On 28th September, 2015, Md. Akhlaq was brutally killed, his son, Danish critically injured and his home vandalized in Dadri (UP) after rumours circulated that his family had cow’s meat in their home. This unspeakable atrocity committed by men of the ruling party has become the dreadful symbol of the Hindu rashtra agenda of those who rule India today.
There are many other aspects of how the agenda is being pushed forward. Packing important academic and scientific institutions with underquallified RSS supporters has become commonplace. Aggressive public attacks on eminent persons who are outside the RSS pale, are deliberately done to demoralize them, such as the condemnable and cowardly attack by BJP M.P. Subramanium Swamy on the RBI Governor. The changes being brought about in history books and other texts for school children in BJP ruled States is continuing. The latest example is the removal of the name of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his role in the freedom movement from the Class 8 history textbooks in Rajasthan. Nor will children be taught that Nathuram Godse murdered Gandhi ji.. that too has been removed.
Increase in Communal Violence
The RSS led Sangh Parivar, of which the BJP is the political face, relies on communal polarization for its political successes and for drawing increasing numbers of Hindu communities into its fold. Since its inception, the name of the RSS, and subsequently its other Parivar units, occur regularly whenever incidents of communal violence break out and enquiries are held. Wherever they are successful in forming State Governments, this process accelerates. In fact, today the Central Government led by a pracharak, and under the control and guidance of the RSS actually provides the shield for the heightened activities of the sangh parivar in different States. There has been a 17% increase in incidents of communal violence in 2015 over and above the figure for 2014.
These figures do not reveal the real extent of communal polarization that is taking place because they only cover incidents of communal rioting. They do not include attacks on Muslims and Christians in the name of conversions, and inter-communal relationships and marriages or the hate speech to which its leaders regularly take recourse. Even those opposing the Government’s policies are immediately labeled as ‘pro-Pakistani anti-nationals’ in order to give a communal colour to their opposition.
At the end of May, 2014, days after the Modi Government was sworn in re-iterating the promise of ‘Sabka Vikas, Sabke Saath’, frenzied Hindu mobs attacked shops and property belonging to Muslims in Pune and a young IT engineer, Mohsin Sheikh, exactly the kind of ‘Good Muslim’ that the Sangh Parivar professes to support, was brutally killed. Later, completely unsubstantiated reports in some newspapers appeared that a Dalit girl had been molested by Muslims and a statue of Shivaji desecrated – as if this was justification for the taking of an innocent life. This is a pattern that the Sangh Parivar and sections of the media repeat regularly with numbing effect and in that charges of molestation are the most common alibi. Later it is found that it is entirely concocted. In Jamshedpur in 2015, rumours were spread about such a case. Muslims homes were burnt and there was a clash leading to curfew for several days. However police reported that there was no such incident. Even if such incidents do occur, as they do, the RSS and its outfits always give it a communal colour instead of mobilizing all against the rapist, the criminals, regardless of the community they may belong to. Thus issues of violence against women are used by the sangh parivar selectively to rouse communal anger. They have not a word to say of the annual average of over 8000 Hindu women burnt in the name of dowry within their own homes.
The highest number of communal clashes occurred and continue to occur in UP. Assembly elections are due in 2017 and, for the BJP, the stakes are very high. Communal polarization and rioting in Western UP earned them rich dividends in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and they are eager to repeat the same. Between May and July, 2014, 13 incidents of communal clashes left five persons dead and over 100 injured in the State. Meerut saw 3 clashes; Moradabad, one; Muzaffarnagar remains tense with incidents occurring every month or so; Pratapgarh, Faizabad, Bahraich,Saharanpur, Shamli, Gautam Budh Nagar, Mathura all witnessed clashes. By August 2014, the Indian Express reported that over 600 communal incidents had taken place in UP since the Lok Sabha results.
In the last 2 years, such incidents have occurred in Haryana, Delhi, Hyderabad, Gujarat, Bihar and Rajasthan with minor alterations in the plot but with the epicenter still in UP. The common threads are the involvement of the Sangh Parivar, the complicity of the police and administration and the loss of property and life being confined to Muslims.
Engineering riots, however, is not the only method of widening the communal divide utilised by the Sangh Parivar.
Hindutva Terror cases
There were serious apprehensions when the Modi Government took over that it would dilute and ultimately sabotage the cases of terror against Hindutva groups. The cases include the Malegaon bomb blast case, the Mecca Masjid bombings in Hyderabad, the Samjhauta Express bombings, the Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts. The cases are all in various courts and their involvement is suspected in 16 incidents. In the Malegaon case it was the brave and honest police officer Hemant Karkare who had headed the SIT formed for the investigation. He himself was killed by Pakistani terrorists in the Mumbai attack. It was he who had meticulously collected the facts and linked the blasts to a Hindutva group called Abhinav Bharat. Names of others had also reportedly come up in the investigation such as Rashtriya Jagran Manch, Sharda Sarvagya Peeth, Hindu Rashtra Sena, many of whose members had RSS links. Swamy Aseemanand one of the accused had in fact exposed the meetings he had with top RSS leaders. Later they all retracted the statements. After the Modi Government came to power, the National Investigation Agency, responsible for the case asked Rohini Salian Public Prosecutor to go soft on the accused. Many of the witnesses found protection in the Modi Governt stand and turned hostile. 15 witnesses in the Samjhauta case and 19 witnesses in the Ajmer blats have turned hostile and two witnesses against Aseemanand in the train blasts have also turned hostile. Now the NIA has given a clean chit to “Sadhvi “Pragya and others in the Malegaon blasts. In doing so they have maligned the work of a fine officer like Karkare who is not here to defend himself. This shows the double standards of the ruling BJP. Terror for them has a religious label and if terrorist acts are committed by Hindutva groups, they are not to be treated as terrorists.
LOVE JEHAD
National dailies of August 4, 2014 reported the incendiary news of a 20 year old Hindu woman teacher having been forcibly converted to Islam and gang-raped by Muslims. The incident reportedly occurred the most sensitive area of a communally-polarized Western UP just days after communal clashes occurred in the nearby district of Saharanpur. 2 months later, the girl went to the police and confessed that she had eloped with a young Muslim and converted to Islam before marrying him. She insisted on being allowed to live with her husband. Later, her father confessed that a local BJP leader had given him 25,000/- as an incentive to fabricate the story of rape and forced conversion. Reports of this ‘incident’, and others like it, intensify polarization in an already polarized area and have the potential to trigger off horrendous violence. The trust between communities that have lived in amity for generations is frayed forever.
A similar incident from MP occurred in October, 2014 when a Christian boy, Joseph and a Hindu girl, Ayushi, both majors, married in an Arya Samaj mandir in Bhopal. Hundreds of Bajrang Dal members gathered in their hometown, Jobat, to protest. Even the police officer tried to convince Joseph to become a Hindu. The Bajrang Dal activists alleged that such marriages are an effort by Christians to increase their population. Ayushi is in a Government-run home while Joseph is in his house.
Such incidents have occurred in many parts of the country. The Bajrang Dal and their allies are running a continuous propaganda campaign in which they accuse Muslims (and Christians) of luring unsuspecting Hindu girls into relationships. They insist that such women will be forced into prostitution and will also have to accept their husbands’ polygamous relationships. The language used is vicious and obscene.
ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS IN NAME OF ‘CONVERSION’
In Sirisguda, Bastar District of Chhatisgarh, the VHP campaign against Christian missionaries led to the ban on their entry in 50 villages of the area in July, 2014. Over 50 gram panchayats in Bastar passed orders under Section 129 (G) of the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Raj Act banning all “non-Hindu religious propaganda, prayers and speeches in the villages.” The order said “To stop the forced conversion by some outsider religious campaigners and to prevent them from using derogatory language against Hindu deities and customs, the Sirisguda Gram Sabha bans religious activities such as prayers, meetings and propaganda of all non-Hindu religions.” Christians were attacked and denied ration on the orders of the village panchayat. “It’s been over two months now that we have been denied ration in the village and 10 Christians were attacked when they went to collect ration,” claimed Sonuru Mandavi, whose family converted to Christianity in 2002.
HATE SPEECH
Recourse to hate speech by leaders of the Sangh Parivar, often elected representatives and Ministers has become an every day occurrence. The most ghastly example of this is a speech given in March, 2015 in the presence of Yogi Adityanath, MP, in which he exhorts his listeners to dig out dead bodies of Muslim women and rape them. A barbaric incident that occurred a few months later in Ghaziabad, UP in October may or may not have been inspired by this speech: Two young Hindus dug out the dead body of a 26-year-old Muslim woman from a grave in which she had been buried two days previously had raped the dead body.
THE ISSUE OF THE HOLY COW
The veneration of the cow and its slaughter by Muslims have been issues that have repeatedly been used by the Sangh Parivar. After the Modi Government formation, several States have made anti-cow slaughter laws more stringent and have brought bullocks and calves within their purview. This has led to great economic hardship for Muslim and Dalit communities and also for drought-stricken farmers. It has also been used to lynch Muslims in several parts of the country.
Jammu (J&K), Jharkhand and Haryana have also witnessed such attacks and killings in 2015 and 2016. The worst example of this was in Latehar, Jharkhand. A twelve year old boy and his uncle taking eight bullocks to a cattle fair were stopped on the way by so-called gau raksha vigilantes, brutally beaten and then hanged to death. The BJP Chief Minister sought to justify the crime in the name of criminal cattle smugglers being caught. When the lie was thoroughly exposed he backtracked but the police had got the message. They refused to interrogate themain gau raksha samy organisers who take their inspiration fro RSS ideology. Al over the country these samity’s operate under the protection of BJP politicians, including elected members. These lynchings have created an atmosphere of terror for ordinary Muslims and have emboldened members of Bajrang Dal etc. to attack and kill Muslims with impunity.
USING BHARAT MATA KI JAI AS PROOF OF PATRIOTISM
Several Sangh Parivar notables including the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the Union Minister for Human Resources have proclaimed along with their allies, leaders of the Shiv Sena that those who do not chant the slogan ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ are anti-national and should go to Pakistan. A very disturbing example of their intentions was the suspension of an MIM legislator in Maharashtra on March 17, 2016, because he refused to chant ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ but said that he would say ‘Jai Hindustan’. Shockingly, it was Congress MLAs who initiated the move for his suspension.
This is just one example of the way in which the Sangh Parivar conflates slogans and symbols that are Hindu in nature with expressions of patriotism and then all those who object to this are dubbed anti-national. A consonance between anti-national and non-Hindu is being promoted constantly.
POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS WITH COMMUNAL UNDERTONES
The BJP’s successes in various elections have been attributed to the promise of development made repeatedly by its leader, Narendra Modi. A closer look at these results will reveal, however, that the undercurrent of communal polarization that the Sangh Parivar campaigns ensure is the real factor behind these successes. The most recent example of this is the BJP victory in Assam. While the alliances it entered into certainly contributed to its success, there is no doubt that the campaign by the Sangh Parivar over the last several years against Bangladeshi Muslim migrants has found traction among many sections of the population.
Conclusion
The emphasis on slogans may change from love jihad to Gau Mata ki Raksha to Bharat Mata ki Jai, but the intent and goal remains the same.. to target the minorities, to move towars a Hindu rashtra which means an assault on the basic pillars of the Indian constitutional guarantees of secularism and for the protection of minority rights. Such an approach also helps and strengthens the fundamentalist elements within minority communiities who organize to take “revenge”. Every way, the anti-national activities of weakening the unity of the Indian people and thus of the country, emanates from the sangh parivar. The two years of the Modi Government has provided enough evidence of this, while the Prime Minister in most cases maintains a deafening silence.