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  Recently, the Pope has apologised to a few nations for the difficulties they faced due to evangelisation drives of the Church. Our avowed liberals applaud these moves but any demand for sense of regret for Hindus who faced genocides for centuries.

  Some people have asked me to qualify numbers of Hindus killed to label killings of Hindus as genocide. I do not wish to make this book into a hate literature and lose focus. But for readers who are curious, I would request them to read RC Majumdar’s book ‘The Mughal Empire’. The numbers of Hindus killed just on the basis of this book and a few more original testimonials by Turk and Mughal historians would cross a million or more. Infact, Indian historian K. S. Lall estimates that India’s population between 1000 AD to 1525 AD decreased by 80 million for centuries. The persecution and wanton killings of Goan Hindus through inquisitions by Catholic evangelists abetted by Portuguese colonialists, is called digging the past or resurrecting ghosts from the past. Unfortunately, we wish to simply negate facts and talk of superficial rhetorical unity based on myths and not facts.

  “No nation can move forward, unless it squarely faces its past. The courage to remember helps us not to repeat the same mistakes and to build a better future for our children,” says revered Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

  An Organisation for Hindus

  With this historical background, let us appreciate the fact that RSS is an organisation wedded to the wellbeing of Hindu society. Hindu society forms 79.80 per cent of the population as per Census 2011. Therefore, it is equally true that unless Hindu society reforms itself and organises itself in a positive way, India as a nation cannot grow and develop into a vibrant country.

  Many people believe that the figures are flawed and Hindu population, actually, could already be much lower than this. There have been conflicting reports about actual Christian population. John Dayal in his 24-8-2014 article on his website, johndayal.com, notes – “Statisticians Todd Johnsons and Kenneth Ross estimate that India’s Christians constitute 4.8% of the population. Jason Mandryk puts the figure even higher at 5.84% while reports and reports that others estimate it as high as 9%.” The reason for this apparent discrepancy is that in census form only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists can write their caste as SC. So, many Christian converts write their religion as Hindus to take advantage of SC reservations and other facilities. Such Christians are called ‘Crypto-Christians’ by evangelists and Christian Missionaries.

  As I revise these figures, Jains too have been hived off from Hindu numbers. If we go by the ‘secular’ definition of Hinduism then these numbers would be much lower, as Hindus then get dispersed into castes and are not a monolithic community!

  Koenrad Elst reiterates, “But for Hinduism, there would not have been an Indian Union. Suppose that, as some foresaw a century ago, all Hindus would have been converted to Islam or Christianity. What would happen then, can be seen from such happy Muslim-Christian bhai-bhai countries like Lebanon, Cyprus, Sudan, Kosovo (Yugoslavia), Nagorny-Karabakh. The country would have been split at the very least into a Muslim North and a Christian South. In that sense, Hinduism is the cultural reason for India’s very existence, India cannot exist but as a Hindu Rashtra.”

  There is no reason why Hindu society needs to be apologetic about this mission or why self-styled secular thought contractors and critics of RSS should certify it as communal because it professes to work for Hindu community. If a Christian organisation working for Christianity or Muslims holding various congregations for nurturing their religion are not communal; or for that matter any organisation working for a particular community is not communal or casteist; then this communal stamping on any person or organisation which talks or works for Hindus is nothing but hypocrisy.

  Elst mentions a Hindu-friendly India-watcher of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a parastatal world-watch bureau in Washington DC, remarking that this alleged semitisation, which is but a pejorative synonym for self-organisation, may simply be necessary for Hinduism’s survival. He points out that in Africa, the traditional religions are fast being replaced by Christianity and Islam precisely because they have no organisation which can prepare a strategy of self-defence. African traditionalists are not denounced as ‘semitised fundamentalists’ because in effect, they submit to the liquidation of their tradition by mass conversions.

  Establishment of RSS - Dr Hedgewar’s Objective

  Having covered various aspects of Hindu society, its mindset and the political implications of such a mindset, let us return to the reasons behind establishment of RSS by Dr Hedgewar.

  Dr Hedgewar was a staunch nationalist who worked with organisations associated with revolutionaries, like the Anusheelan Samiti while he was in Kolkata to study medicine. He was hot-headed as well as clear-headed about independent even as a young boy and was rusticated from the school for inciting his class fellows to chant 'Vande Mataram' when the education inspector came to school.

  After completing medicine, he returned to Nagpur, turned his back on the medical profession and started working as a party-member in INC, taking up different responsibilities as an office bearer. He was senior office bearer of regional Congress committee including the committee that organised the Congress plenary session in 1920. He took part in freedom struggle through various satyaagrahas and agitations and was also imprisoned. His association with Congress and activities continued even after he had begun RSS work. Many of his colleagues in Congress also became members of RSS and worked for both organisations He suffered imprisonment twice. One in 1919 during ‘Non-cooperation movement’ and again in 1930 for ‘Jungle Satyagrah’ which ran parallel to ‘Salt Satyagrah’. He was in prison for 19 months in these two stints. Many of the swayamsevaks also went to jail with him.

  Being a serious student of history, Dr Hedgewar realised that Hindu society was deeply divided on various counts like caste, region and language. He saw a total lack of self-discipline, social commitment and lack of self-confidence and found that Hindus were driven by self-interest and not by love of motherland. He realised that unless this society was organised into a well-knit and disciplined patriotic society with selfless members ready to do anything for the nation, the freedom that was imminent would be useless. It would only mean change in the rulers and not the rules. The common man may not enjoy the fruits of this independence and public discourse would be devoid of meaning as it would be driven by self-interest, not national interest.

  Dr Hedgewar had firm conviction that Bharat i.e. India had a unified national consciousness, that freedom is indivisible and society is an organic integrated body. Guruji, his successor saw the society as, “Viraat Purush, single unified colossal personality with an organic relationship, where each individual is the limb and arm of this Viraat Purush”. Just as the whole body reacts to a problem in any cell of the body, society should feel the pain and respond to it without any discrimination.

  Dr Hedgewar envisioned an organisation that would look beyond immediate gains, which would be non-political and its only job would be to create extraordinary human beings out of ordinary members of the society, who would be selflessly dedicated to the cause of nation building and service to the society. People who would lead a highly disciplined life based on high thinking and simple living, moulded with great character. He knew it was not an easy job and nor was it a job which could be done with only preaching or propaganda. Moulding of character and human beings and filling their heart with passionate love of motherland is not a matter of short training sessions, but requires regular nurturing. His goal was Hindu unity and creation of a self-confident Hindu society. It was a long haul.

  In the dark days of British rule when calling oneself a Hindu was an embarrassment for the educated class, Doctor Hedgewar stood up in 1925 and said, “Yes, I, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar proclaim that I am Hindu and this is a Hindu nation.”

  Thus, was born Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its shakha, vehicle for propagating this philosophy. He started off with half a dozen school going kids on a playgroun
d. He was already a middle-aged man at that time. He chose to remain unmarried by his own volition for he knew that he would dedicate his life to the nation, and the thought of family had no place in it. It was an arduous task, he put in his all.

  He worked so hard that a person of his wonderful physique and health burned out within years and died of extreme exhaustion in 1940 at a comparatively young age of 51. Within this short period of 15 years, he had already laid the foundation for the RSS across the country in all the states. The participant of that year’s third year Officers Training Camp (OTC, now called Sangh Shiksha Varg) in 1940, for the first time, represented every state and princely states of India. In his last speech before these young people, a frail founder of RSS said with a sense of satisfaction, “I see before me a miniature picture of Bharat today.” The rest is history.

  Minorities and RSS

  Contrary to common belief, there are many examples of Christians and Muslims becoming members of RSS and being active for many years. It is a sad fact that most of them leave the organisation because of peer pressure, as society denotes this as ‘wayward’ behavior. There are large numbers of religious minorities sympathetic towards the RSS ideology and connected to it through a large number of affiliate organizational. There also have been quite a few Muslim and Christian senior workers in RSS.

  The RSS has been running disaster relief camps during each and every disaster or natural calamity. It has been well documented that not a single disaster centre has ever discriminated against minorities in those camps. In fact, such people have been offered facilities for Namaaz and Ramadan fasting. No relief camp organizers supported by RSS have tried to convert people to Hindu faith. In places like Jammu where Seva Bharata is running residential schools for orphans of terrorist violence, young Muslim children remain happily Muslim with no compulsion or persuasion to change their faith.

  None of the social service organisations run by people inspired by the RSS has ever discriminated between the beneficiaries of those schemes, whether it is a dispensary, hospital or a micro-finance scheme or a school. An RSS volunteer has learnt offering Namaaz and helps patients in critical care in the Dr Hedgewar Hospital in Aurangabad and offers to recite it with a patient to boost his morale. These are recorded facts. Thus, working for Hindus does not mean working against some other people.

  The stories of Parsis fleeing Persia from Muslim persecution and Jews from Israel persecuted by Muslims settling in India with full support of local people are well known. Syrian Christians persecuted in Syria found refuge in Kerala. They have lived and thrived for hundreds of years without any persecution from local kings and populace. There is the story of a professed Hindu king like Shivaji, who saw his mother in a beautiful Muslim lady captured by his forces and gave full freedom of worship to people to whichever faith they belonged to. Here too, there was no religious persecution. Shivaji is one of the biggest icons in Sangh pantheon of great Indians.

  The RSS and other Hindu organisations have no problems with Christians and Muslims. Hindu society’s problem is with the institutionalised efforts by their evangelist leaders who try to convert their members by devious means and seed their hearts with hate and embarrassment by misinterpreting their Hindu faith.

  At policy level, the RSS view has been that all citizens must be treated as equal and public policies should not be biased against or in favour of any particular community or religion. India is firmly secular as per Indian ethos, but cannot be irreligious or non-spiritual. The RSS offers terse opposition to the policy of appeasement and cult of inverse communalism that passes off in the name of secularism. It believes that it should be natural that its minorities own up the ancestors and ancestry of this land as they share a common heritage, though method of worship may have changed. In no way does it wish to throw or crush minorities out as alleged by its critics.

  It believes that the spirit of Bharat is Hindu, though other streams may have enriched it. Unless, policies and public discourse on various issues take this basic reality into account, we shall have arid rootless policies producing rootless citizens who may be flag waving kind of patriots, who understand pop-patriotism in a jingoistic manner, but have no idea about the spirit behind it.

  Leftist Secular Fascism, Hindutva and RSS

  It is not a closely guarded secret that an academic or a media person not conforming to leftist and secular lobby’s ideas is simply shut out of the whole system. Such a person doesn’t get a job easily. If he or she gets it, his or her career prospects are blocked until the person drops out of the system with sheer frustration, or compromises his views to get into the limelight. Their works are not allowed to be published easily. If they manage to get published they are blacked out of academic discussions, various fora and censored in every possible way. If nothing there is character assassination, ridicule and isolation. There is a very interesting e-mail that under circulation detailing the internal networking of this lobby across print and media journalism. Some of them are related by blood, some by marriage, others are friends and some in business relations. It is a closed incestuous network. Though, the mail is not wholly correct, it has a big grain of truth in it. All this in the name of liberal thoughts!

  This Nehruvian-Left bias began right from the days of independence. For example, scholars, especially in humanities, like Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup and many others found themselves without employment. As mentioned above, if a scholar found some academic job, he or she would be hounded out if there was suspicion about his or her loyalty to the Red cause. The existence of a ‘JNU lobby’ is a well-known fact in academia and the media. Scholars like B B Lal and others can be insulted and doubts raised about their antecedents built over years of hard work if they change their views which are not in conformity with their friends’ established views. He was put out of charmed circles and slandered for his discovery of Ram Temple below the Babri structure. K. Mohammed a senior ASI director was trashed because he confirmed B B Lal’s discovery as part of his team in 1978 during discovery, and because he declared that Ram Temple issue was complicated by Left historians who egged on extremist Islamists to go against the truth. Journalists can reach the level of bureau chief or assistant editor but can never become chief editors. Editors who developed sympathies for Hindu cause, like Girilal Jain, were squeezed out his job as editor of Times Of India. This is just a very-very small glimpse of the vice-like grip these groups have over these two institutions of democracy.

  This suppression of opposing views is nothing but intellectual fascism. The use of force to enforce your view point and suppress other view point is the first sign of fascism. This network is intertwined in very complex personal and professional relationships. Here is a most recent nugget. I am quoting part of a report in Times of India dated 10 October 2010 titled ‘HC exposed Waqf board experts (in Ayodhya case)’ - “To the court’s astonishment, some who had written signed articles, found themselves withering under scrutiny and the judge said they were displaying an ostrich-like attitude to facts. He pointed out how the independent witnesses were all connected. One had done a PhD under the other, another had contributed an article to a book penned by a witness. Some instances underlined by the judge are: Suvira Jaiswal deposed, “whatever knowledge I gained with respect to the disputed site is based on newspaper reports or what others told (other experts) (sic)”. Once you understand this networking, you will understand why supposedly independent media houses act in near unison on the question of so called secularism. A prominent Congress leader during a television interview had boasted recently that Congress and its supporters owned 159 newspapers all over India.

  When theses lobbies are in power, they don’t mind using state apparatus to silence their critics. Emergency was a manifestation of the same mentality. Attacks on commoners by Marxist goondas in Singur and Nandigram is another sign of this fascist way of implementing one’s ideas. Attacks on RSS volunteers and their murders in hundreds wherever the Communist and Naxalite monopoly is threatened is indicative
of this intolerance as well. Tragedy is that in places like Kerala where RSS volunteers have suffered most, the sufferers are members of underprivileged or weaker sections of the society, the people whom the Communists claim to be working for.

  As I write this book, I am reading about the new wave of violence in West Bengal when TMC of Mamata Banerjee began using violent tactics used earlier by CPM. The violence began around 2009-2010. It is amusing but sad to see the late realisation by Congress that Communists have been practicing Lenin’s terrorizing policies of killing their opponents for last 17 years and they have killed thousands of their own volunteers. These same seculars closed their eyes conveniently when they colluded with these fascists for five years at the centre. Communists have, in turn, called Congress and its supporters fascists. We should remember that Naxals and Maoists belong to the same Marxist parivaar, a fact that that media has shied away from mentioning. The way Marxists have criticised the ban on Maoist outfits in Bengal clearly shows which way their sympathies lay. Clearly, big brother is trying to shield the errant and violent younger brother, current violence against each other being only an aberration. To be fair to Congress, it began the cycle of state sponsored violence against Communists in Bengal in 1970s under Shri S S Ray as CM, in retaliation of violence wrought upon Bengal by Marxists/Naxals since 1950s. Thus, fascism is no more than an invective which can be hurled at anybody at will, nothing more.

  And what does much maligned RSS have to show for its so called fascist designs? Inspite of numerous enquiry committees, not one report could blame RSS for any riot. If there were firm allegations or proofs, I am sure it would have been permanently banned. Though, there have been unproved allegations against RSS in Gujarat riot, it would be relevant to recall that the worst riots in Gujarat took place during the Congress regime when there was a continuous curfew in its cities for 65 days in 1969. This cycle of violence was routine in Gujarat. In 1985 under Congress riots began in February 1985 and continued till October 1986.