Daily Times

Narendra Modi wrote a book in Gujarati titled ‘Jyotipunj’ (Beams of Light) in which he retold the life stories of 16 men who inspired him. All 16 were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He wrote about Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, titled ‘Pujniya Shri Guruji,’ (Guru Worthy of Worship). Modi successfully cultivated the lessons of Savarkar and Golwalker, the forefathers of the RSS and Hindu Mahasba into the minds of people of India. Golwalkar was the second chief of the RSS. He is widely considered to be the most prominent ideologue of Hindutva. Golwalker’s most cited book “Bunch of Thoughts” is a collection of talks and lectures, guides Narendra Modi. He wrote that hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security than aggressors from outside. He considered Muslims one of the major internal threats to India. He wrote about nationalism and his idea of a nation in his book. He gave the idea of a detention center for dissenters which the Modi government under the shield of discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are pursuing. This book provides a roadmap of Modi’s administration’s incumbent policies toward minorities. It can also efface ample equivocals regarding Hindutava.

While fountain head of Hindutava and prominent leader of Hindu Mahasba VD Savarkar justified rape as a legitimate political tool, in his infamous book, “Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History”. He writes “it’s the natural law to kill the men, capture the women to use as baby-making machines. The Muslims went on slaughtering wholesale the Hindu population. Similarly, whenever the Hindus gained an upper hand, they could have retaliated by massacring Muslim population and making the region Muslim-less”. Savarkar regarded Hinduism as an ethnic, cultural and political identity. Hindus, according to him, are those who consider India to be the land in which their ancestors lived, as well as the land in which their religion originated. Sarvakar includes all Indian religions in the term “Hinduism” and outlines his vision of a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu Nation) as “Akhand Bharat” (Undivided India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent. People should read these books once to understand the venom of racist minds.

The RSS is a paramilitary, right-wing and volunteer organisation

On January 30, 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi, the “Father of the Nation”, was shot dead by Nathuram Godse. Nathuram’s book, “Why I Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi” was published by Gopal Godse, the younger brother of Nathuram Godse, in December 1993. He wrote, “All the [Godse] brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah (intellectual worker) in the RSS.” Sardar Patel, the deputy prime minister and home minister in Nehru’s Cabinet said, “There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme sections of the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS stood implicated in Gandhi’s assassination. The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of Government and the State”.

The RSS is a paramilitary, right-wing and volunteer organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (family of the RSS), which have a presence in all facets of the Indian society. The RSS was founded on September 27, 1925. As of 2020, it has memberships of six to seven million. Modi joined the RSS in his teens and then worked as an RSS pracharak (leader) for 15 years. As a pracharak, he dedicated his life educating Indian youth in the RSS culture, which expects obedience and reverence of authority. Modi’s antidemocratic attitudes have been cultivated through his training. He rose through the ranks of the male-only RSS, the parent organization of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). When Indians won their freedom from British rule in 1947, they established a pluralistic democracy based on secular principles, embracing their diversity. But the RSS goal is to redefine India according to its majority Hindu faith. Thousands of people have been butchered by the members of the RSS. The prime minister, the president and most of those in India’s cabinet are RSS members. The RSS’ influence can now be seen in national policies affecting everything from education to commerce and judiciary to defense.

Sarvakar and Golwalkar both praised Nazi Germany as an example of ‘Race Pride’ from which India could learn. Nowadays, Modi is following Nazism under the disguise of Hindutava. There is ample of similarities between Hitler’s way of government and Modi. Both populist, authoritarian, fascist and want an authoritative form of government. Aldous Huxley once said, “That men do not learn from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach”. The memory of Hitler’s era perturbs Germany even today. And this is why every German tells the world to not repeat its history. So, the world leaders must play their due roles to counter it, because temporary economic interests and appeasement towards Modi will harm the world. Today you might stay silent at the persecutions of your neighbor but the war will not remain silent when it sees you. When your turn comes, nobody will ask your faith and identity.

The writer is a public policy analyst and has interest in geopolitics