The latest issue of Outlook is entirely
dedicated to the centenary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, RSS, an organisation
that claims to be the custodian of India’s culture and morality. I would like
to present here only two of the umpteen writers who are presented in the
magazine.
1. Anand Kshirsagar
Kshirsagar was introduced to RSS as a boy by his family with good intentions. They wanted him to be educated by a Brahmin teacher who would instil in him better Sanskar (manners). The young boy was charmed by the pride of the Hindu identity lent by the organisation, particularly because he came from a Dalit colony in Pune. The upper caste Hindus thought of people like him as “the muck of the city – unseen, unnamed, and best left forgotten.” The RSS seemed to offer him an opportunity to be not only seen but respected too.
The boy took his education seriously.
“By 15, I had devoured the writings of Savarkar, Golwalkar, Hegdewar, and even
Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Marathi,” Kshirsagar writes. He called himself a Kattar
(staunch) Hindu. He attended cultural programmes such as Shastra Puja (weapon
worship) as he was to be a Hindu warrior. In short, he was a totally
indoctrinated RSS foot soldier.
Disillusionment is certain to catch
up when your expectations and the reality are entirely different. The police
intelligence warned young Kshirsagar’s father to watch his juvenile son lest he
goes astray under the tutelage of RSS. Kshirsagar was intelligent enough to
understand that he was being hoodwinked by the so-called cultural and nationalist
organisation, which in reality was little more than a Brahminical organisation
that sought cultural, social, and political dominance over the country. His “unlearning”
started immediately. He didn’t need the “borrowed pride” lent by such an organisation.
“Behind the rhetoric of ‘Hindu unity’
lies a project that mobilises Bahujan society as foot soldiers, while denying
them independent social assertion,” Kshirsagar laments. He quit RSS.
2. Bhanwar Meghwanshi
Like Kshirsagar, Meghwanshi too belonged to a Dalit caste and joined RSS as a young boy. He was so much of a zealot that he was one of the karsevaks (volunteer) who demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. Disillusionment caught up with him too soon enough. Reason? The awareness that people like him, low caste, were only meant to be the “foot soldiers” of RSS. The Dalits could never rise to any high position in the organisation.
Meghwanshi narrates a painful
incident. In 1991, some senior RSS officers (high caste, obviously) visited his
village. They refused to eat the food prepared in his home. Instead they
offered to carry it as parcels. Later on, those parcels were found discarded by
the wayside in another village. The RSS leaders refused to eat the food
prepared in a Dalit home! So much for the much-vaunted Hindu pride.
Meghwanshi too quit RSS. In his
interview to Outlook, he says, “Organisations like the RSS pretend to
promote ‘harmony’, but in truth, they maintain the caste hierarchy. There is no
path to liberation for Dalits within Hindutva.”
[My review of Meghwanshi’s book: I
Could Not Be Hindu]
I hope there were more interesting perspectives in the magazine along with these two.
ReplyDeleteOf course, plenty. I highlighted these two just because they chose to quit after serving the organisation for years.
DeleteJust yesterday I read the sad case of a suicide by a young lad due to sexual abuse by RSS workers.
ReplyDeleteI read it too. The degeneration of that organisation is rather shocking.
DeleteI wish other mainstream centrist parties had equally potent cadre as the RSS. But I guess there's no stronger opium than religion to mobilize the masses with the same degree of loyalty.
ReplyDeleteTrue, nothing else can mobilise people as religion does.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteTwo excellent examples of 'seeing the light'... YAM xx
Let's hope more will see the light.
Delete