Vanvasi vs Adivasi

Safe distance

Narendra Modi and his India love Vanvasis, not Adivasis. The reason is that they believe India belongs to the upper caste Hindus, not anybody else, not even the original inhabitants of the land, the Adivasis. The problem with Modi’s Hindutva is precisely this exclusionism. It believes India belongs to a particular group of Hindus. Not all Hindus, let alone the non-Hindus.

Draupadi Murmu’s nomination as the next President of India is only an eyewash. She is going to be a decorative piece of the Dalits, a museum item chosen by Narendra Modi whose love for Vanvasis became too clear in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case and the subsequent arrests.  

The annual celebration of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon is a celebration of the Dalits. Modi’s India does not like any celebrations by any organisation other than those associated with the right wing, the Sangh. In the new history that is being written by Modi and his ‘scholars’, only upper caste Hindus will be on the pedestals. Draupadi Murmu is only a museum piece in that history meant to keep the low caste Indians where they will always remain. Low.

Modi is basically an RSS man. His heart still belongs to that organisation which has never allowed a low caste member to rise to any position of eminence. The RSS is largely a Brahmin organisation. Every chief of that organisation has been a Brahmin with the singular exception of Rajendra Singh, a Kshatriya.

Forget about the chief, “there is very little participation by Dalits and Adivasis even in the top national level organisational units such as the All India Representatives Assembly (Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha) or the All India Working Committee (Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal),” as a former RSS member writes [I could not be Hindu, Bhanwar Meghwanshi].

The RSS still maintains untouchability unofficially but meticulously. But it wants to keep the Dalits and ‘Vanvasis’ with it for the sake of retaining political power. Organisations like Bajrang Dal became the answer to the question of how to carry these undesirable elements along.

“The RSS spawned the Bajrang Dal precisely to reach out to these plebeians, who did not mix easily with the upper-caste-dominated ethos of the RSS,” writes Christophe Jaffrelot in Modi’s India. Jaffrelot quotes the irrepressible Sanghi, Subramanian Swamy, who said that Bajrang Dal was formed to avoid “mixing apples and oranges.” In Swamy’s words, “The RSS may be Brahmin-dominated at the leadership level, but its front organizations like the Bajrang Dal are mostly the Hindu proletariats.”

Jaffrelot’s book enlightens readers with the plain truth that most of the Bajrang Dal members are unemployed youngsters who are “involved in semilegal activities, such as gambling and especially lotteries.” Its first leader, Vinay Katiyar, said, “Might is the only law I understand. Nothing else matters to me.” The RSS has used the Bajrang Dal to create riot after riot in the country. The Dal hates all non-Hindus, particularly Muslims and Christians. This organisation played a key role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Jaffrelot writes, “It was as if the RSS had outsourced violence to the Bajrang Dal.” The low caste Hindus are meant only to be the foot soldiers of the RSS.

Draupadi Murmu will be the pie in the sky of the Indian Dalits. A real pie. And yet not real. Like Modi’s Vanvasi Kalyan Yojana metamorphosing into Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana. You belong to the forest either way. You don’t belong to Modi’s India. 

A page from Meghwanshi's book