In view of the on-going farmer’s agitation which has started converting itself from the centralized agitation (mainly by Punjab, Haryana and Western U.P at the borders of India’s capital Delhi by keeping repeal of three farm laws in forefront and legally enforceable ‘Minimum Support Price’, the MSP at second priority) to national agitation (which is bound to keep legally enforceable MSP in forefront while repeal of 3 controversial farm laws at second priority), the people have started discussing the future of the ‘Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’ (RSS). The two thirds of the population of India (farm laborers + over 146 million landholders hence equal number of households) is partly or fully dependent on income from agriculture and in this sector hundreds of thousands of farmers have committed suicide in the last few decades (due to nonremunerative prices of the agriculture produce, hence such MSP has huge potential of mobilizing the farmers across India) which is the main cause of on-going farmer’s agitation.
The main reason why RSS is considered to be the main loser due to this farmer’s agitation is the fact that the BJP has come to power at Centre and in many States on the basis of aggressive Hindutva practiced by the RSS. Now everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of Indians are going to be agitated in this farmer’s agitation and which is bound to directly & potentially defy almost every policy & belief of the RSS. Therefore if the RSS does not make a course correction (as given below) especially about State, democracy, Secularism and Hindi-Rashtra then the RSS will be relegated to the history:-
(1)- First and foremost the followers of other religions should appreciate that there is need for an organization like the RSS for Hinduism because unlike Christianity, Islam etc there is no central uniting thread in Hinduism (because Temples of Hinduism are not connected in any way, even through clergy) therefore a religion based socio-cultural organization is a necessity for Hindus which the RSS has been trying to become (with which even ‘Vishwa Hindu Parishad’ has been working).
(2)- As per Article 25 of the Constitution (about Right to Freedom of Religion) the reference to Hindus is construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikhism, Jainism or Buddhism, there is a rationale behind it because since the time of partition of India the Sikhs and Jains acted & behaved in unison with Hindus especially when they were facing situation born out of two nations theory which partitioned India. Only Budhists came in conflict with Hindus in Sri Lanka where Hindus instigated & helped the armed rebellion by Tamilians and then Buddhist majority Sri Lanka (in the name of eliminating LTTE) killed & injured hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamilians. Even Sikhs (who were treated disrespectfully by Congress governments during ‘operation blue Star’ and with horrible criminality during 1984 massacre of thousands of innocents Sikhs in Delhi) always had cordial relations with BJP and BJP formed governments in Centre & States with Akalis (who parted company with BJP government at Centre only recently on the economic issue of farmers). But for the purpose of this article Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism will be taken as separate religions and their combination as per said Article 25 as HINDUS
(3)- The RSS started committing blunders right from its establishment in September 1925 as mentioned below :-
(i)- The RSS never questioned the leadership of (going-to-be) India and Pakistan that how the minorities would be protected in case of partition on communal lines
(ii)- When horrible violence took place due to partition which resulted in transfer of population on communal lines, the RSS never asked for these displaced persons to be rehabilitated back in their native places rather the RSS became criminally complicit in the policies of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad etc (and Lord Mountbatten who was then the Governor General of India) who gave refugee status (which was later-on converted into citizenship) to these displaced people .
(iii)- The RSS did not realize that the HINDUS are still HINDUS (despite pressure on them to convert during mainly Muslim rule and to some extent during British rule) because they believe in HINDUISM hence there was no need for subverting the ‘Freedom of Religion’ especially when Hindu majority is ruling democratic India. Rather the RSS should have supported free conversion and should not have supported the laws which prevent conversion by absurdly saying that it is done through coercion, allurement or Love-Jihad etc. Hence now the RSS should work for getting all such laws repealed.
(iv)- There is nothing wrong in protecting cows which are sacred to Hindus but keeping the secular constitution of India in view the RSS should have supported the law which will also protect at least one sensitivity of the major religious minority, the Muslims.
(v)- There is no other blunder by the RSS which is more suicidal then its policy about Babri-Masjid. The RSS forgot that without rule-of-law what to talk of progress no country can even survive. Without going into details of this saga, even now the RSS should ensure that a writ petition is filed in the Supreme Court of India (SCI) about legally expected restoration of status-quo-ante of Babri Mosque which was demolished in presence of an observer of the SCI in 1992. At the same time the RSS should ask the BJP government to bring a legislation in Parliament for construction of Ram temple at the disputed site. This will give satisfaction to Muslims too because then they would feel that they have not surrendered the Masjid to ‘dadagiri’ (including by violation of rule-of-law by the Supreme Court of Hindu majority India) of Hindus. Moreover the Hindus need not become over sensitive on demolition of Hindu Temples by Muslims coupled with killing of Hindus by Muslims on religious basis (in the past when it was a norm all across the world) because the same was done by Hindus against Jains too in a big way and which is publicly celebrated in some parts of India even now.
(vi)- The RSS did not realize that in ‘Rajtantra’ State runs the people and in ‘Prajatantra’ the people run the State hence the moral of the people has to be higher than that of the State in democracy. There is nothing wrong in giving reservation to people who believe that otherwise they can’t get a job in governments. But it should not be given with demoralizing (hence anti-democracy) tag of oppressed (Dalit etc), and Backwards. Hence the RSS should ensure that a writ petition is filed in the SCI under article 13 & 14 of the Constitution for repealing all reservation laws which are discriminatory against Muslims because it gives reservation to even those castes of Hindus (so-called backwards and other backwards) who have ruled in various parts of India.
(vii)- The RSS have not understood that Pakistan and Bangladesh can be allowed to remain as independent separate countries only when there is no population transfer forcefully on religious basis otherwise India should take them back, militarily. Moreover after controversy in Junagarh and Hyderabad the wishes of the people became the principle on which accession of any Princely State was allowed. This was the reason there is a provision of plebiscite in the ‘Instrument of Accession’ (IoA) of J&K to India but in case of Balochistan the IoA was signed under the military pressure of Pakistan but India didn’t object to it. Hence if GoI finds it difficult to do it directly then the RSS should ensure writ petitions in the SCI about (A)- Dual citizenship for about 160 million Hindus & Muslims of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who were violently displaced due to illegal population transfer and which communalized the Indian subcontinent (B)- Plebiscite in united J&K as mandated by ‘Instrument of Accession’ by getting entire territory (including and especially with Pakistan) free from out-siders (along with working for plebiscite in Balochistan who’s IoA, unlike IoA of J&K, was obtained by Pakistan under military pressure and against resolution of its Parliament / Jirga). Moreover India should be prepared to not only use its military power if Pakistan refuses to carry-out plebiscite in united J&K and Balochistan (after removing outsiders from these territories) or if Bangladesh & Pakistan do not provide proper law & order and security to about 80 million Hindus who would visit or reside in these countries after acquiring said ‘dual citizenship’ but should also be prepared to launch mini-SAARC comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and politically troubled Afghanistan post 9/11.
(4)- In order to bring the agitating farmers within the fold of Hindutva and for strengthening the democracy, now the RSS should solve these problems either by asking the GoI to do it or by ensuring writ petitions in the SCI about (A)- Quashing unconstitutional FRBM ACT and forfeiting all the public debts of Union & States governments which are above their consolidated funds in violation of Article 292 & 293 of the Constitution (B)- Making all contributions to political parties transparent and prohibiting contributions to political parties by Limited Companies as natural persons (the shareholders) are there to contribute (C)- Recovering about Rs 1,000 Trillion income tax which should be used for a comprehensive ‘Public Distribution System’ (PDS) where GoI will have one outlet for every 1,000 people. This will require about 14 Lakh (hundred Thousand) shops / outlets (owned by the GoI) all over India which will require a commensurate network of godowns, cold storages, purchasing centers, transport facilities etc. This comprehensive PDS is necessary because even by making the MSP legally enforceable, it will not solve the problems of poor farmers as the problem of poor laborers has not been solved, who do not get minimum wages despite ‘Minimum Wage Act’.
(5)- The RSS has not realized that India can never remain in peace unless secularism is enforces in Muslim world because Sunni-caliphate is being tried by Turkey, Pakistan and other countries . The RSS should further understand that if Muslims came from central Asia to NAME region and invaded and ruled India (with horrible violence to even civilians) then there is nothing wrong if now the HINDUS rule the Muslim World with the help of the Cristian West led by the USA and that too indirectly and no-violently and in the interest of the human rights of the tens of millions of Muslims who are bleeding & weeping profusely from Myanmar to NAME region. For this to happen, the RSS should ask the Modi-government to persuade its strategic partner the USA to bring secular democracy to start with in the troubled countries of NAME region (like Syria, Yemen etc) by getting elections under secular constitution in these countries in the presence of ‘UN Peacekeeping Force’ and UN Election Commission’ (in these both, India should offer to contribute manpower, whatever is required).
(6)- The Congress governments unnecessarily prolonged the Indo-China border dispute which has immensely disturbed India, politically. Hence now the RSS should ask the Modi-government to settle the border dispute with China through ‘UN Judicial Commission’ (which China can’t refuse being a permanent member of the UN) because dispute with China (unlike dispute with Pakistan, which is political) is legal.
(7)- All the economically developed countries work in their native languages (USA, China, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Japan, etc). Hence unless India works in its native language it can’t progress. Hindi and its variants (Punjabi, Gujrati, Marathi, Bengali etc) are spoken / understood by about 1475 million people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (even Urdu uses the syntax of Hindi) but these people don’t have any right to impose Hindi on the people of South India.
The South Indian languages are spoken by about 335 million people but they also don’t have any right to prevent these about 1475 million people (the same language using largest consumer market of the world) from developing Hindi in Devanagari script as their working language (in all the fields including science-technology, medicine etc). Hence the RSS should take it as a mission to develop Hindi by adopting one district in any of the BJP ruled States (which will pave the way for taking such developed Hindi in other parts of the country) where doctors, engineers, scientists etc all will start working in Hindi within a short period of one or two years.
Hem Raj Jain
