Skip to main content

The Menace called RSS


Book Review


Title: The RSS: A Menace to India
Author: A G Noorani
Publisher: LeftWord Books, Delhi, 2019
Pages: 547

India is passing through a painful phase, arguably the most challenging one in its post-Independence history. The nation’s very fabric is under threat of being ripped apart. It may no longer be what the Preamble to its Constitution claims: a secular republic among other things.
India has one of the best Constitutions according to many experts. That Constitution is likely to be dumped soon. Slowly and not so clandestinely, many of its principles are being undermined by the present dispensation. That dispensation is controlled by an organisation which dons a cultural garment: the RSS.
What is the RSS? Whose culture does it seek to uphold? Why does it claim to be a charitable organisation when it comes to paying the income tax? Why does it harbour so much hatred in its subterranean layers? How did it come to accrue so much political clout recently? A G Noorani’s “magisterial study” [as The Hindu review calls it] gives scholarly and illuminating answers to these and many other questions. If you wish to understand the RSS from a researcher’s point of view, this is the just the right book for you.
The RSS sprang from the conviction of people like Hedgewar, Savarkar and Golwalkar that India belonged primarily to the Hindus and that others, particularly the Muslims and the Christians, might live here as subordinates of the majority community who were the only rightful citizens here. These pariah citizens were originally Hindus and so they can return to their original faith [ghar wapsi] and enjoy better citizenship; better, not full, as they would be regarded as a special caste. Noorani says that today the RSS has enough funds to offer a price of Rs 5 lakh to every Muslim who returns to the fold and Rs 1 lakh to every Christian. Why the Christian is so cheap is not mentioned, however.
The RSS has a clear vision and crafty schemes. The vision is nothing short of Akhand Bharat, a grand unified India that will bring back Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to its geographical expanse. The schemes are already afoot under the able leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Most of the institutions that matter in the country have already been infiltrated with RSS men. Noorani lists many of those institutions and the persons who head them now. “By the end of 2018, the Modi government had worked hard to turn institutions upside down, planting favourites from the RSS wherever possible especially in ones which would shape public opinion.”
Modi manages to get the support of even educated people in this process. It is “not because of their erudition but their appeal to national pride,” says Noorani. “The RSS injects an inferiority complex in the minds by playing on historical falsehoods and then pleads for restoration of ‘national pride’ by suppressing Muslims and Christians.”
A lot of evils are being perpetrated and justified in the name of that national pride, a brilliant phantom conjured up by the RSS. “The RSS was conceived in sin; the sin of criminal violence,” writes Noorani referring to the organisation’s origins. Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of non-violence was ridiculed by the founders of the RSS as effeminate. Gandhi himself became their greatest enemy. Just to defeat the Gandhian vision for India, the RSS joined hands with the British whenever that suited the organisation.
Opportunism is the lifeblood of the organisation. Any value or principle may be sacrificed if expediency required that in the process of working towards the sole objective of creating the Akhand Bharat. Today there are whole armies fighting this subtle war [not so subtle anymore] against sizeable sections of the country’s citizens. Noorani mentions many of them such as ABVP, VHP and Bajrang Dal. They know when, where and how to strike. They have also been taught that they are fighting a new Kurukshetra battle in which the majority are the Pandavas. Devious strategies were part and parcel of the Pandava arsenal.
Noorani’s book lays bare the entire anatomy of the RSS with menacing ruthlessness. Read it at your own risk.


Comments

  1. जितेन्द्र माथुरJanuary 23, 2020 at 8:56 AM

    Your last line is the most important one - read it at your own risk. I have read n number of articles of Mr. A.G. Noorani over the past few decades. I appreciate his rational line of thinking and his ability to analyze the things with utmost objectivity. I will be able to comment on the book after reading it only albeit I have got a glimpse of it through your article.

    RSS is no longer the RSS of yesteryears which controlled BJP. Now it does not have any say either in the BJP or in the (union) government. The political party as well as the government is controlled by Modi-Shah duo only in entirety and they do not pay two hoots to what the RSS thinks or says. This Gujarati duo is not interested of the philosophies of RSS. Its sole interest in keeping and expanding its power only. RSS is as good a tool for Modi-Shah as the (formerly autonomous) institutions of India to further their own agenda which, strictly speaking, is a single point one. The prime minister of India has aggrandized his personality much beyond his party as its parent organization, that is, RSS. Now he does not listen to RSS. RSS listens to his dictates instead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 23, 2020 at 9:35 AM

      Noorani does touch upon Modi's dictatorial style. He discusses Shah too with candour. RSS leaders like Bhagwat are also not spared.

      Ultimately it's Modi-Shah that run the country today. But the RSS seems to love what they're doing.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
11 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more