Shamsul Islam
The process of the Hindutva1 takeover of the democratic-secular Indian polity got huge push with Narendra Modi, a seasoned RSS ideologue becoming the prime minister of India in 2014. His commitment to the cause of the Hindutva politics and hatred for the Indian democratic-secular polity has been unambiguous. While ruling the State Gujarat as the chief minister in 2013 he had declared himself to be a Hindu nationalist.2 It was first time in the history of Independent India that any person occupying a constitutional office identified him/herself as Hindu nationalist. It is to be noted that terrorists who assassinated Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, regarded as Father of the independent India, on January 30, 1948 at Delhi, described themselves, too, as the Hindu nationalists.
His taking over as the prime minister was celebrated by the RSS and its innumerable known and unknown organisations by declaring open war against the democratic-secular Indian polity on a large scale. The Hindutva cadres and mobs ruled the streets of India with vehemence never seen after Independence. RSS leaders declared that with Modi as the PM India was once again under a Hindu ruler after Prithvi Raj Chauhan (1178-92); almost 1000 years later! One leading RSS office-bearer, Rajeshwar Singh declared:
Our target is to make India a Hindu Rashtra by 2021. The Muslims and Christians don‘t have any right to stay here…So they would either be converted to Hinduism or forced to run away from here.3
The terrorism is in the genes of the RSS (which translates as – national volunteer association‖) as evidence from its own archives will prove. It was formed in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (known as Doctorji in the RSS fraternity), Balakrishna Shivram Moonje, his mentor and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the propounder of the idea of Hindutva; all Brahmins. Hedgewar was in the Indian National Congress (INC) but left it as he was against the anti-British freedom struggle led by MK Gandhi which treated people of all religions as part of the Indian nation and stood for an inclusive independent India. A biography of Hedgewar published by the RSS describes that he parted with INC because,
Gandhiji worked constantly with one eye on Hindu– Muslim unity…But Doctorji sensed danger in that move. In fact, he did not even relish the newfangled slogan of Hindu– Muslim Unity‘.4
Linkages with Benito Mussolini
This group of Hindu nationalist leaders declared India to be a Hindu nation where the main enemies were Muslims and Christians of India. According to them Muslims and Christians remained out of this nationhood because they did not assimilate into the Hindu cultural heritage or the Hindu religion. Savarkar argued that they cannot be recognized as Hindus; as since their adoption of the new cult they had ceased to own Hindu civilisation [Sanskriti] as a whole. They belong, or feel that they belong to, a cultural unit altogether different from the Hindu one. Their heroes and their hero-worship, their fairs and their festivals, their ideals and their outlook on-life, have now ceased to be common with ours.5
Indian Muslims and Christians were thus ‘emigrants’ following foreign religions, and not entitled to be part of the Indian nation which was a Hindu nation. In order to tackle the Muslims and Christian problem‘ they found the Nazi and the Fascist projects of cleansing the Jews very attractive. The Italian researcher, Marzia Casolari has done pioneering work in making public the direct linkages between RSS and Mussolini based on Moonje‘s diary. Moonje, “a politician strictly related to the RSS” had man-to-man meeting with Mussolini on the evening March 19, 1931 at Rome. According to Moonje‘s own diary he told Mussolini that
I just saw this morning and afternoon the Balilla [Italian Fascist Youth Organisation] and the Fascist Organisations and I was much impressed. Italy needs them for her development and prosperity…Every aspiring and growing Nation needs such organisations… ‘Signor Mussolini–who appeared very pleased–said–Thanks but yours is an uphill task. However I wish you every success in return.’
According to Moonje‘s diary immediately after his return from Rome he called upon Hindu nationalist leaders to Imitate the youth movements of Germany and the Balilla and Fascist organisations of Italy. I think they are eminently suited for introduction in India, adapting them to suit the special conditions. I have been very much impressed by these movements and I have seen their activities with my own eyes in all details.
March 31, 1934, Moonje, Hedgewar and Laloo Gokhale had a meeting, the subject of which was again the military organisation of the Hindus, along the Italian and German lines. Moonje called upon the gathering that they should work for standardisation of Hinduism throughout India… But the point is that this ideal cannot be brought to effect unless we have our own swaraj with a Hindu as a dictator like Shivaji of old or Mussolini or Hitler of the present day Italy or Germany… But this does not mean that we have to sit with folded hands until some such dictator arises in India. We should formulate a scientific scheme and carry on propaganda for it…
According to Marzia, Moonje publicly admitted that his idea of militarily reorganizing Hindu society was inspired by the “military training schools of England, France, Germany and Italy” Moonje‘s ‘Preface to the Scheme of the Central Hindu Military Society and its Military School‘ declared at the outset:
This training is meant for qualifying and fitting our boys for the game of killing masses of men with the ambition of winning victory with the best possible causalities of dead and wounded while causing the utmost possible to the adversary.6
The renowned Indian historian, Professor Ramchandra Guha underscoring the continuation of Fascist Italian legacy by the current RSS-BJP regime wrote, The Italian State of the 1920s bears a striking resemblance to Modi‘s regime today which speaks respectfully of the Constitution while blatantly violating its spirit and essence, which appeals to ancient wisdom while displaying a contempt for modern science, which claims to exalt ancient culture while manifesting an utter philistinism in practice…
Benito Mussolini and his fascists thought they would rule Italy forever. Narendra Modi and the BJP think likewise. These fantasies of eternal rule will not come to fruition; but so long as the present regime remains in power, it will continue to extract a horrendous cost — in economic, political, social, and moral terms. Italy took decades to recover from the ravages of Mussolini and his party; India may take even longer to recover from the ravages of Modi and his party.7
Source: RSS as a Terror Outfit (Evidence from its archives) by Shamsul Islam – 2020
1 The Hindutva is Hindu separatism which excludes Muslims and Christians from the Indian nationhood. Moreover, it demands abrogation of the democratic secular Indian constitution and its replacement by the Brahmanical scripture, Manusmriti. For details see https://www.academia.edu/42081045/
2 Modi‘s interview to two Reuters journalists, Ross Colvin and Sruthi Gottipati, on July 12, 2013. Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2013/07/12/interview-with-bjp-leader-narendra-modi/
3 ‘We will free India of Muslims and Christians by 2021‘, Mail Today, 19 December 2014.
4 Seshadri, H. V. (ed.), Dr. Hedgewar, the Epoch-Maker: A Biography, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1981, p. 61.
5 Savarkar, V. D., Hindutva (Delhi: Bharti Sahitya Sadan, 1989; sixth edition), p. 100-101.
6 All quotes from moonje’s diary in Casolari, Marzia ‘Hindutva‘s Foreign Tie-up in the 1930‘s-Archival Evidence, The Economic & Political Weekly, January 22, 2000, p. 221.
7 https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/how-india-in-the-2020s-resembles-italy-in-the-1920s/cid/1791736
