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DissidentVoice.org
For Dissent Against Hindu Extremism
by Angana Chatterji
July 28, 2002
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and other Hindu extremist organisations,
collectively known as the Sangh Parivar (Hindu fundamentalist
family of organisations), are utilising religion to foment
communal violence toward organising ultra right, non-secular and
undemocratic nationalism in India. Once again, this year has
borne heartbreaking testimony to this. As the Sangh Parivar
goosesteps to a future predicated on injustice and bigotry, we,
as ordinary citizens, must not be lulled into complacent comfort
that denies our own complicity. Minorities in contemporary India
are becoming the evil “other” that must be annihilated
or assimilated. For those of us not explicitly under attack, it
is time to examine our privilege and use it to empower the
conscience of a democratic and secular India, where necessary
religious and social reforms are enacted.
Hindu fundamentalism is well funded by Indians abroad. These
organisations receive substantial contributions from Hindus in
the United States and elsewhere. Outlook Magazine in its July 22,
2002, issue published an article by A. K. Sen, titled,
“Deflections to the Right” highlighting a component of
the chain of funding that sustains Hindu extremism. The article
states that the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is one
of the more conspicuous charity organisations that fundraises in
the United States to support RSS battalions in India. IDRF lists
Sewa International as its counterpart in India. Sewa
International and the various organisations that it oversees
receive over two-thirds of IDRF funding. Sewa International, in
its mission to transform India, states on its website in a
section on “Experiments and Results” with “Social
Harmony” that social consolidation can be achieved through
social cohesion. Among other things, their website quotes Manya
H. V. Sehadarji, Sarkaryawah of the RSS: “The ultimate
object of all these endeavours is Hindu Sangathan --
consolidation and strengthening of the Hindu society.” Hindu
extremism, like other xenophobic movements, functions through
carefully fashioning exclusionary principles whereby all non
Hindus, and dissenting Hindus, identified as Hindu traitors,
become second class citizens. In addition, justification of caste
inequities, subordination of Dalits (“lower” caste
communities), women, adivasis (tribal) and other minorities, and
the consolidation of a cohesive middle class base are critical to
its momentum.
In the United States, where substantial funding is raised
for Hindu extremist agendas, the government must act to ensure
that organisations that broker terror should not continue to
enjoy their non-profit status within the country. It is
interesting that in 1999, the VHP failed to gain recognition at
the United Nations as “a cultural organization” because
of its philosophical underpinnings. However the VHP of America is
an independent charity registered in the United States in the
1970s, where it has received funds from a variety of individuals
and organisations.
Non-resident Indians and Americans of Indian descent must examine
the politics of hate encouraged by extremist Hindu organisations
in the name of charity and social work. Indians, one of the most
financially successful groups in the United States, must take
seriously their moral obligation to ensure that their dollars are
not funding malice and scrutinise the organisations that are on
the receiving end in India. The issue is not whether these
organisations are undertaking charitable work, but if they are
doing so to promote separatist and non-secular ideals. Param
Vaibhav Ke Path Par (On The Road To Great Glory) written by
Sadanand Damodar Sapre, and published in 1997 by Suruchi
Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, the central publication house
of the RSS, lists the 40+ organisations maintained by the RSS in
India for its multivariate programs.
In addition, VHP and other Parivar outfits target the
communalisation of education through the “Vanavasi Kalyan
Ashram” and “Ekal Vidyalas” (schools). One
strategy is to Hinduise adivasi communities, exploit divisions
among the marginalised, and indoctrinate the youth, in order to
both turn them against one another and use them as foot soldiers
in the larger cause of religious nationalism. Such inculcation
has had serious repercussions in Gujarat this year where tribals
were manipulated into attacking Muslims during the carnage in
February and March. While Hindu fundamentalists do not have a
monopoly on religious intolerance in India, their actions are
holding the country hostage. Well organised, wide spread and
acting in the name of the majority religion in India, Hindu
extremism is positioned to silence diversity through force and
terror, the rhetoric of Hindu supremacy, and the positioning of
minority groups as depraved enemies who must be punished.
Indians at home and abroad must oppose the deep infiltration of
the Hindutva brigade into the press, as well as the political,
military, bureaucratic, civic, business, educational, law and
order institutions of India. Such infiltration is creating a
nation where the constitution is violated by religious
fundamentalists, with such violation tolerated by the state.
While the current government at the centre holds open and close
links to organisations within the Sangh Parivar, citizens are
assured that secularism and democracy are sacred and secure. In
reality, the government's handling of communal violations and
sanctioning of communalism jeopardises our capacity to function
as a nation.
The VHP, in its meeting with Muslim leaders in New Delhi on July
15, 2002, stated that if Muslims agree to resettle Hindus in
Jammu and Kashmir, Muslims in Gujarat would be rehabilitated.
Hindus must understand that issues connected to the
democratisation of Pakistan, ethical resolutions to Kashmir, or
gender reforms within Islam are separate from India's commitment
to upholding the rights of minorities or to reforms within
Hinduism. Hindu extremism against Muslims and other minorities in
India collapses distinctions that must be made to honour human
rights in India. Also, Hindutva's discourse of history posits
Hindus and Hinduism as under siege and preposterously asserts the
idea of India as a Hindu nation. Such revisionist history
strategically and hideously poses that a vengeful justice can be
found for the crimes of history committed under non-Hindu rulers.
Retribution is sought by attacking contemporary Indian Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs and others.
Hinduism is critical to the fabric of India, as are all the other
cultures and religions that inhabit this land and frame the
imagination of this nation. It will require considerable effort
on our part to conceive a secular nation where religion is indeed
separate from the integrity of the state, where pluralism
guarantees rights and respect to the religious and non-religious
alike. Every Hindu and every citizen must denounce that to be
Indian is to be Hindu, challenge assertions that a secular
constitution is anti-Hindu, and refute the call for a Hindu
nation in India as anti-national. Patriotism and nationalism
demand that all social, political and religious groups work for
an India free of disenfranchisement, institutionalised violence,
corruption and rampant inequities. We cannot permit India's
secular and democratic fabric to be irreparably compromised. The
politics of segregation and hate cannot determine the century
before us.
Angana Chatterji is a professor of Social and Cultural
Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in
San Francisco. http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.htm
Email: Angana@aol.com