For Dissent Against Hindu Extremism
by Angana
Chatterji
July 28, 2002
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and other Hindu extremist organisations, collectively known
as the Sangh Parivar (Hindu fundamentalist family of organisations), are
utilising religion to foment communal violence toward organising ultra right,
non-secular and undemocratic nationalism in India. Once again, this year has
borne heartbreaking testimony to this. As the Sangh Parivar goosesteps to a
future predicated on injustice and bigotry, we, as ordinary citizens, must not
be lulled into complacent comfort that denies our own complicity. Minorities in
contemporary India are becoming the evil “other” that must be annihilated or
assimilated. For those of us not explicitly under attack, it is time to examine
our privilege and use it to empower the conscience of a democratic and secular
India, where necessary religious and social reforms are enacted.
Hindu fundamentalism is well funded by Indians abroad.
These organisations receive substantial contributions from Hindus in the United
States and elsewhere. Outlook Magazine in its July 22, 2002, issue published an article by A. K.
Sen, titled, “Deflections to
the Right” highlighting a
component of the chain of funding that sustains Hindu extremism. The article
states that the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is one of the more
conspicuous charity organisations that fundraises in the United States to
support RSS battalions in India. IDRF lists Sewa International as its counterpart
in India. Sewa International and the various organisations that it oversees
receive over two-thirds of IDRF funding. Sewa International, in its mission to
transform India, states on its website in a section on “Experiments and
Results” with “Social Harmony” that social consolidation can be achieved
through social cohesion. Among other things, their website quotes Manya H. V.
Sehadarji, Sarkaryawah of the RSS: “The ultimate object of all these endeavours
is Hindu Sangathan -- consolidation and strengthening of the Hindu
society.” Hindu extremism, like other
xenophobic movements, functions through carefully fashioning exclusionary
principles whereby all non Hindus, and dissenting Hindus, identified as Hindu
traitors, become second class citizens. In addition, justification of caste
inequities, subordination of Dalits (“lower” caste communities), women,
adivasis (tribal) and other minorities, and the consolidation of a cohesive
middle class base are critical to its momentum.
In the United States, where substantial funding is raised
for Hindu extremist agendas, the government must act to ensure that
organisations that broker terror should not continue to enjoy their non-profit
status within the country. It is interesting that in 1999, the VHP failed to
gain recognition at the United Nations as “a cultural organization” because of
its philosophical underpinnings. However the VHP of America is an independent
charity registered in the United States in the 1970s, where it has received
funds from a variety of individuals and organisations.
Non-resident Indians and Americans of Indian descent must
examine the politics of hate encouraged by extremist Hindu organisations in the
name of charity and social work. Indians, one of the most financially
successful groups in the United States, must take seriously their moral
obligation to ensure that their dollars are not funding malice and scrutinise
the organisations that are on the receiving end in India. The issue is not
whether these organisations are undertaking charitable work, but if they are
doing so to promote separatist and non-secular ideals. Param Vaibhav Ke
Path Par (On The Road To Great Glory) written by Sadanand Damodar
Sapre, and published in 1997 by Suruchi Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, the
central publication house of the RSS, lists the 40+ organisations maintained by
the RSS in India for its multivariate programs.
In
addition, VHP and other Parivar outfits target the communalisation of education
through the “Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram” and “Ekal Vidyalas” (schools). One
strategy is to Hinduise adivasi communities, exploit divisions among the
marginalised, and indoctrinate the youth, in order to both turn them against
one another and use them as foot soldiers in the larger cause of religious
nationalism. Such inculcation has had serious repercussions in Gujarat this
year where tribals were manipulated into attacking Muslims during the carnage
in February and March. While Hindu fundamentalists do not have a monopoly on
religious intolerance in India, their actions are holding the country hostage.
Well organised, wide spread and acting in the name of the majority religion in
India, Hindu extremism is positioned to silence diversity through force and
terror, the rhetoric of Hindu supremacy, and the positioning of minority groups
as depraved enemies who must be punished.
Indians at home and abroad must oppose the deep
infiltration of the Hindutva brigade into the press, as well as the political,
military, bureaucratic, civic, business, educational, law and order
institutions of India. Such infiltration is creating a nation where the
constitution is violated by religious fundamentalists, with such violation
tolerated by the state. While the current government at the centre holds open
and close links to organisations within the Sangh Parivar, citizens are assured
that secularism and democracy are sacred and secure. In reality, the
government's handling of communal violations and sanctioning of communalism
jeopardises our capacity to function as a nation.
The VHP, in its meeting with Muslim leaders in New Delhi on
July 15, 2002, stated that if Muslims agree to resettle Hindus in Jammu and
Kashmir, Muslims in Gujarat would be rehabilitated. Hindus must understand that
issues connected to the democratisation of Pakistan, ethical resolutions to
Kashmir, or gender reforms within Islam are separate from India's commitment to
upholding the rights of minorities or to reforms within Hinduism. Hindu
extremism against Muslims and other minorities in India collapses distinctions
that must be made to honour human rights in India. Also, Hindutva's discourse
of history posits Hindus and Hinduism as under siege and preposterously asserts
the idea of India as a Hindu nation. Such revisionist history strategically and
hideously poses that a vengeful justice can be found for the crimes of history
committed under non-Hindu rulers. Retribution is sought by attacking
contemporary Indian Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others.
Hinduism is critical to the fabric of India, as are all the
other cultures and religions that inhabit this land and frame the imagination
of this nation. It will require considerable effort on our part to conceive a
secular nation where religion is indeed separate from the integrity of the
state, where pluralism guarantees rights and respect to the religious and
non-religious alike. Every Hindu and every citizen must denounce that to be
Indian is to be Hindu, challenge assertions that a secular constitution is
anti-Hindu, and refute the call for a Hindu nation in India as anti-national.
Patriotism and nationalism demand that all social, political and religious
groups work for an India free of disenfranchisement, institutionalised
violence, corruption and rampant inequities. We cannot permit India's secular
and democratic fabric to be irreparably compromised. The politics of
segregation and hate cannot determine the century before us.
Angana
Chatterji is a professor of Social and Cultural
Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.htm
Email:
Angana@aol.com