TIME FOR DECISIVE BATTLE  

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

 AT a time the Sangh Parivar is yet to come out of its post-Gujarat euphoric mood, the city of Amritsar seems to have sent a totally different message to our fellow countrymen. This is a time when some leaders of the saffron brigade are busy making bombastic claims that they would realise their so-called Hindu Rashtra in two years time. This even led a recent Hindustan Times cartoon to quip with sarcasm that Togadia-ji should better issue a message not for New Year 2003 but for New Year 2005 when India would already be a Hindu Rashtra.  

A SHARP CONTRAST

HOWEVER, unfazed by such shrill cries emanating from the RSS-led communal forces, the country’s historians have made it clear that they are not going to give any quarter to the Parivar’s incessant drive to impose its divisive ideology on the nation. Meeting in Amritsar, the 63rd annual session of Indian History Congress (IHC) came down heavily upon the BJP-led central government’s moves to saffronise the state apparatus and educational institutions through the UGC and other organs. More particularly, these historians are incensed over the moves to push new and distorted history syllabi down the younger generations’ throats through a pliant director of the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT). That their moves are denigrating this premier institution of Asia, is not their concern.  

Incidentally, the venue chosen for the IHC session this year also tells something. The session took place in a city where, on April 13, 1919, several hundred Indians fell to General Dyer’s bullets, and these included Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike. In fact, the monument to Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar is a living testimony of how Indians of various castes, creeds, religions and regions shed their blood together to wrest the country’s independence from the British imperialists.

Then, there remains one more fact. It is well known that, formed in 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) kept aloof from our national liberation struggle. Instead of thinking about how to free the country from the alien rule, RSS leaders were more interested in knowing how India could usher into a fascistic nation and one of them even went to meet Mussolini for the purpose. (Golwalkar’s praise for Hitler during the dictator’s heyday needs no reiteration.) If anything, the RSS only helped the British by trying its best to break the fighting unity of Indian people in the name of a distorted conception of Hinduism. Not only that. In 1946-47, when people were being mercilessly butchered on both sides of the newly carved-out border, the RSS was busy stoking the fires of a fratricidal war instead of rushing any relief to the victims of the carnage that was one of the most gigantic tragedies in human history. 

Nay, it was the RSS-created communal ethos that led to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi --- the tallest figure of our freedom struggle and one who was a far more devout Hindu than all the RSS leaders put together are.

In sharp contrast to this, stands the Indian History Congress --- one of the very best products of our momentous struggle for independence. Formed in 1935, the IHC made its own worthy contribution to that struggle by meeting the British imperialists’ ideological offensive head on. Those early IHC historians were constrained by severe limitations regarding source materials, literary and archaeological data, techniques of analysis, etc. Yet they did their best to foil the British attempts at distorting our history in a bid to impress that the Indians, and the people of Asia and Africa in general, were only fit to be ruled by European whites. A related major battle the IHC historians waged was against the imperialists’ bid to misuse history as part of their policy of divide and rule. Early historians like Professors Ganda Singh, Tarachand and Mohammed Habib made valuable contributions in this regard.

The forthright stand the IHC took in this period, was evident at the time of the partition as well, when communal forces were railing against the Muslims in general, dubbing them all as responsible for the partition. But the IHC chose late Professor Mohammed Habib as its annual session’s president in 1947. The IHC’s message was clear: that it won’t be swayed by communalism.

CRUX OF RSS ATTACK ON IHC

BUT the most important thing to note in this regard is that these historians met the British ideological offensive not by distorting historical facts in a contrary direction but by putting them in a proper perspective. And this is something they are still doing; in fact it is this tradition of theirs that has made these historians the targets of communal attacks.

The reason is simple. On one occasion Professor Irfan Habib said differences among earlier historians centered on how to interpret the available evidence, and it is a fact that even many historians, who the saffron brigade swears by, did respect certain norms while interpreting the evidence. But, contrary to the norms and tradition of historiography, what the ‘historians’ of RSS brand are doing is to manufacture evidence or to distort the evidence. So much so that one former director of Archaeological Survey of India even disregarded the findings of an excavation done in Ayodhya in 1976 that he had himself supervised, and did not allow other historians and archaeologists to see the diary of the concerned excavations despite persistent demand. And what was the reason? Simply that the findings of these excavations contradicted the brigade’s claim that a temple was demolished to construct the Babri Masjid on the spot.

What one calls karsevak archaeology is a notorious example of this very type of archaeology.

This is, in crux, the reason behind the saffron brigade’s venomous attacks on professional historians and on the IHC in particular. This was the reason the now-RSS-controlled Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) scuttled the publication of two of the volumes in its own Towards Freedom series, as these volumes threatened to expose the RSS role during our freedom struggle.

The RSS attacks on the IHC have been following a set and familiar pattern. Time and again, the RSS has dubbed the IHC as a “Marxist” body. This is in total disregard to the fact that not only Marxist historians but many non-Marxists too are part of the Indian History Congress. In fact, if Marxists command prestige among Indian historians, it is because their analyses, which their materialist methodology has generated, explain the facts of history in a most satisfactory manner, illuminating many hitherto dark areas of our past.

But, not content with this, RSS men have even tried their best to capture the IHC itself. It was discovered in 1991 that a number of persons had enrolled as IHC members by taking advantage of its lenient membership norms. A closer scrutiny found that these persons included some teachers who had themselves not written a single history book. Some of these newly enrolled members did not have even remote connection with history; a few of them were timber merchants. All this ultimately compelled the IHC to amend its constitution in order to tighten its membership clause.

Moreover, more than a decade ago, when the IHC was to hold its annual session in Indore, the RSS lobby created such an ugly situation there, with the help of the then BJP government of Madhya Pradesh, that the session itself had to be postponed. That session was held at Delhi two months later.

A NOTE OF CAUTION

IT was precisely this ideological struggle on the issue of communalism that was evident once again in the IHC’s Amritsar session, held from December 28 to 30. While we expect to publish a fuller report of the session next week, suffice it to say here that the session expressed the historians’ resolve to fight the Parivar’s drive to saffronise our educational institutions and textbooks. On its last day, the IHC session passed a strongly worded resolution on the issue of Class VI, IX and XI history textbooks that have been recently put out by the NCERT under its new dispensation. And as The Tribune (Chandigarh, December 31) said, “It appears that fears expressed about the intentions of the NCERT were not uncalled for.”

The said IHC resolution criticised the latest NCERT books on the ground of “serious misrepresentation of facts, selective omissions, imbalances and grossly unhistorical statements.” In the words of the same paper, the session issued a timely warning that “in the present day context, the idea of a unified and composite nation was being sacrificed on the altar of expedient politics” in pursuit of the communal ideology. It “concluded on the note of caution that society should remain vigilant about the subversive activities of communal forces.”

It will be noted that quoting specific instances, several historians lambasted the RSS brand of history writing, and these included eminent historians like Professors Satish Chandra and J S Grewal. The reason of these historians’ ire is simple: though non-Marxists, they are honest to their discipline.

During the session, Professor Irfan Habib described the distortion of facts by the Sangh Parivar, stressing how it was leading to a tainted interpretation of the rich legacy of Indian culture.

The proceedings of the IHC session so much angered the members of the BJP-backed Delhi Historians Forum that they left the venue, even before the business committee was to move the aforesaid resolution.

VOLTE FACE ON DR AMBEDKAR

HOW the Sangh Parivar keeps on distorting the facts of history according to its own convenience, is also clear from its latest move to appropriate Dr B R Ambedkar’s name for its theocratic project. It was not very long ago when Mr Arun Shourie had written a venomous book against Dr Ambedkar, full of all sorts of diatribe against this architect of India’s constitution. Just to remind our readers, this Mr Shourie is the same BJP man who presides over the ministry for dismemberment of Indian economy and who, in his previous incarnation as a journalist, used to boast with conceit that many heads have rolled because of his pen.

But now the Parivar is singing a different tune altogether. On December 26, the ministry of welfare and social justice organised a function for the release of a newly brought out Hindi monthly. At this meeting held in Delhi, the BJP’s L M Singhvi criticised his own partyman Shourie for the latter’s attacks on Dr Ambedkar, concluding that Dr Ambedkar very much belonged to Hindus. However, even though vice president Shri Shekhawat sought to correct Singhvi by saying that Dr Ambedkar belonged not to Hindus but to the whole country, it appears that the Parivar is not prepared to pay any heed to what Shri Shekhawat said. A BJP MP and former Bajrang Dal chief Vinay Katiyar very soon reiterated what Singhvi had said at that meeting.

This volte face effected by the Sangh Parivar on the question of evaluating Dr Ambedkar is puzzling, to say the least. Is it at all worthy of being called an honest evaluation or re-evaluation? Or is it because in UP the BJP is badly at the BSP’s mercy to stay in power? 

Be that as it may, one fact remains. Dr Ambedkar felt the pinch of caste inequality and oppression from his childhood, in his youth and even later, and this was the reason for his famous declaration of intent that even though he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. This was the reason he embraced Buddhism in the last part of his life, along with thousands of his supporters.

Is the saffron brigade prepared to stop upholding the caste system that still oppresses men like Dr Ambedkar? Do they realise that while one Ambedkar carved out a place of honour for himself by his intelligence and diligence, there are thousands of talented Ambedkars who die nameless, unwept and unsung because of this accursed system?

Here it is worth recalling one small episode of big significance. Soon after putting his signature to the final version of independent India’s constitution, Dr Ambedkar addressed a meeting of the scheduled caste people in Delhi. Here he put the crux of the new situation, saying that now the oppressed castes of India were entering a new era when they would have political equality but no social and economic equality. He then asked the scheduled castes to join hands with other oppressed people to fight this state of affairs. However, sadly, even the parties and people who swear by his name do not deem it necessary to pay heed to these words that still have relevance for the country’s regeneration. Will the Sangh Parivar pay any heed to these words?

FASCISM IN MAKING

ASKING such a question is futile. Trying to mislead the scheduled castes and other oppressed people for electoral gains is one thing. (The BJP recently took Ms Mayawati to Gujarat for this misleading game.) But to honestly fight for these sections’ uplift is quite another thing and the last 77 years testify to the fact that any such fight is an anathema to the RSS. Will the Parivar tell us what the BJP state governments have done to effect radical land reforms, a sine qua non for these sections’ wellbeing?

In fact, the Parivar’s attention is concentrated on something else. Speaking at a function in Ahmedabad on December 30, Dr Praveen Togadia boasted that his outfit, the VHP, would not remain content with a temple in Ayodhya; rather it would also capture the mosques in Varanasi and Mathura. On the same day Ashok Singhal went one step ahead, boasting that they have already demolished one structure at Ayodhya and now they would demolish yet another structure --- the structure called secularism.

This confirms what every patriot knows but which the BJP has been denying all along --- that the brigade is out to demolish the very secular fabric of our country, our syncretic ethos and composite culture. In short, while hypocritically seeking to mislead the people by dubbing itself as genuinely secular and others as pseudo-secular, the BJP and other RSS outfits are out to deprive us of the very civilisation that India has been proud of.

Let no one think that the threats being issued by Singhals and Togadias are merely verbal. The way the unemployed are being exploited and recruited as cannonfodders, the way lumpen elements are being mobilised for a fratricidal war, and the way even children are being trained in use of arms are indications that a full-fledged Hitler-type strategy is at work in the country. Mere statements are obviously of no use. Large-scale mass mobilisation for a determined resistance is what the situation calls for. Writing about the horrors of partition, Manto said while the other forces were retreating step by step, the murderers were moving ahead step by step and were writing such a history of blood and iron as had no parallel in the world. Will the secular people like that the future historian should write some such thing for them?