People's Democracy

BLOOD AND SAFFRON:

The Gory Rituals of the Sangh Parivar

Nalini Taneja

IT is not surprising that when all sane voices are talking of peace and exercising caution, the Sangh Parivar has unleashed a signature campaign of blood in Delhi that has all signs of turning into an actual bloody affair. Delhi MP, Madan Lal Khurana, a prominent member of the BJP and also the RSS, has set about collecting signatures in blood on huge banners proclaiming the ‘death of terrorism’. The recipient of these banners will be Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, the Home Minister, also a top leader of the RSS.

The entire campaign and the speeches made are designed to invoke violence and to identify patriotism with revenge. Terrorism is made to assume an Islamic face through repeated references to the religious identity of the terrorists, and the by now taken-for-granted phrase "Islamic Terrorism". Terms such as 'Christian Terrorism', 'Jewish Terrorism', 'Hindu Terrorism', do not figure in today’s political vocabulary, and should not exist. But 'Islamic Terrorism' has become a byword for all terrorist acts, thanks to the propaganda of the western media and our own Sangh Parivar and the Sangh Parivar-influenced media. As if religion is intrinsic to one brand of terrorism, i.e., in all acts concerning Muslims, but not to others which a priori have primarily a political face—if recognised at all as terrorist by the Sangh Parivar.

After the first phase on September 25^th, a second phase of this campaign began on September 29^th, and due to the ‘great enthusiasm’ it generated among the people and counted in blood, a third phase was initiated on October 3^rd. According to an Indian Express Newsline report (October 3, 2001), the scenes were "quite like election time".

A three-wheeler equipped with loudspeaker and manned by a BJP worker, did the rounds of colonies around Khurana’s constituency, inviting people to sign their names in blood. "Campaigners first allowed blood to be drawn, saw it being put in a test tube and then dipped cotton padded needles to sign on the banner. And as they did so they were drowned in a chorus of nationalistic slogans", while the wasted blood was poured down the drain.

The entire description creates for us a visual of the type of drama the Sangh Parivar can indulge in for its political designs. Even school children were included in the ‘sacrifice’ of blood - and all this in a city where the government has been repeatedly announcing a shortage of blood for accident victims.

Given that the RSS and the VHP have already decreed that the ‘fight against terrorism’ is primarily to contend with issues of "external and internal security" for India, it does not need much political acumen to predict the outcome of this literally bloody campaign.

DISCRIMINATORY BANS

On cue, Advani has already set the ball rolling by banning the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and by responding to criticisms of discriminatory action by audaciously giving a clean chit to the Bajrang Dal, which he characterizes as an organisation of "patriots". In pale imitation of Mr. Bush's style, he thinks he need not provide any evidence to support his actions or his pronouncements as Home Minister.

Organisations can be banned at will without accountability to Parliament and other representative bodies of the people. and without providing information. Issues of minorities, people's rights, and freedom of speech are easily transformed into matters of national security by the Home Minister and his Parivar, and once it is so proclaimed, all information can be withheld and people held without the niceties of legal or constitutional procedures.

All Right- wing governments and organisations are adept at this manoeuvre; there is now an urgent need to see this as a general strategy against dissent and opposition, going beyond the particular organisations and institutions being targeted, in the midst of this charged atmosphere created by them.

While no democratic person will support the SIMI’s politics, in this instance the immediate provocation seems to be posters decrying America, opposing carpet bombing of Afghanistan, and demanding proof and evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the bombings on WTC and Pentagon - something that not only Muslim organisations, but all kinds of people all over the world, are asking. The offices of SIMI have been ransacked, its members arrested as anti-nationalists, and there is linked propaganda by the Sangh Parivar of the 'internal threats' to national security, a propaganda that is assuming dangerous proportions.

In Delhi the police also arrested members of the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), activists of the All India Anti-imperialist Forum (AIAIF), and the All-India People's Resistance Forum (AIPRF), for distributing leaflets condemning the American attacks on Afghanistan, followed by raids at the residence of the organisation’s secretary (Indian Express, October 9). Yet on the same day, the Shiv Sena activists took out processions in the Walled City of Delhi and burned effigies not merely of bin Laden, but also of the Shahi Imam for "calling the American attacks on Afghanistan a war against Islam".

What is really ominous is that our government seems to see criticism of the US as an anti-Indian sentiment, and punishable by the Indian government. In so far as the BJP-led government is concerned, America's war seems to be India's war, and the Sangh Parivar is readying itself on the slightest pretext, to extend the definition of this war to India’s minorities. The media is full of perceived threats and "tightened security" in "sensitive areas" - fed by the BJP government as part of the game of creating a tense atmosphere of paranoia.

The Left in India is equally being characterised as defending terrorism against civilization and nation. All demonstrations and protests are being presented as threats to security concerns. Parotting President Bush, the Sangh Parivar postures: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists", to take advantage of the situation.

The write-ups in the Panchjanya and Organiser ( organs of the RSS) give expression to and the lead for the campaign on the ground. "The menace of terrorism is oiled by a monotheistic belief that fosters intolerance"; and "Hindus have been waging a relentless war against Islamic terrorism for the past 1000 years". These statements define the essence of the BJP's and the rest of the Parivar's position to take advantage of the situation for their partisan aims. This became more than evident in Vajpayee's broadcast to the nation following the September 11 attacks on Pentagon and WTC.

The Sangh Parivar's 'every individual must become a part of this fight against terrorism', was more clearly articulated by Vajpayee, as "Muslims must join the nationalists" in this endeavour and "communal harmony must be maintained". A statement made more than dubious, to say the least, from a Prime Minister, dressed for the occasion in a huge, bright tilak.

RUN-UP TO ELECTIONS

Using a self-declared crisis, the BJP government is trying through devious means, to disenfranchise Muslims before the UP elections. It had done the same in Gujarat earlier. Thus four officials have been suspended on orders of the Election Commission on charges of deletion of the names of Muslim voters in Thakurdwara Assembly constituency. The names of more than 15, 800 voters were deleted in one assembly alone, and the names of 21,000 others belonging to the Hindu community included, to bring the total to what it should have been. (Indian Express, September 29)

Similarly, the Bajrang Dal has assumed the role of self-appointed guardians and authority for meting out punishment to the 'enemies' of the nation. Who these enemies are is also to be decided by these super 'nationalists' bred by the RSS, and with full encouragement from none other than our Home Minister who says they are "patriots". He has declared a virtual war against the minorities on behalf of the Bajrang Dal, given the Sangh Parivar full freedom to substitute for the state machinery, and put the state machinery at their disposal in the matter of dealing with minorities by virtually labelling the latter as potential terrorists.

The Dal has also taken upon itself the task of getting all madrasas closed down in the name of safeguarding national security, and a Home Ministry report has followed suit characterizing them across the board as breeding grounds for terrorists and anti-national activities—an unfounded charge as revealed by a citizen’s team headed by eminent scholar Imtiaz Ahmed.

We all know that creation of private armies is an unconstitutional act. Yet, the Bajrang Dal has announced that it has already trained five lakh volunteers to fight the ‘internal enemies’, and another two lakhs are to be given special training for capturing the Ram mandir site to start construction in March 2002. Our venerable Home Minister gives them the status of ‘soldiers of the nation’, while other voices are being ruthlessly suppressed in view of the "crisis".

BLOOD AND DRAMA

Fascists, in a sense, are masters of drama and the gorier it is the better they like it. The imagery of blood occurs figuratively all the time in their frequent calls for 'righting the wrongs of history'. Their 'gaurav gatha' of the Hindus’ "centuries long" and "legendary struggle" against "Muslim tyranny" is designed to create hatred for the minorities through the imagery of blood and sacrifice.

Stories about Muslim rulers and their enormous cruelty, scattered through most of the texts for young children, prescribed in the Vidya Bharti schools, and presented as the ‘real’ history, are absolutely fantastic in the descriptions conjured up. They are written with the purpose for making a lasting impact on innocent minds. The tales of Rajput infighting, jauhar and sati glorified as ‘national honour’, and demands of blood as sacrifice harking back to the rituals of religious sacrifice, are all integral to the Sangh Parivar’s folklore propagated at their shakhas in the name of nationalism.

Sadhvi Rithambara's and Uma Bharti's speeches - and the replay of the cassettes of those speeches on loudspeakers in Muslim localities during the rath yatra of Advani, conjured up terrible images of violence and validated gory forms of vengeance in the name of righting the wrongs of history. The rath yatra itself created new images of the ‘struggle’ for the Ram mandir, followed by equally morbid ‘facts’ about lakhs of Hindu martyrs "butchered" by Mulayam ‘mullah’.

The latest blood campaign calling for fighters against terrorism is part of the same pattern of the drama of violence and ‘sacrifice’ as forms of right wing mobilization, which appeal to and demand affiliation on grounds of irrationalism rather than reason, and which is designed to make people fight against their own fellow beings while believing they are fighting for a just cause.