact. Guru Golwalkar, the most prominent ideologue of the RSS and Supremo of the RSS 1940 onward admitted the fact that RSS kept aloof from the Freedom Struggle in the following words: “There is another reason for the need of always remaining involved in routine work. There is some unrest in the mind due to the situation developing in the country from time to time. There was such unrest in 1942 [Quit India Movement]. Before that there was the movement in 1930-31 [Salt Satyagrah]. At that time many other people had gone to Doctorji (By Doctorji is meant Dr. Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS). This delegation requested Doctorji that this movement will give independence and Sangh should not lag behind. At that time, when a gentleman told Doctorji that he was ready to go to jail, Doctorji said: ‘Definitely go. But who will take care of your family then? That gentleman replied, ‘I have sufficiently arranged resources not only to run the family expenses for two years but also to pay fines according to the requirements’, then Doctorji told him: ‘If you have fully arranged for the resources then come out to work for the Sangh for two years’. After returning home that gentleman neither went to jail nor came out to work for the Sangh. (3)

Non-cooperation and Quit India Movements were two great milestones in the history of the Indian Freedom Movement and here was the great thesis of great Golwalkar on these two great happenings of the Freedom Movement. According to him: “Definitely there are bound to be bad results of struggle. The boys became unruly after the 1920-21 [Non-cooperation Movement] movement. It is not an attempt to throw mud at the leaders. But these are inevitable products after the struggle. The matter is that we could not properly control these results. After 1942, people often started thinking that there was no need to think of the law. (4)

Thus Golwalkar wanted the Indians to respect the draconian and repressive laws of the inhuman British rulers! While narrating the RSS attitude towards Quit India Movement (1942) he admitted:”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. (5)

Baba, please secure a single publication or document of the RSS which, could throw some light on the great work the RSS did ‘indirectly’ for the Quit India movement.In all fairness to Guru Golwalkar, he did not claim that the RSS had been opposed to the British. He admitted it long after Independence also while delivering a speech before leading cadres of the RSS at Indore in 1960. Referring to the British rule he admitted: “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. (6)

Golwalkar was not alone in denigrating the Freedom Struggle and glorifying the British rulers. His Guru and founder of the RSS, Hedgewar, had similar views. The official biography of Hedgewar has the following self-explanatory statement:“After establishing Sangh Doctor Saheb in his speeches used to talk only of Hindu organization. Direct comment on Government used to be nil.” (7)

Billionaire Baba! You are very fond of referring to the great martyr of the anti-British Freedom Struggle, Bhagat Singh. But your Hindutva co-traveller, RSS decried the whole tradition of martyrdom followed by these martyrs. Here is a passage from the chapter, ‘Martyr, Great But Not Ideal’ of Bunch Of Thoughts, the collectionof writings of MS Golwalkar decrying the whole tradition of martyrs. After declaring that his objects of worship have always been successful lives and that ‘Bhartiya culture’ [which surely means RSS culture] does not adore and idealize martyrdom and do not treat ‘such martyrs as their heroes’, he went on to philosophize that: “There is no doubt that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, 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 ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” (8)

Baba! Could there be a statement more insulting and denigrating to the martyrs than this?

(3) Ramdev baba! India is lucky that you were not there when Gandhiji, Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel were alive. They never chanted ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. On the contrary, they used the term ‘Jai Hind’ (victory to India) in official correspondence and communications. With ‘Jai Hind’ they ended their public addresses. If you were their contemporary they too should have been at risk of losing their heads for not chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. Since Independence all presidents and prime ministers (including PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee) of the Indian Republic chanted ‘Jai Hind’and not ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, they were lucky not have their heads chopped off as you were not around baba!

I know you are very busy in marketing Hindutva and Patanjali products; I will not take more of your time. Just last query, please share with the nation where and when during the Freedom Struggle the Hindutva bandwagon which included your RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, chanted ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ against the British. And how many times Hedgewar and Golwalkar, the two Supremo of the RSS during the British rule, or any other leader/cadre of the RSS, were jailed for freedom of India, chanting this or any other slogan against the British.

Eagerly looking forward for your kind response,

Shamsul Islam
5-4-2016

Shamsul Islam is a retired Professor of University of Delhi.Email: [email protected]

1. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/if-no-law-would-have-cut-the-heads-of-those-who-dont-say-bharat-mata-ki-jai-ramdev

2. http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/chess-champ-steals-sadbhavna-show/217543.html

3. MS Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan, (hereafter referred as SGSD) volume IV, Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, pp. 39-40.

4. Ibid, p. 41.

5. Ibid, p. 40.

6. SGSD, volume IV, p. 2.

7. CP Bhishikar, Sanghavariksh Ke Beej: Dr. Keshavrao Hedgewar, Suruchi, 1994 p. 24.

8. MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 283.