Narendra Modi and the rise of India’s neo-fascist Far-Right: The facts By Guest on April 1, 2014 in Feature, Loon Politics, Loon Violence Modi - RSS Original guest post By Jai Singh India’s General Election starts in April, with the results in May. Narendra Modi, the man holding a machete in the picture at the top of this article, is currently predicted to become India’s next Prime Minister. The man performing a modified Nazi salute is Mohan Bhagwat, the present leader of the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organisation, known as the RSS; as detailed in the main part of this article, the nature of that salute is not a coincidence. Modi has been an active member of the RSS for the entirety of his political career. Narendra Modi is campaigning as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (“BJP”). Due to ongoing geopolitical events elsewhere, the implications of Modi’s impending rise to power have received comparatively little media publicity outside South Asia, especially in the West. This is despite the fact that nuclear-armed, 1.2 billion-population India is currently undergoing a political and cultural takeover by that country’s version of the Far-Right, if the claims of Modi’s opponents and critics are accurate. British Indian political journalist Sunny Hundal recently wrote an excellent article in The Independent summarising a number of the main issues involving the ideology of the national government that India will shortly be electing; the article includes a discussion of the links between escalating Hindu extremism and the targeting of Western academics, the core “Hindu nationalist” organisations, the connections with Hindu extremist activists in the United States and the United Kingdom, and the implications for the West. The article serves as a very good introduction to matters that will be discussed in greater detail below. Narendra Modi himself is a highly controversial and polarising politician. Depending on which side of the argument people are on, their stance can basically be summarised as one of the following: (a) Narendra Modi is potentially a fascist dictator and definitely a dangerous demagogue, whose rise to power and populist pandering to his supporters’ most bigoted, ignorant and jingoistic attitudes have certain historical precedents in other parts of the world; or: (b) Narendra Modi is an unfairly maligned and misunderstood individual who is exactly what India needs and will lead the country to greatness — and whose supporters just happen to include a disproportionate number of anti-Muslim bigots along with “nationalists” who cannot tell the difference between patriotism and jingoism. This article will list the main facts. Readers will subsequently be able to draw their own conclusions about the real situation. The following information will be covered: 1. Narendra Modi’s background and involvement with the RSS. 2. Clinical psychologist describes Narendra Modi as “textbook case of a fascist” and “future mass murderer”. 3. Summary of the “Sangh Parivar” group of “Hindu nationalist” organisations. 4. The “Akhand Bharat” (Undivided India) concept. 5. Summary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (“VHP”). 6. Summary of the Bajrang Dal. 7. Summary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (“RSS”). 8. Details on the core ideology of the RSS, including the direct influence of Nazism. 9. Population of Hindu extremists’ primary targets in India. 10. Overview of VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal role in violence during Gujarat riots in 2002. 11. Officer of the Indian Administrative Service gives an eyewitness account of Gujarat riots in 2002 / Attacks against women. 12. Specific role of the Bajrang Dal in Gujarat riots in 2002. 13. Large-scale destruction of Islamic religious sites during Gujarat riots in 2002 14. Riot ringleaders expose Narendra Modi’s involvement. 15. Narendra Modi’s behaviour when journalists confronted him on-camera about his role in the riots / “Special Investigation Team” whitewashes Modi’s involvement. 16. Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state government exposed as destroying incriminating evidence. 17. Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state government prosecutes senior police officers who exposed Modi’s involvement in Gujarat riots. 18. Examples of Narendra Modi’s public statements about Muslims. 19. Recent investigation by journalists at “Caravan” exposes major information about RSS leadership-authorised terrorist attacks across India / Terrorists directly linked to Narendra Modi. 20. Washington-based American lobbying firm exposed as directly involved in Narendra Modi’s current PR campaign and whitewashing his image. 21. Role of US-based and UK-based political activists in promoting Narendra Modi in the West and financing Hindu extremist organisations in India. 22. Bipartisan efforts by senior American politicians to oppose Narendra Modi. 23. Narendra Modi’s racism towards US President Barack Obama. 24. RSS leadership actively backing Narendra Modi’s candidacy for Indian Prime Minister in order to facilitate “change” in India under a Modi national government. 25. Gujarat state government-backed school textbooks exposed as promoting Hitler. 26. Examples of Narendra Modi’s major factual errors during his public statements about Indian history. 27. Examples of large-scale rewriting of Indian history and targeting of academics during the previous BJP national government in India. 28. Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state government repeatedly charges anti-Modi journalists with “sedition” in order to silence them. 29. Large-scale clampdown against senior anti-Modi journalists currently underway across India. 30. Large-scale removal of incriminating online video footage of Narendra Modi currently underway / Documentary filmmaker subsequently releases dozens of video clips. 31. Narendra Modi’s claims about his economic plans for India. 32. Evidence of failure of Narendra Modi’s economic policies in Gujarat. 33. Narendra Modi’s attempted misappropriation of senior Indian independence figure Sardar Patel. 34. Narendra Modi’s destruction of Hindu temples in Gujarat. 35. “Bachelor” Narendra Modi exposed as misrepresenting his marital status in order to achieve political power. 36. Narendra Modi is involved in the widespread illegal surveillance of Gujaratis, including his colleagues and opponents. 37. Mass surveillance of Indian citizens’ electronic communications and locations underway / Implications for Indians under a Modi national government. 38. Current percentage of support for Narendra Modi in India. 39. Implications for Narendra Modi’s supporters. 40. Further information. Before I begin, let me make it crystal clear that the information in this article should not be exploited by anyone to denigrate India & Indians in general, Hindus en masse or the religion of Hinduism as a whole; both as a Sikh and as an individual, I have a zero-tolerance policy towards racial & religious bigotry, regardless of the source and regardless of the target. However, it is imperative to document the following facts for the international public record, not least because there is currently mounting evidence that professional journalists & writers within India itself may not be able to publicise this information for much longer. ****************************************************************************************************************** 1. NARENDRA MODI’S BACKGROUND AND INVOLVEMENT WITH THE RSS (i) Via Wikipedia: (a) Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has been the 14th Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat since 2001. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for the upcoming 2014 Indian general elections. (b) Modi was a key strategist for the BJP in the successful 1995 and 1998 Gujarat state election campaigns, as well as a major campaign figure in the 2009 general elections won by the Indian National Congress. He first became chief minister of Gujarat in October 2001, being promoted to the office upon the resignation of his predecessor, Keshubhai Patel, following the defeat of BJP in by-elections. In July 2007, he became the longest-serving Chief Minister in Gujarat’s history when he had been in power for 2,063 days continuously. He is currently in his fourth consecutive term as Chief Minister. (c) Modi is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and is described as a Hindu nationalist by media, scholars and himself. He is a controversial figure both within India and internationally. His administration has been severely criticised for the incidents surrounding the 2002 Gujarat violence. He has been praised for his economic policies which are credited with creating the environment for the high rate of economic growth in Gujarat. However, his administration has also been criticised for failing to make a significant positive impact upon the human development of the state. (d) Modi began work in the staff canteen of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation, where he stayed till he became a full–time pracharak (campaigner) of the RSS. After Modi had received some RSS training in Nagpur, which was a prerequisite for taking up an official position in the Sangh Parivar, he was given charge of Sangh’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), in Gujarat. Modi remained a pracharak in the RSS while he completed his Master’s degree in political science from Gujarat University. (e) The RSS seconded Modi to the BJP in 1987. While Shankarsingh Vaghela and Keshubhai Patel were the established names in the Gujarat BJP at that time, Modi rose to prominence after organising Murli Manohar Joshi’s Ekta yatra (journey for unity). His electoral strategy was central to BJP’s victory in the 1995 state elections. (f) Modi became the General Secretary of the BJP and was transferred to New Delhi where he was assigned responsibility for the party’s activities in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Vaghela, who had threatened to break away from BJP in 1995, defected from the BJP after he lost the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. In 1998, Modi was promoted to the post of National Secretary of the BJP. While selecting candidates for the 1998 state elections in Gujarat, Modi sidelined people who were loyal to Vaghela and rewarded those who favoured Patel, thus ending factional divisions within the party. His strategies were key to winning those elections. (g) In 2010 Modi made a speech in which he justified the extrajudicial killing of a Muslim. For this speech the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body governing election proceedings in India, cautioned Modi as it considered it as indulging in an activity which may aggravate existing differences between different communities. (h) In 2010 Amit Shah, Modi’s close confidant and Home Minister in Gujarat’s state government was indicted on multiple charges of murder and the charge of being the head of an extortion syndicate; after spending three months in prison, he was released on bail. However, India’s Supreme Court has ordered that Shah is not allowed to enter Gujarat while the investigation into his actions continues. In the interim, the BJP has appointed Shah as the BJP poll manager for the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh during the impending General Election. It is also worth noting that Shah’s role as Gujarat Home Minister includes control of the state police apparatus. (i) In 2012 Maya Kodnani, another of Modi’s former ministers from 2007 – 2009 was convicted of having participated in the Naroda Patiya massacre during the 2002 violence. She is the first female and first MLA to be convicted in a post-Godhra riots case. While first announcing that it would seek the death penalty for Kodnani, Modi’s government eventually pardoned her in 2013 and settled for a prison sentence. (j) During late 2011 and early 2012, Modi undertook a series of fasts as part of a “Sadbhavna Mission” (Goodwill Mission), meant to reach out to the Muslim community in Gujarat. Modi announced that he believed that his fast would “further strengthen Gujarat’s environment of peace, unity and harmony.” The mission started on 17 September 2011 in Ahmedabad with a three-day fast aimed at strengthening the atmosphere of peace, unity, and harmony in the state. He observed 36 fasts in 26 districts and 8 cities. (k) Some Muslims were unimpressed with his fasts, and one incident in which Modi refused to wear a skullcap offered to him by a Muslim cleric was deemed an insult by the cleric. When he was fasting in Godhra, the site of the train burning that sparked the 2002 riots, a number of activists were detained for allegedly planning rallies against Modi. Others criticized his fast as a public relations mission. Modi himself denied that the mission was about wooing “any particular community or religion”. (ii) Via Zahir Janmohamed, former US Congressional aide and Amnesty International Director, writing in the Boston Review in June 2013 : (a) Modi rarely speaks to the press. In 2008, Modi removed his microphone and walked off-camera during a nationally televised interview when he was asked about his role in the Gujarat riots. (b) Nilanjan Mukopadhyay, author of a biography of Modi, spends the first part of the book quoting journalists who warn him how difficult it is to interview Modi. One journalist tells him, “Modi can get extremely vindictive if you write reports that are critical of him. All lines of information get blocked so the choice is either to stop any critical reporting or just skim the surface making a few discomforting points here and there but never writing anything that does substantial damage.” (c) There are an estimated 40,000 RSS camps, or “shakhas”, across the country where Hindu men and young boys gather each morning to chant slogans and perform exercises. According to Human Rights Watch’s landmark report on the 2002 Gujarat riots, titled “We Have No Orders to Save You,” it was the RSS that was responsible for passing out lists of Muslim-owned business and homes to mobs at the start of the violence. (d) It was at these RSS camps that Modi’s ideas about the world were formed. Modi’s brother, Somabhai, tells Mukhopadhyay that “[Modi] was always greatly impressed by the fact that only one person gave all the orders in the [RSS camp] and everyone followed the command.” (e) According to Mukhopadhyay, Modi also showed his trademark unwillingness to be questioned. Mukhopadhyay writes: “This was most evident during my travels through Gujarat. There was one observation routinely made by almost everyone I interviewed while researching for this book—that Modi did not like to listen to any other viewpoints besides his own, that he was authoritarian and did not allow any of his peers to acquire a distinct identity and thereby even remotely pose any threat to him. Most people said that this also reflected a basic insecurity in his personality—a major flaw—and that he was using power to demand—and secure—subservience from those around him. On this matter, most people I interacted with felt that Modi was among the least democratic leaders.” (f) LK Advani began his political career as a volunteer for the RSS. He was the President of the BJP during the 1980s and 90s (eventually Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 – 2004), and was one of the key politicians promoting the “Hindutva” ideology. During the early 1990s, Advani travelled across India rallying support to destroy the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. The person that Advani selected to appear alongside him during these activities was RSS member Narendra Modi. (g) Tens of thousands of Hindu extremists, including many members of the RSS, subsequently destroyed the Babri Mosque on 6 December 1992. This resulted in riots across India, including Modi’s home state Gujarat. Houses belonging to Muslims were set on fire, and scores of Muslims were burned alive. Children were not spared. Many women were gang-raped too, often in front of their families. 2. CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST DESCRIBES NARENDRA MODI AS “TEXTBOOK CASE OF FASCIST” AND “FUTURE MASS MURDERER” Via Ashis Nandy, writing in India Seminar in 2002 after the Gujarat riots: Not only has [Narendra Modi] shamelessly presided over the riots and acted as the chief patron of rioting gangs, the vulgarities of his utterances have been a slur on civilised public life. His justifications of the riots, too, sound uncannily like that of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president and mass murderer who is now facing trial for his crimes against humanity. I often wonder these days why those active in human rights groups in India and abroad have not yet tried to get international summons issued against Modi for colluding with the murder of hundreds and for attempted ethnic cleansing. If Modi’s behaviour till now is not a crime against humanity, what is? More than a decade ago, when Narendra Modi was a nobody, a small-time RSS “pracharak” trying to make it as a small-time BJP functionary, I had the privilege of interviewing him along with Achyut Yagnik, whom Modi could not fortunately recognise. (Fortunately because he knew Yagnik by name and was to later make some snide comments about his activities and columns.) It was a long, rambling interview, but it left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualising the ideology. Modi, it gives me no pleasure to tell the readers, met virtually all the criteria that psychiatrists, psycho-analysts and psychologists had set up after years of empirical work on the authoritarian personality. He had the same mix of puritanical rigidity, narrowing of emotional life, massive use of the ego defence of projection, denial and fear of his own passions combined with fantasies of violence – all set within the matrix of clear paranoid and obsessive personality traits. I still remember the cool, measured tone in which he elaborated a theory of cosmic conspiracy against India that painted every Muslim as a suspected traitor and a potential terrorist. I came out of the interview shaken and told Yagnik that, for the first time, I had met a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer. The very fact that he has wormed his way to the post of the chief minister of Gujarat tells you something about our political process and the trajectory our democracy has traversed in the last fifty years. I am afraid I cannot look at the future of the country with anything but great foreboding. 3. “SANGH PARIVAR” GROUP OF “HINDU NATIONALIST” ORGANISATIONS Via Wikipedia: The Sangh Parivar (translation: “Family of Associations”) refers to the family of organisations of Hindu nationalists which have been started by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or are inspired by its ideas. The Sangh Parivar represents the Hindu nationalist movement. It includes the RSS and several dozen smaller organisations…..Nominally, the different organizations within the Sangh Parivar run independently and have different policies and activities. Via The Independent: Hindu fundamentalism, also called Hindutva, is driven by a trio of organisations in India called the Sangh Parivar – the family. The RSS is an ultra-conservative group that demands unflinching patriotism and preservation of Hindu culture; the VHP is their religious arm; the BJP is the political arm and India’s main opposition party. There are smaller offshoots too including a violent paramilitary wing called the Bajrang Dal and the hardline Shiv Sena party in Mumbai whose founder adored Hitler. “Hindu nationalism is built on the idea that India is a Hindu majoritarian nation, with Muslims and Christians cast as the minority, ‘other’,” Rahul Verma, a journalist and researcher on the subject, says. He says Hindu nationalism in recent years has fed off the Islamophobic, post-9/11 “Muslim terrorist” narrative. Chetan Bhatt, the director at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics, has also spent years studying this movement. “Narendra Modi has been an activist for the Hindu far-right paramilitary RSS and its affiliates for the entirety of his political life. He remains committed to the supremacist ideology of Hindutva which says that India should be an exclusive Hindu nation state in which minorities are treated as second-class citizens or worse.” But Narendra Modi became a controversial figure in 2002, when a train with Hindu pilgrims coming from the site of the mosque was set on fire by Muslims, killing 58. That incident immediately sparked riots across the state of Gujarat, where he was still Chief Minister, and more than 2,000 Muslims were killed and thousands made homeless. Reports by various groups including Human Rights Watch found extensive evidence of state participation and complicity in the violence. One of Modi’s cabinet ministers, Maya Kodnani, was convicted of orchestrating a massacre and seen handing out swords to Hindus exhorting them to kill Muslims. 4. “AKHAND BHARAT” (UNDIVIDED INDIA) CONCEPT Via Wikipedia: (a) Akhand Bharat (translation: “Undivided India”) is a Hindi term used to represent Undivided India as it existed prior to the Partition of India in 1947 and the Independence of Bangladesh in 1971. (b) The call for recreation of the Akhand Bharat has on occasions been raised by some mainstream Indian cultural and political organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (c) Other major Indian political parties such as the Indian National Congress, while maintaining positions against the partition of India on religious grounds, do not necessarily subscribe to a call to reunite South Asia to recreate Akhand Bharat. (d) Pre-1947 maps of pre-partition India showing the current states of Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of the territories of India illustrate the borders of Akhand Bharat. (e) The recreation of an Akhand Bharat is also ideologically linked with the concept of Hindutva (“Hinduness”/Hindu Nationalism) and the ideas of sangathan (unity) and shuddhi (purification) that seek to refocus modern Indian politics on the ancient civilizational heritage of South Asia. (f) While the leadership of the BJP wavers on the issue, the RSS has always remained a strong proponent of the idea……The RSS mouthpiece Organiser often publishes editorials by leaders such as the present [head of the RSS], Mohan Bhagwat, espousing the philosophy that only Akhand Bharat and sampoorna samaj (united society) can bring real freedom to the people of India. 5. VISHWA HINDU PARISHAD (“VHP”) (i) Summary via Wikipedia: (a) Vishva Hindu Pariṣad (translation: World Hindu Council), abbreviated VHP, is a Hindu right-wing organisation in India and is based on the ideology of Hindutva. It was founded in 1964 and its main objective is “to organise, consolidate the Hindu society and to serve, protect the Hindu Dharma.” (b) The VHP belongs to the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella of Hindu nationalist organisations. It has been involved in social service projects, construction and renovation of Hindu temples and in issues such as cow slaughter, conversions to other religions, the Ayodhya dispute and its role in the Babri Masjid demolition (the VHP originally launched the campaign to destroy the mosque). The VHP has been involved in converting Christian tribals to Hinduism, including some reports of forced conversions and violence in 2004 and 2008. (c) The VHP was first mooted at a conference in Bombay in 1964. The conference was hosted by RSS chief M. S. Golwalkar. S.S. Apte [a former RSS member, and co-founder of the VHP] declared: “The world has been divided to Christian, Islam and Communist. All of them view Hindu society as very fine rich food on which to feast and fatten themselves. It is necessary in this age of conflict to think of and organise the Hindu world to save it from the evils of all the three.” (d) The Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the VHP, and it is organised in many states in major training camps called “shakhas”, where thousands of young men simultaneously train in various activities, receive sports, indoctrination in Hindutva and cultural education. (e) The VHP engages in several programmes to reconvert Hindus who had previously converted to Christianity or Islam through their trained missionaries called “Dharma Prasaar Vibhag” (Religious Propaganda Cell), and some of them were sent to those remote villages and tribal areas which have substantial Christians and Muslims. On 4 March 2004, more than 200 Christians were reconverted in a ceremony organised by the VHP in the state of Orissa, part of its plan to reconvert 400,000 tribal Christians. According to them, the tribal folk were lured for monetary benefits and Christian missionaries were there to convert them under the pretext of community service. The Christian community denied this and there was an instance of six women being beaten for refusing to reconvert to Hinduism. Religious conversions were a debated topic in Orissa. (f) In Punjab, the VHP has played an active role to prevent conversions of Sikhs even if they chose their own religious path. The majority of them are low caste Sikhs converting to Christianity. This could be a result mostly from oppression by high caste Sikhs but there are considerable free will conversions among the higher class Sikhs too; however, the VHP have forcibly stopped Christian missionaries from converting Sikhs. (g) In August 2008, the VHP accused Christians for the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, though Maoist militants had claimed responsibility for the killing. In the resulting disorder, Christian settlements were set on fire, and 250 Christians were forced to flee their villages. A Catholic nun was raped during the violence and the Roman Catholic Church said that at least 7 Christians were killed. A judicial commission probing the violence said that conversion and re-conversion were among the major factors that led to the disorder, without blaming any religious groups or the CPI (Maoist). Following the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, the VHP engaged in reconversion programmes, involving both voluntary and forced reconversion to Hinduism. (ii) VHP leadership’s statements about Muslims, via Outlook India: (a) “Now, it is the end of tolerance. If the Muslims do not learn, it will be very harmful for them.” — Harish Bhai Bhatt, VHP leader, quoted in Mid-Day from a New York Times report, March 6, 2002 (b) “It had to be done”, VHP leader says of riots. In a startling revelation, Professor Keshavram Kashiram Shastri, 96-year-old chairman of the Gujarat unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, told rediff that the list of shops owned by Muslims in Ahmedabad was prepared on the morning of February 28 itself. (c) Barely three months after the Gujarat Carnage, the VHP announced its intentions to test “war on jihad” in UP. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad plans to turn Uttar Pradesh into a laboratory for carrying out experiments aimed at promoting the feeling of Hindutva among Hindus and starting a campaign against “the Muslim mentality of jihad.” The firebrand VHP leader, Singhal, was quoted as having said that “Ab jahan jahan Godhra hoga wahan wahan Gujarat bhi hoga (wherever there is Godhra there will be Gujarat).” He said that Muslims “who nursed the jihadi mentality” would be taught a lesson. “In Gujarat, for the time there has been a Hindu awakening and Muslims have been turned into refugees. This is welcome sign and Gujarat has shown the way to the country. Politics in India will now be based on the Hindu community – Jo Hindu hit ki baat karega woh Bharat pe raaj karega “(A Hindu who talks about his rights, will rule India),” he said. —The Asian Age, June 6, 2002. (d) “We’ll repeat our Gujarat experiment”: Vishwa Hindu Parishad international working president Ashok Singhal today termed Gujarat as a ‘successful experiment’—and warned that it would be repeated all over India. Singhal, in Amritsar to inaugurate a physiotherapy centre at the Shivala Bhaian temple, said, “Godhra happened on February 27 and the next day, [5 million] Hindus were on the streets. We were successful in our experiment of raising Hindu consciousness, which will be repeated all over the country now.” —The Indian Express, Sept 4 2002. 6. BAJRANG DAL Via Wikipedia: (a) The Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and is based on the ideology of Hindutva. Founded in 1984 in Uttar Pradesh, India, it has since spread throughout India. The group claims to have 1,300,000 members, of whom 850,000 are workers, and runs about 2,500 “akhadas” (ie. camps, similar to the RSS’s “shakhas”). “Bajrang” is in reference to the Hindu deity Hanumān. (b) An integral part of its agenda is preventing the slaughter of cows…..One of the Dal’s goals is to build the Ramjanmabhoomi [place of birth of Rama] temple in Ayodhya, the Krishnajanmabhoomi [place of birth of Krishna] temple in Mathura and the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Kashi (Varanasi), which are currently disputed places of worship. Other goals include protecting India’s Hindu identity from the perceived dangers of communism, Muslim demographic growth and Christian conversion. (c) The Bajrang Dal claim that their goals in modern India include the reversing of invasions by Muslim conquerors and British imperialism. They include demands to convert historical monuments currently disputed into temples. (d) In addition, the Bajrang Dal said they would circulate five million handbills, giving details about the activities of Christian missionaries. Bajrang Dal national convenor Surendra Kumar Jain said the outfit would peacefully expose what he described as questionable means adopted by some Christian bodies to convert poor people under a world evangelical plan that specially targeted Hindu-majority India. (e) The Bajrang Dal, together with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has spoken out against Islamist terrorism in India and have announced that they will carry out “awareness campaigns” across the nation. They have stated that Muslim terrorists are hiding among the general population in India and mean to expose them…..Bajrang Dal also share VHP’s position against the slaughter of cows (regarded as sacred by many Hindus) and have supported proposed bans on bovine slaughter. (f) The Gujarat Bajrang Dal is at the forefront of the anti-beauty contest agitation. Another of its objectives is preventing Hindu-Muslim marriages. (g) According to Human Rights Watch, the Bajrang Dal had been involved in riots against Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat violence. (h) In April 2006, two Bajrang Dal activists were killed in nearby Nanded in the process of bomb making. The same group of activists were also suspected for perpetrating the 2003 Parbhani mosque blasts. Those arrested later told interrogators they wanted to avenge several blasts across the country. NDTV subsequently accused the police of a coverup in Nanded. A report by the Secular Citizen’s Forum & PUCL, Nagpur claimed to have found maps of mosques at the home of one of the deceased. (i) The VHP leader, Praveen Togadia, was arrested in April 2003 after distributing tridents to Bajrang Dal activists in Ajmer defying ban and prohibitory orders. Togadia asserted that the coming Assembly polls in the Indian state of Rajasthan would be fought on the issue of tridents and attacked the ruling Congress Party for “placating” Muslims for electoral gains. He expressed satisfaction at the publicity received due to the incident. (j) The Bajrang Dal has been accused of not allowing Muslims to own land in parts of Gujarat by attacking traders who sell to Muslims and by attacking Muslim homes and forcing the sale of the house or flat. This creates a ghettoisation of large cities in Gujarat, like Ahmedabad and Vadodara. (k) On several occasions, acting as “Social Police” the activists of Bajrang Dal have caught unmarried couples on Valentines day and forced them to apply sindoor [Hindu bridal vermilion] or tie rakhis [threads/string bracelets symbolising brother-sister relationship] against their wishes. The activists of Bajrang Dal have often indulged in violence, invading gift shops and restaurants and threatening couples on Valentines day. (l) The Bajrang Dal has also been involved in bombmaking accidents on 6 August 2006 in Nanded, and on 24 August 2008 in Kanpur. (m) In September 2008, a fresh wave of attacks directed against the Newlife Christian churches and prayer halls in Karnataka by the Bajrang Dal, as a protest against “the defamation of Hindu gods” and against religious conversion undertaken by the Newlife Missionaries. Later, Mahendra Kumar, the convener of the Bajrang Dal was arrested in connection with it, although he had publicly announced that they were not responsible for the attacks, after the Center had strongly criticised the state Government. In addition, the National Commission for Minorities has also blamed them for the religious violence in BJP-ruled states of Karnataka and Odisha. Some police reports claim that the Bajrang Dal was not involved per se and that the attacks were carried out by splinter groups. However, testimonies of Bajrang Dal activists show exactly the opposite, as they described the attacks and openly warned of more violence. (n) Since February 2011, there has been a fresh wave of violence directed at people celebrating Valentine’s Day in Uttar Pradesh. “Offenders” are forced to hold their ears and do sit-ups as punishment for being caught celebrating the “Western holiday”. (o) The United States Department of State’s annual report on international religious freedom for 2000 and World Report (2000) by Human Rights Watch labelled the Bajrang Dal as a Hindu extremist group. Paul R. Brass, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and South Asian Studies at the University of Washington, described the Bajrang Dal as the Indian equivalent of Nazi Germany’s Sturmabteilung. 7. RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH (“RSS”) Only male Hindus are allowed to join the RSS. Via Wikipedia: (a) The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (translation: ‘National Volunteer Organization’ or “National Patriotic Organization”) is a right-wing, paramilitary, volunteer Hindu nationalist group. (b) The RSS was founded in 1925. Since their foundation they have espoused an Anti-Muslim agenda and have taken part in a great many riots. They drew inspiration from European right-wing groups during WW2. By the 1990s, the group had established numerous schools, charities and clubs to spread its ideological beliefs. (c) The RSS has been criticised as an extremist and a paramilitary group. The RSS carried out acts of violence against Muslims when founded in 1925, and have subsequently formed militant groups who engage in attacks on minority groups throughout India. In 2004 it was designated a terrorist organization by the Terrorism Research Center. (d) The RSS was banned by the British Government during the colonial rule of India, and then three times by the post-independence Indian government: First in 1948 when Nathuram Godse, a former RSS member, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi; then during the Emergency (1975–78); and after the demolition of Babri Masjid [medieval mosque in Ayodhya] in 1992. The bans were subsequently lifted. (e) During WW2, the RSS’s members openly admired Nazi-leader Adolf Hitler. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who became the 2nd leader of the RSS, drew inspiration from Hitler’s ideology of racial purity. (f) The RSS portrayed itself as a social movement rather than a political party, and did not play any central role in the Indian independence movement. (g) The RSS policy of not participating in any anti-British activities continued after M. S. Golwalkar became its chief in 1940. (h) After the Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution demanding a separate Pakistan, the RSS campaigned for a Hindu nation, but stayed away from the independence struggle. (i) When the British Government banned military drills and use of uniforms in non-official organizations, Golwalkar terminated the RSS military department. RSS also stayed away from the Quit India Movement and the naval revolt, although it played an important role in anti-Muslim violence during the partition of India in 1947. (j) According to an internal Congress report published in 1947, RSS remained primarily a Maharashtrian Brahmin organization, with no mass presence in politics even in the Marathi-speaking areas. (k) The RSS does not have any formal membership. According to the official website, anyone can become member by joining the nearest “Shakha”, which is the basic unit. Although the RSS claims not to keep membership records, they claim to have between 5–6 million members. The late political scientist David Halloran Lumsdaine estimated in 2009 that there were one million volunteers, who are modeled on the Hitler youth. (l) Most of the organisational work of the RSS is done through the coordination of shakhas or branches. These shakhas are run for 1 hour in public places. In 2004, more than 60,000 shakhas were run throughout India. However the number of Shakas has fallen by over 10,000 since the fall of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government in 2004. (m) Former RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar’s book We, or Our Nationhood Defined has been the main ideological book of the RSS and its author has been the main ideologue of the RSS. Recently some members of the RSS and BJP have distanced themselves from M.S. Golwalkar’s views, albeit not entirely. (n) In response to a high profile gang rape in Delhi, Mohan Bhagwat, the head of RSS, stated that such incidents only happen in cities, not villages. He further blamed “Western values” for the increase in rapes in India. Women’s groups have countered that statistics show that rapes in rural India often go unreported. Bhagwat’s remarks created a controversy and were criticised by activists and other political parties. (o) Christian groups accuse the RSS alongside its close affiliates, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagaran Sammukhya (HJS) of participation in the religious violence in the Indian state of Orissa in 2008. A US-based Christian charity working in Orissa claimed that Hindu extremists persuaded mobs to kill Christians and destroy their homes. RSS disputed the allegations, calling them “absolutely false” and blamed the Indian National Congress for the violence. The violence was triggered by the murder of a senior VHP member Swami Lakshamananda Saraswati. (p) According to the report of the Liberhan Commission, the Sangh Parivar organised the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The Commission said: “The blame or the credit for the entire temple construction movement at Ayodhya must necessarily be attributed to the Sangh Parivar”. (q) According to Outlook India, the RSS resolution at its meeting in Bangalore on 18 March 2002 stated: “Let Muslims understand that their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority”. 8. CORE IDEOLOGY OF THE RSS, INCLUDING THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF NAZISM Via the Delhi-based British historian William Dalrymple, writing in the New York Review of Books in 2005: …..the RSS was founded in direct imitation of European fascist movements. Like its 1930s models, it still sponsors daily parades in khaki uniforms and requires militaristic salutes; in fact, the RSS salute differs from that of the Nazis only in the angle of the forearm, which is held horizontally over the chest. The RSS aims to create a corps of dedicated paramilitary zealots who will bring about a revival of what it sees as the lost Hindu golden age of national strength and purity. The BJP, the Hindu nationalist party which ruled India from 1999 until last May, was founded as the political wing of the RSS, and most senior BJP figures hold posts in both organizations. The BJP is certainly much more moderate than the RSS—like the Likud in Israel, the BJP is a party which embraces a wide spectrum of right-wing opinion, ranging from mildly conservative free marketeers to raving ultra-nationalists. But both organizations believe, as the centerpiece of their ideology, that India is in essence a Hindu nation and that the minorities may live in India only if they acknowledge this. M.S. Golwalkar, the RSS’s second leader and its major ideological influence: Via Wikipedia: Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (19 February 1906 – 5 June 1973), popularly known as Pujaniya Guruji, was the second “Sarsanghchalak” (Supreme chief) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organization of India. The core ideology of the RSS is heavily based on the writings of Golwalkar, specifically his book We or Our Nationhood Defined and the follow-up Bunch of Thoughts. The full text of both books is currently available online in English here and here. Golwalkar wrote the first book in 1938, when RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar appointed him RSS General Secretary. Golwalkar’s second book was published in 1966. (i) Extracts from We or Our Nationhood Defined: (a) Refers to “awakening” of Hindu “Race Spirit”: “Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers. . . . The Race Spirit has been awakening.” (b) Contempt for educated Hindus: “This ‘educated’ class of Hindus became in truth slaves of the English, as the late Dr S.V Ketkar has aptly described them. They had cut their traces, lost their footing in the National past, and become deculturized, denationalized people. But they also formed the bulk of the ‘Congress’ and found no difficulty in eagerly gulping down the extra-ordinary absurdity, that their country was not theirs, but belonged to strangers and enemies of their Race equally with them.” (c) Opposition to inclusive, pluralistic democracy and territory-based nationality: “The idea was spread that for the first time the people were going to live a National life, the Nation in the land naturally was composed of all those who happened to reside therein and that all these people were to unite on a common ‘National’ platform and win back ‘freedom’ by ‘Constitutional means’. Wrong notions of democracy strengthened the view and we began to class ourselves with our old invaders and foes under the outlandish name – Indian – and tried to win them over to join hands with us in our struggle. The result of this poison is too well known. We have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing our foes to be our friends and with our hands are undermining true Nationality.” (d) Claims a “Nation” is based on 5 indivisible factors: Religion, Race, Culture, Language and Geography; claims Religion is the dominant factor for the RSS: “Where religion does not form a distinguishing factor, culture together with the other necessary constituents of the Nation idea become the important point in the making up of individual Nationality. On the other hand in Hindusthan, religion is an all-absorbing entity. Based as it is on the unshakable foundations of a sound philosophy of life (as indeed Religion ought to be), it has become eternally woven into the life of the Race, and forms, as it were, its very Soul. With us, every action in life, individual, social or political, is a command of Religion. We make war or peace, engage in arts and crafts, amass wealth and give it away, indeed we are born and we die-all in accord with religious injunctions. Naturally, therefore, we are what our great Religion has made us. Our Race-spirit is a child of our Religion and so with us. Culture is but a product of our all-comprehensive Religion, a part of its body and not distinguishable from it.” (e) Claims non-Hindus in India “deserve no privileges, not even citizen’s rights”: “All those not belonging to the national, i.e. Hindu race, Religion, Culture and Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real ‘National’ life. We repeat: in Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation – satisfying all the five essential requirements of the scientific nation concept of the modern world. Consequently only those movements are truly ‘National’ as aim at re-building, revitalizing and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation. Those only are nationalist patriots, who, with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are either traitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots. 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 loose 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. There is, at least, should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races, who have chosen to live in our country.” (f) Glorifies Nazi Germany and the persecution of Germany’s Jews, states that India should duplicate Hitler’s treatment of minority populations: “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. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. 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.” “To be brief, all the five constituents of the Nation Idea have been boldly vindicated in modern Germany and that too, today in the actual present, when we can for ourselves see and study them, as they manifest themselves in their relative importance.” (ii) Extracts from Bunch of Thoughts: (a) Misrepresents and slanders Judaism, Christianity and Islam: “In all those Semitic religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-a single way of worship is prescribed for all. Those creeds have but one prophet, one scripture and one God, other than whom there is no path of salvation for the human soul. It requires no great intelligence to see the absurdity of such a proposition.” (b) Claims Hindus are differentiated from other religious groups before birth: “Some wise men of today tell us that no man is born as Hindu or Muslim or Christian but as a simple human being. This may be true about others. But for a Hindu, he gets the first “samskar” when he is still in the mother’s womb, and the last when his body is consigned to the flames. There are sixteen “samaskars” for the Hindu which make him what he is. In fact, we are Hindus even before we emerge from the womb of our mother. We are therefore born as Hindus. About the others, they are born to this world as simple unnamed human beings and later on, either circumcised or baptized, they become Muslims or Christians.” (c) Claims RSS aims to reconvert Indian Muslims and Christians: “Everybody knows that only a handful of Muslims came here as enemies and invaders. So, also, only a few foreign Christian missionaries came here. Now the Muslims and Christians have enormously grown in number…..it is our duty to call these our forlorn brothers, suffering under religious slavery for centuries, back to their ancestral home….e back and identity themselves with their ancestral Hindu way of life in dress, customs, performing marriage ceremonies and funeral rites and such other things.” “There are some people who claim that they have achieved unity of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and all others on the political and economic plane. But why limit the oneness only there? Why not make it more wide and more comprehensive so as to fuse them all in the Hindu way of life, in our dharma and take them back as lost brothers? To those who speak of unity on the political and economic plane, we say that we stand not only for political and economic unity but also for cultural and religious unity.” (d) Rejects Indian nationality of all Indian non-Hindus: “They forgot that here was already a full-fledged ancient nation of the Hindus and the various communities which were living in the country were here either as guests, the Jews and Parsis, or as invaders, the Muslims and Christians. They never faced the question how all such heterogeneous gr......source -...loonwatch/…/narendra-modi-and-the-rise-of-i…/
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:11:29 +0000
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