Special Articles
WHY DOES HINDUTVA HATE MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS SO VIOLENTLY?
Shamsul Islam
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) as a true inheritor
of the Hindutva ideology in India, finally took over the country
constitutionally about two years back. The ‘secularists’
like Rama Krishna Hegde, George Fernandes, and Mamta Bannerjee
falicitated this take over by certifying that the BJP was no more
communal. Such ‘secularists’ took refuge behind the
argument that the BJP has been generous enough to drop from its
national agenda issues like building of Ram Mandir at the site
of razed Babri Mosque, abrogation of the article 370, and enforcing
common civil code. However, the spurt in the anti-minority violence
goes to prove beyond doubt that the BJP as a body can not exist
without its soul; Hindu nationalism which has only one basis that
is immense hatred for all minorities specially Muslims and christians.
The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, in its editorial of March 10,
1998, had very correctly summed up the reality in the following
words. "For the moment, they (the Sangh Parivar) may be lying
low, but the fear is that their current reticence is no more than
a tactics and that they will continue to exert pressure on the
BJP from behind the scenes to implement their pet programmes in
social, religious, and economic fields." Hundreds of violent
attacks on Muslims and christian organizations, individuals and
religious places in last two years and recent destruction of three
places of Muslim worship in Rajasthan, serious attacks on christian
priests in Uttat Pradesh aand Orissa goes to prove that Hindutva
has been working overtime to legitimize its long term communal
fascist designs. The philosophy of converting India into a Hindu
Rashtra is neither newly born nor its Sainiks are marching on
for fascist ends for the first time in our country.
It will not be possible to understand the rise
of recent fascist Hindu nationalism without going into history
of its origin and development. The philosophy of Hindu nationalism
which developed in the second half of the 19th century
under the leadership of high caste Hindus had two essential elements.
The first was deep hatred towards Muslims with a strong urge to
destroy them violently. Second was deep love and liking for imperialist
rulers. The philosophy of Hindu Rashtra has never lost sight of
these two essential elements of its structure. ‘Anandmath’
a novel in Bengali language, written by Bankim Chundra Chatterjee
was the first most important work outlining the concept of Hindu
Rashtra contained these two very elements explicitly. ‘Anandmath’
is the Bible even today for the Believer in the concept of Hindu
Rashtra. Before quoting directly from ‘Anandmath’, it
will better to know few additional facts about the novel and its
author. This is the same novel in which Bankim presented the song
‘Vande Mataram.’ ‘Anandmath’ is basically
the story of the Hindu Sanyasi Rebellion of late 18th
century in North Bengal of India. These rebels called themselves
SANTANS (sons). This novel appeared in the year 1882-85, 25 years
after the defeat of the native Indians in the Great War of Independence
of 1857 when even the ceremonial authority of Muslim rulers was
gone. It also must be remembered here that the British rulers
in their assessment held mainly Muslims responsible for the 1857
Rebellion and consequently penalized them heavily. ‘Anandmath’
appeared when the British sovereignty had been formally established
over a large portion of India. Interestingly, Bankim, the author
of ‘Anandmath’ was appointed directly to the post of
Deputy Magistrate in the year 1858 by the British Lt. Governor
of Bengal. He was the first Indian to be appointed to such a post
immediately in the aftermath of 1857. When Bankim retired as District
Magistrate in the year 1891 he was conferred with the titles of
Rai Bahadur and CIE by the British Crown.
Let us now go through few relevant passages of
‘Anandmath’. Thus wrote Bankim about the defenders of
Hindu Dharma; the Sanyasi rebels in part III and section I of
the novel, "they would go to villages and inquire from Hindus,
if they wanted to worship Vishnu? When the crowd had collected
they would torch the house of Muslims. When those poor chaps ran
for their lives, the Santans would plunder all their assets and
distribute the spoils to new converts. These new converts would
naturally be happy to receive their share of loot. Then they would
be taken to temple to swear allegiance at the feet of Mother.
People realized that it was highly beneficial to become Santans…Thus
enticed, the number of Santans in the villages grew by leaps and
bound….They began to attack Muslims at sight…Their whole
villages were burnt to ashes." Following are the minutes
of a meeting of the Santans as elaborated in the novel, "Santans
started shouting. Somebody raised the cry; kill, kill all Muslims…somebody
said, ‘brother, a day will come when we will destroy mosque
in order to build a temple of Krishna" (Part III section
8)
And here are graphic details of a post victory
jubiliation of Hindu Army. "The night of the great victory
was the night of great revelry, Hari, Hari, could be heard every
where on the earth. The Santans went wild with the chanting of
Vande Mataram and Jagdish Hare. Some started kicking dead bodies
of the enemies and some started robbing…Under penalty of
death Santans forced travelers and house-holders alike to shout
Vande Mataram. Some plundered candy shops for sweets, others the
dairy shops for milk and butter. They declared themselves to be
BRAJ GOPE and asked for GOPIS. The city and villages became furious
with exitement. People exclaimed that Muslims had been defeated.
Now it was rule of Hindus in the country. The moment they saw
a Muslim, Hindus ran after to kill him…The Santans sat fire
to the homes of Muslims and plundered their properties. Innumerable
Muslims were kileed like this. Many of them shaved off their beards
and put up a Tilak of chandan. They too strted chanting Ram, Ram.
They declared themselves to be Hindus. (Chapter 4, section 1)
Bankim as a pioneer of the cause of Hindu Rashtra
was very clear in his liking for the British rulers. His comparison
of the British rulers with muslims is very meaningful. In ‘Anandmath’,
a leader of the Hindu Army, BHAVANAND, is explaining the difference
to a ‘new recruit’ in the following words, "you
have to know that the British would never run away to save his
life whereas a Muslim runs away the moment he begins to prespire,
he seeks cold drinks. The Britishers are very determined and tenacious.
Then consider the question of courage: A cannon ball falls only
on one spot. But a crowd of Muslims would run away if one single
cannon ball fell among them. On the other hand, not even a single
Britisher would run away even if dozens of cannon balls should
fall in their midst." (Part 1 Section 10) can there be bestowed
greater praise then this one on the imperialist masters. The Britishers
who had fettered Mother India, were causing havocs to the lives
and properties of the Indians, were depicted as the novel souls.
They were great and were there for our salvation. This love for
the British masters and exploiters is further crystalized in the
last few lines of ‘Anandmath’. The debate on the Hindu
Rashtra is concluded in the following words, "Without the
British rule there is no chance of resurgence of Hindu Dharma…It
is our duty to make the Britishers our rulers…The SANTAN
rebelion was organized with the sole object that the Britishers
should be crowned as the rulers…the Britishers are our friends
and more over there is no such power which can defeat the Britishers
in war." ‘Anandmath’ which heralded the Hindu nationalist
movement is full of such perceptions and facts.
In fact the recent upsurge of Hindu nationalism
with its fascist attitudes is the continuation of the same ‘Anandmath’
legacy. ‘Anandmath’ propagated that destruction of Muslims
as such was very essential for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra.
This thinking always skipped the inconvenient fact that common
Muslims and Hindus both lived a life of penury or that Hindu propertied
classes and elite were major partners of Muslim rulers in the
loot of the Indian people. The revenue records in the archives
very clearly establish the fact that throughout medieval period
(which is often described as Muslim period) land ownership to
a large extent remained in the hands of high caste Hindus. Moreover,
JIZYA, a kind of religious tax was never levied on Brahmins during
the period described as Muslim period.
The present day zealots of Hindu Rashtra are
treading the same path. Muslims are their declared enemy number
one. Muslim community is the greatest danger to the nation. Their
population is increasing by leaps and bound and in next 50 years
or so India would become a Muslim majority nation. The ideologues
of the Hindu nationalism have been suggesting for some kind of
genocide to control the Muslim population. It is also shouted
from house tops that too much appeasement of Muslims has taken
place. It is also propagated that Muslims by nature are anti-social
elements. Every Muslim house-hold has illegal arms. Such poisonous
propaganda will continue even if you underline the fact that despite
700 years long rule by the rulers with Muslim names, Hindus remained
in absolute majority in this country. When Muslims could form
majority in 700 years, how would they turn into majority in next
50 years or so? Whatever may be the truth the fascist propaganda
will continue.
They are exercised over appeasement of Muslims.
What kind of appeasement is this that socially and economic status
wise 95 percent of Muslims fall into the category of most backward
sections of the Indian society. They do not have more than 2.5
percent share in total jobs of the country. They are not to be
seen on the industrial scene, still the stigma of a pampered community
will continue to hang. They are also branded as criminals having
amassed all kinds of arms. However, when you raise the question:
Why do they suffer most, life and asset wise during riots? The
whispering mill will never stop. Interestingly, this kind of allegations
against Muslims are levelled by those communal Hindu forces who
showed scant regard for Parliament , Constitution and Supreme
Court while induldging in most barbaric attacks on the lives and
properties of Muslims in different parts of the country.
But it is not the end of the story. The second
dimension of Hindu Rashtra is of far greater consequence. In ‘Anandmath’
Muslims were targeted as the greatest enemies whereas in reality
these were the Britishers as colonial masters who had subjugated
whole of India. At a time when the British rulers were ruthlessly
suppressing and crushing any opposition to their rule in India,
the champion of Hindu Rashtra were giving good character certificate
to the despotic colonial masters. The Great War of Independence
of 1857 was the result of a united Hindu-Muslim effort and had
the British on the run. The champions of the Hindu Rashtra in
order to divert attention from the real enemy created a fake danger
of Muslims. The British hegemony and rule in India could survive
only if Hindus and Muslims behaved as antagonistic nations. Today
the champions of Hindu nationalisn are again bent upon fulfiling
the same historical anti-national task of dividing the people
of the country on the bases of religion specially when faced with
the imperialist onslaught. Today with the increasing clout of
World Trade Organization, World Bank, IMF and MNCs in the country,
the honour and prestige of the people and the country are at stake.
A pro-imperialist government in Delhi with its economic policies
is paving the way for total subjugation of the interests of Indian
people to the diktats of world imperialist masters. These policies
are causing great hardships to common people who are mainly Hindus.
At a time when all patriotic forces agree to the fact that the
Indian state is towing the line of world imperialism led by USA;
what kind of Dharma Yudha (religious war) have these champions
of Hinduism waged? Have they declared a war against WTO, IMF,
WB, MNCs, hunger or exploitation? No, absolutely not. They are
out on roads to teach a lasting lesson to the minorities of this
country. They are mobilizing their goons to wipe out minorities.
Of cours, it is irrelevent for them that Muslims or other minorities
whom they are targeting are neither feudal lords, capitalists,
big beauracrats nor belong to those classes which are selling
this country to imperialists. The minorities in India are essentially
part of the common masses; an integral part of the Indian working
class. The champions of Hinduism can nomore hide their real designs.
They are there to weaken any resistence to imperialism. They do
not want any substantial struggle to take shape against imperialists
in our country. It is relevant to know here that just before the
razing of Babri mosque by the RSS, LK Advani was on tour of USA
and Europe. Again it was not just a co-incidence that before his
Rath Yatra (in air-conditioned Toyota vehicle) he was in USA for
many weeks. It is also not known to many people that the week
Babri mosque was razed to ground, the same week a top level delegation
of the IMF was in India in order to facilitate the enforcement
of more stringent conditions on India which were consequently
accepted by the Indian government. There were no mass protests
because the whole country was going through the post Babri mosque
trauma inflicted by the zealots of Hindutva.
We should not lose sight of the fact that creation
of a division between Hindus and Muslims is not the most important
task which champions of Hinduism have assigned to themselves.
It is part of tactics only. The real interest of world imperialism
lies in the strategic goal of Hindu nationalists. These champions
as per their delared intentions, want to deprive minorities of
all their civil and human rights. The fate of minorities was clearly
elaborated by the senior idealogue of the RSS, MS Golwalkar. Golwalkar
in his book, We or Our Nationhood Defined, which
he got published in the year 1938, gives an insight into the thinking
of the RSS leadership. In this book he idealized the Nazi cultural
nationalism of Hitler in the following words: "German
Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the
purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world
by her purging the country of the Semitic Races–the Jews.
Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has
also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures,
having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one
united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and
profit by".
Golwalkar unhesitatingly wanted to model his
Hindu Rashtra on Hitler’s totalitarian and fascist pattern
as is clear from the following words of his in the same book:
"It is worth bearing well in mind how these old Nations
solve their minorities problem. They do not undertake to recognize
any separate element in their polity. Emigrants have to get themselves
naturally assimilated in the principal mass of the population,
the National Race, by adopting its culture and language and sharing
in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their separate
existence, forgetting their foreign origin. If they do not do
so, they live merely as outsiders, bound by all the codes and
conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and
deserving no special protection, far less any privilege or rights.
There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either
to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture,
or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow
them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the
national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities problem.
That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps
the national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the
nation safe from the danger of a cancer developing into its body
politic of the creation of a state within a state.
"From this stand point, sanctioned
by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in
Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must
learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain
no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture,
i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence
to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly
subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving
no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s
rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them
to adopt. We are an old nation: let us deal, as old nations ought
to and do deal, with the foreign races who have chosen to live
in our country".
There is not a single word about the British
rulers who were then plundering the Indian people and nation.
The book outlines only one programme, namely, to subjugate the
minorities who neither controlled the state nor shared any political
or economic power. More than 95 percent of them were artisans,
poor peasants, landless agricultural labour or wage-earners. Golwalkar’s
Super Hindu Race seemed to have no antagonism towards the British
rulers who in fact were foreigners in the real sense of the term
and who had given only misery, hunger, poverty, and death to multitudes
of Indians, the vast majority of whom were Hindus.
In the post-independence era it has not been
possible for pro-RSS elements to defend such shameless fascist
attitudes towards minorities and neutrality towards the British
masters. The book We or Our Nationhood Defined, which was
openly circulated by the RSS during British rule and had gone
into four editions, was now suddenly presented as if its authorship
was disputed. The RSS machinery started spreading different theories
about the authorship according to their own requirements. Interestingly,
even though this book glorified the German dictator Adolf Hitler
at a time when the British were engaged in a life and death struggle
against him during World War II, the British authorities did not
ban it. The obvious reason for allowing the book to be freely
circulated was that such literature was essential for the imperialist
policy of ‘divide and rule’.
Thus scenario in the Hindu Rashtra will be that about 18 percent
of its population consisting of all minorities without any civil
and political rights will be forced to work on any wage and in
any kind of situation. This will be a welcome development from
the point of view of the Indian monopoly capital, foreign investors,
MNCs, European, American, Japanese, Korean industrial houses which
are perturbed by high wages in their respective countries and
want to shift their production units to thirld world countries
like India eyeing abundant cheap labour in these places. The traditional
working class in India though poorly paid enjoys certain securities
due to a long history of struggles and has been able to intervene
politically in order to safeguards its rights. In such a situation
it will be in the interest of the world capital to have a neo
working class which enjoys no rights, holds no political leverage,
and is free of all encumrances.Indian minorities will ideally
fit into this kind of set up. In fact Hindu Rashtra is bound to
bail the world imperiialism out of its rising wage bill crisis
in this part of the world. The champions of Hinduism thus have
taken up the historical responsibility of helping imperialism
once again.
It is quite pertinent to know at this point that the Indian believers
in the theocratic state of both shades Hindus and Muslims and
the British rulers always had very cordial and brotherly relations
during the British rule. It should surprise nobody that during
this period neither Hindu communalists (like the RSS ) nor Muslim
communalist (like the Muslim League) were ever banned. They together
can not present even a single personalitry who might have suffered
under the British rule.
It is true that the champions of Hinduism singles out Muslims
and Christians for fascist treatment. There is an important reason
behind this immense hatred. The ideology and movement of Hindu
nationalism have always been the prerogatives of high caste Hindus
specially the Brahmins. On the contrary, Muslims and Christians
of India, to a very great extent are converts from out castes
and lower castes of Hindu society. These people through conversion
in the past tried to break the shackles of the barbaric subjugation
perpetuated in the name of religion and caste heirarchy and tried
to elevate their social status. How could these out castes and
lower castes, the wretched of the earth dare to do it? It was
an unpardonable sin and the high caste leadership of the champions
of Hindu nationalism under state patronage is out to take revenge.
Renegades have to be burnt, destroyed, maimed and terrorized in
a manner that no outcaste in future dares to tread that path of
seeking emancipation. In fact fascist hatred towards minorities
is part and parcel of the fascist outlook of the Hindu high caste
oligarchy towards its own out caste.
By depriving Muslims and Christians of all civil and human rights
the high caste leadership of Hindutva wants to solve another very
serious internal problem of its society. This internal problem
has been tearing apart the Hindu society and has been challenging
the hegemony of the high caste oligarchy over it. The out castes
and lower castes of the Hindu society have been refusing to submit
to the soveriegnty of the oligarchy. They have been refusing to
submit to their assigned fate. Such revolts which used to be exceptions
earlier, are turning into rule. These sections have threatened
to convert to other religions enmass. The high caste Hindu oligarchy
believes that once the Hindu Rashtra is formed, Muslims and Christians
as neo-outcastes will be relegated lower than Hindu outcastes.
These neo-outcastes below the social starta of traditional Hindu
outcastes will naturally be at the disposal of the later.
The traditional Dalit naturally will feel elevated and prepetual
contradiction of the Hindu society between
High caste and Dalits will subside. The neo-Dalits will pacify
the existing Dalits in the sense that the
Traditional Dalits will have a class to pass the kick on. In
history one such example has been of European
Working class which also benefitted out of colonization os Asia
and Africa by the capitelist of their countries . Though major
booty remined with the ruling classes, working class also got
few silver pieces as its share in the process. This bribery of
the working class helped national chauvanistic trends to emerge
in the ranks of working class through out Europe. It ultimately
helped the big fish to consolidate more.
The zealots of Hindu Rashtra, after Muslims, pour maximum venom
on progressive Hindus.
This is quit understansable , too . The progressive elements
in the Hindu Society vehemently oppose.
Brahminical order, they are for equality and are dead againest
the evil designs of imperislism in our country. They are bound
to attract attacks of Hindu fascists. Thus it is not difficult
to understand the aggressiveness of pseudo nationalist, viz a
viz progressive Hindus.
We can conclude by saying that ideology of Hindu Nationalism,
in its essence , is facist, against equality and inhuman. It is
pro-imperialist. Any urge to fight it out will have to take note
of such integral dimensions of this ideology. It has to be fought
in totality.
