CNN-IBN (ibnpolitics.com)
Tarun Vijay
The only place on this planet that the Hindus can rightfully claim they belong to is Hindustan or India. And the only people on this earth who feel hesitant to speak for their dharma or the basic identity too are Hindus. In Indian politics, run and financed by the Hindu majority, taking up Hindu issues means an extra effort to stand and face the charges too acidic. It pays to be a non-Hindu in a Hindu majority Hindustan, frankly.
Hence it's time when the followers of the legacy that began with Dr. Hedgewar founding the nationalist school of thought known as the RSS must assert and justify their birth, first in the form of Jana Sangh and later re-incarnated as the Bharatiya Janata Party. I was there when the first-ever convention of the newly-formed BJP took place in Mumbai, in 1980, christened as Samata Nagar. And the star attraction in that meeting was none else other than Mohammad Karim Chagla, the octogenarian scholar and statesman. The BJP could have adopted a pure saffron flag as its new motif, like the old Jana Sangh, but it chose the green and saffron. Jana Sangh too, in early fifties could have been a Hindu Sangh, but the stalwarts in those times chose a name that would represent all --any one who is an Indian, no matter what his faith is, without compromising on the basic characteristics of the nation i.e. Hindu.
A nation is defined not by the forex reserves or the military prowess but by the contours of her civilisational traditions and the collective struggles and sufferings. We are, unquestioningly and unapologetically Hindu in our national colours as much as the USA is Latin Christian and the UK works for all communities still adhering as a state to the spiritual umbrella of the Church of England. An Obama taking oath of the presidential office on the Bible doesn't become a communally hateful ruler for the other faiths. So is with us. A Hindu-majority India remains the only guarantee of a pluralistic and democratic nation. The moment we accept the de-Hinduisation process of the nation as a sign of secularism and an acceptable factor in polity, we are not only doomed as an Indian nation but also invite Talibanisation of the society.
And then, who says to be a Hindu means looking backward or approving obscurantism? The only people on earth who virtually worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and have prosperity as an inseparable part of their life-cycle are Hindus. In fact to be Hindu means to be rich, brilliant and happy. The most important factors, however, as was explained by Prof. Rajendra Singh, the third RSS Chief, (who was Head and Reader, Dept. of Physics, University of Allahabady) remain wisdom and character. We forget that exactly for her power, happiness and wealth, Hindu India was the eye sore of the barbarians when they assaulted us calling this land as 'Sone ki Chidiya - the Golden Bird'. We have shown the world the best of Hindu architecture in our thousand-year-old temples in Ellora, Ajanta to Ang kor Wat, the Vedic poetry, the invention of numerals and zero, life sciences and geometry to trigonometry and the deep knowledge of cosmos and the most scientific grammar and script and language. We are those Hindu people who gave the world the concept of 'world is one family' (vasudhaiva kutumbakam) when the semitic races were launching Crusades and Jihads. And an inborn attitude to respect the different viewpoint so much so that an atheist Rishi, scholar monk, Charvak was given an honoured place in the highest exalted order of six philosophers. To be a Hindu means saying no to Gulags and accepting a Galileo with appreciation. Even today the best of the economic developmental models in the states are indisputably seen in states where BJP is ruling. Still seculars deny that showing a pathological hatred for the Hindu word and world view.
Money, riches, industrialisation, military arrogance couldn't save the mighty Soviet empire. You need a little more to live as humans, which the Communists refused to accept. The IT power and the strength of brilliance coupled with loyalty to the adopted land (we do not bomb the land we adopt- a trait Hindus are known and respected for the world over) is making them use force to reckon with- as Thomas Freidman too discussed in his celebrated book The World is Flat. But that alone won't suffice to define the nation that has been known since millenniums world over as the land of the Hindus.
It's the so-called secular flabbiness of the neo-rich and subjugated colonised English-speaking elite that has taken up the place left vacant by British sergeants and colonial masters. Hate Hindu- is their new professional slogan. Anything Hindu is despicable and arrogantly dismissible. Destroy Ram Sethu, arrest Kanchi Shankaracharya on Diwali night, ignore the brutal killing of an 80-year-old monk on Krishna Janmashtami night in Kandhamal, simply delete the memory of Godhra and never answer why 59 men, women and little kids were burnt to death in a steel compartment, on February 27 seven years ago, never ever mention the 290 Hindus murdered during what is known as Gujarat riots, never discuss the forced exodus of five lakh Kashmiri Hindus after their women were raped and children killed by 'brave' Nizam-e-Mustafa' Ghazis.
That's the new order, which has to be exposed and dismantled if India has to survive.
They insult and demand the abolition of a language without which their birth can't be celebrated, marriage can't be solemnised and even in death, the same language is used. That's Sanskrit. Like they can denounce their motherland's fragrance, they also humiliate the language of their birth and death. That's their morality and honesty.
Last week Al-Jazeera, a channel more known for putting on air Osama and Al Jawahiri statements took my interview, 'to present the true colours of Indian culture' as its Canadian correspondent requested. When the show was aired, it showed Hindu right activists as simple monsters and barbarians and dishonestly juxtaposed their prejudices to 'justify' their pre-decided views. That's what this small minority of money wielding de-culturised slave class of the dollar world does anywhere it gets a little dominance -a Gulag at every desk.
Against such elements of hate, the Saffron is fighting a democratic battle through a new generation of IT-savvy saffronite youths. In the blog world, Facebook, internet battles, the Saffron is reigning high and the way we get their responses from California to Bangalore and Kolkata to Chennai via Santa Fe, it's simply bewildering and a great morale booster.
There are hundreds of them. Mostly post-graduates, engineers, MBAs, fresh IITians and doctors of philosophy, who have left the lure of the lucre and chose to work in the remote regions of the Andamans, Changlang, Diphu, Aizawl and the Nilgiri hills. From Wynad to Wakho and Leh to Lalganj, there is not a single block or tehsil or district where various workers and organisations inspired by the RSS are not active. For the first time in the history of this nation, a non-monastic order of the socially dedicated young men and women has taken roots which puts the nation before everything else, work like a sanyaasi without an ochre robe. They run village development projects, water harvesting and production of bio-foods and hospitals and schools and slum-area service projects. One such organisation, Vidya Bharati, has become the largest academic institution without government help having more than one lakh teachers and twenty-four lakh students in literally every nook and corner of the nation. B.M.S has claimed a membership of 84 lakhs, to be the biggest labour organisation of the land. Amongst students, teachers, politicians, religious clergy, doctors, and even visually-challenged people, RSS-inspired organizations are active and moving fast to get the top slot.
There is hardly a stream in the national life which is not touched and influenced by the ideology espoused by this Saffron movement which began just a year before almost the year Communist movement took shape in India. Though the Communist movement remained confined to a few corners and split in more than 24 various splinter groups, Sangh-inspired organisations are setting the agenda in their respective fields and one of their Swayam Sewak unfurled the Tricolor at the Red Fort six times in continuation. Can any hateful, divisive organisation get this kind of response from the people year after year? How can ill-feelings towards another community inspire young professionals continuously for the last eight decades to devote their life and forget the attractions of a glamorous career just for the cause of rebuilding the nation? Can any other organisation, specially the secular and the Left variety, show its positive and harmonious contribution for the development of the society in comparison to the RSS work?
Against all odds, to oppose political families turning India into their personal fiefdom, to stop India becoming a dharamshala for foreign infiltrators and putting an end to the endless pusillanimity against Jihadi terrorism, a party has to come to power that has the guts to call a spade a spade and strengthen the sinews to provide security and ensure prosperity. Enough is enough.
