Tomichan Matheikal's blog

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,” Kshirsaga...

Prime Minister Modi has released a commemorative stamp and coin on the occasion of the centenary of the foundation of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS]. He glorified the organisation in his speech and spoke about its contribution to India’s freedom struggle. Utter lies. Why does the Prime Minister of a country as big and supposedly glorious stoop so low with blatant mendacity? Modi’s speech made me look once more at the numerous posts I wrote in this space over the years. Let me present a few of them here with brief notes. 1. RSS: A View to the Inside : A book review which looks at the ominous growth of RSS. A quote from the post: The history of India is being rewritten too by the affiliates of the RSS. One of these affiliates, Vidya Bharati, runs about 13,000 schools in the country with 3,200,000 students and 146,000 teachers making it “the largest private school system in India”. Ekal Vidyalayas is another organ of the RSS which runs schools in the remote rural and tribal area...

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation. Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final asses...

Professor Mukul Manglik of Ramjas College, Delhi concludes his interview to Frontline with a quote from historian Howard Zinn: “Human history is not only a history of cruelty, but also of compassion, courage and kindness... and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is inhuman and cruel around us, is itself a marvellous victory.” Struggle against Right Wing cruelty Source: India Today The students’ union, ABVP, had unleashed a lot of cruelty on the campus and the Professor was speaking about that.  He mentions in the interview that he as well as many other teachers feels intimidated by ABVP which physically assaulted some teachers during the agitation.  ABVP is a student organisation that is affiliated to RSS and nurtured by BJP both of which take pride in Hindu culture and civilisation.  The teacher is placed on a par with god in the ancient Hindu tradition.  It then becomes extremely ironical and darkly comical ...

Kerala has been celebrating Onam for years and years as a festival of equality, prosperity, and utopian dreams.  The legend is that the reign of Maveli (Maha Bali) was a utopia.  People were honest.  They respected one another.  Everyone was happy.  Life had a heavenly dignity.  The heavens were unhappy, however.  Gods conspired to put an end to the earthly utopia.  Vamana, an avatar of God Vishnu, encountered Maveli and sent him down to the netherworld (Patala) deceitfully.  Maveli Happy Onam to you  The right wing Hindu organisation, RSS, has come out in defence of the gods.  Onam was originally a celebration of the birthday of Vamana and had nothing to do with Maveli, argues K Unnikrishnan Namboothiri in his article published in the Onam special edition of Kesari , the RSS mouthpiece in Malayalam.   Namboothiri wants to exculpate the gods from their deceitfulness and other venality.  The Maveli lege...

Ghulam Nabi Azad did not really compare the terrorist outfit, Islamic State, with RSS.   He says he only mentioned the two in the same breath.   He was opposed to both. Though the IS and RSS may share a few things in common, putting them on two sides of the same balance is preposterous.  Tavleen Singh, in her column in The Indian Express , elaborates on that preposterousness and then goes on to assert that she grew up despising RSS.  This is what she says: I found their aggressive nationalism silly and their obsession with Hindu revivalism boring. I still do. I believe that reducing the vast wealth of Indian civilisation to a debate about beef is vandalism. Since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, we have seen far too many of his partymen exhibit their complete ignorance about Hindu civilisation by spreading hatred against those who eat beef and believing that they do this in the cause of reviving Hindu thought from Vedic times. Most of them have learned...

No great leader emerges unless there is a crisis.  Mohandas Gandhi would have remained a mediocre lawyer had not the freedom struggle discovered the leadership qualities in him.  Abraham Lincoln would not have secured his present place in history without the crisis that challenged his potential in the form of the Civil War. Mr Narendra Modi has his historical opportunity now to prove his station in history.  India is faced with a crisis called nationalism. Nationalism, by definition, is excessive devotion to the interests of a particular nation-state.  It is valid when there is a threat to the autonomy of the nation-state.  India is not facing any such threat now.  Yet nationalism has become a craze among a sizeable section of the population.   When there is no threat to the nation, the only other reason for nationalist sentiments to breed and spread is a desire to dominate.  It is an urge to impose a certain culture or religion or...

Source “I am happy dead than being alive,” said Rohith Vemula in his suicide note.  He “loved Science, Stars, Nature.”  His country gave him superstitions, communal hatred and hollow slogans.  He died feeling hollow in a country whose Prime Minister keeps mouthing beautiful slogans about development.  The other day, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha compared Mr Modi to Indira Gandhi with respect to the dictatorial style that marked both.  Of course, he had to retract later for obvious reasons. Is Mr Modi converting India into Police Raj as Indira Gandhi did during Emergency?  The way the protesters in Delhi were attacked by Mr Modi’s police indicates that the Prime Minister is trying to re-create Gujarat in Delhi.  He probably hopes to extend it gradually to the entire country.  Or, maybe, it’s just the only way he knows to handle dissension with.  Senior leaders of the party were sidelined long ago by Mr Modi.  Not th...

The RSS has decided to grow up from shorts to trousers.  Can we hope that the change in the organisation’s sartorial taste is indicative of some attitudinal changes?  After all, the trousers are not traditional Indian dress.  Will the RSS broaden its ideological landscape to include certain good aspects of the culture from which it is downloading the bottoms? If the RSS were to stick to Indian culture, it would have to prescribe the dhoti to its members since that was the traditional dress of Indian men for a very long period although there were innovative ways of wearing it.  The long piece of unstitched cloth was the easiest dress to manufacture.  Stitching was not required.  Even the women’s sari belongs to that ancient period.  Though the Indian men have opted for the more convenient trousers, the women have chosen to retain the inconveniences wrapped in the five-metre tapestry.  But the RSS is averse to women.  So their sartori...

  If Mother Teresa had indeed converted a lot of Indians, as alleged by Mohan Bhagwat, would India have been a better place?   Would there be less hatred and violence, more tolerance and compassion? One thing is clear at least.  Mohan Bhagwat and his organisation along with the affiliates of that organisation have not learnt anything more than the hatred that spills out of every page of their holy scriptures, We, Our nationhood Defined written in 1939.  Read any writing by people associated with Bhagwat’s organisation and you will feel hatred boiling inside your veins and seeping into the marrow of your bones with the fury of concentrated sulphuric acid. For example, let me take a page out of Pracharak Jiwan , autobiography of Krishna Gopal Rastogi, senior RSS pracharak.  See how Rastogi describes an incident that happened when he was leading an armed group of his supporters to attack the Muslims in Kaliar (a town situated between Roorkee and Harid...

Indian history is poised to take some interesting diversions.  One of the many rewritings will be the deification of Nathuram Godse, the killer of Mahatma Gandhi.  The Hindu Mahasabha has been threatening (or promising, depending on which side you are) to construct a temple with Godse as the deity.   As India is going to celebrate the 65 th anniversary of its secular Constitution in a function solemnised by none other than the President of a country which exported secularism whenever it found it opportunistic to do so, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the contribution of the new god being added to the country's overcrowded pantheon.  Poona, 15 August 1947 – a flashback adapted from Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre Independence from British rule is being celebrated.  The flag slowly moving up the staff in the centre of the 500 men assembled is not the flag of the independent India.  It is a saffron trian...

The lead story in today’s Times of India (Delhi edition) flashes the headline: RSS body seeks donations to fund Christmas ‘conversions’ in Aligargh.   ‘Rs 5 lakh to convert a Muslim, Rs 2 lakh for a Christian,’ says the subheading.   RSS is collecting funds in order to buy adherents to Hinduism.  Ghar Vapsi (returning home) is the affectionate name of the project. The Muslims and Christians in Uttar Pradesh were allegedly converted from Hinduism and they are being brought back home by purchasing their religious loyalty.  But why the disparity in the prices?  Why 5 lakhs for a Muslim and only less than half of that for a Christian?  Because the Christians were originally Valmikis, untouchables.  This is precisely where the problems lies.  Even when the people return home their caste will be retained.  The erstwhile untouchable will continue to be an untouchable.  What the RSS and its affiliates fail to understand is that...

Source: The Hindu Patriotism has reasons to surge in me. I live in a country whose supreme leader requires even more security than the supreme leader of the world’s superpower.  My country has a leader who matters.  Matters so much that no citizen can approach him within a radius of 3 km.  “Anyone who enters within 3 kilometre of the cordoned-off area around Lal Quila will be shot.”  On the Independence Day of my country. My leader is not just a Very Important Person, he is beyond scales of importance.  I have now reasons to be a proud citizen of my country.    The other day, another important leader of my country drew a parallel that also surged the patriotism in me.  He compared my country to Germany where all citizens are Germans and America where all citizens are Americans.  Similarly, he argued, all citizens of India should be “Hindus”.  Why not Indians?  Because, in his terminology India is Hindustan.  Ne...