On Advani’s Hinduism

Girish Mishra

NIRAD C Chaudhuri’s is a well-known name in India. His softness to Hinduism and remarks on Gandhi, Nehru and the Indian National Congress had endeared him to a handful of people in the Sangh Parivar, who sometimes read materials other than those brought out by the Nagpur outfit and its branches. My respected friend Desraj Goyal whose knowledge about the ideology and working of the Parivar cannot be faulted testifies to this. Thomas Nixon Carver, an agricultural economist in the United States in the olden days, became famous, as Professor Galbraith says, not for his contributions to the field of his specialisation but for so-called Carver Law that states “The Rightists do not read at all while the Leftists read only Leftist literature.” 

Harishankar Parsai in one of his widely read pieces underlined that the mind of a typical Swaymsevak was like a bank locker where only the  person having the key to it could put in whatever things he wished to and take out whatever he thought had become. Our Lal Krishna Adavani is an exception. Being a former journalist, he has acquired the good (or bad?) habit of reading non-RSS literature, though selectively.

It seems having read some of the writings of Chaudhuri and getting the impression that “he is on our side,” Advani met him at his residence in England. What happened there is very revealing. The internationally-known Indian journalist Pankaj Mishra wrote the following in The Guardian (July 13, 2002): “Shortly before he died, at the age of 101, the Anglo-Bengali scholar and polemicist Nirad Chaudhuri received the leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP party, L K Advani, at his home in Oxford. The Hindu nationalists, who recently presided in Gujarat over India’s worst-ever anti-Muslim pogrom, had been pleased by some of Chaudhuri’s offhand denunciations of the medieval Muslim invaders of India.

“They probably hoped that India’s most distinguished intellectual exile would do more for their fascistic cause, but they hadn’t fully reckoned with Chaudhuri, who interrogated Advani about his knowledge of India. He was still full of scorn when I saw him weeks later. “These wretched BJP types,” he told me, “they call themselves cultural nationalists, speak  of ancient Hindu ethos, yet do not know Sanskrit, know nothing of their  own history. Such barbaric people!”  

Advani claims to be a Rambhakta and he has great fascination for riding a chariot. This betrays a lack of knowledge of the basic approach of  Lord Rama. Tulasidasa’s Ramacharita Manas or Ramayana depicts him barefooted and without any vehicle of his own. It was Ravana that had a chariot. In fact, Rama was leading the oppressed and exploited in battle against the most powerful oppressor and exploiter of his time. Rama did not have a well-equipped and well-trained army. He had gathered the lower sections of the society, who were without means. In fact, Ravana had all the advantages. Yet, he was defeated.

If one reads Tulasidasa’s magnum opus, one finds it the best and most apt commentary on social, political and cultural life of the 16th century India. Barring some, a large number of his comments are still relevant. Reading Tulasidasa, one finds Advani totally ignorant of Hindu ethos and the facets of Lord Rama’s life and thus emulating Ravana. To substantiate, let us quote from Tulasidasa’s magnum opus.

The battle with Ravana is about to begin and Ravana arrives on the  battlefield with his massive army. In the words of Tulasidasa, “When  Vibhisana beheld Ravana mounted on a chariot and Rama on foot, he became  apprehensive; his extreme affection made him doubtful of mind, and  falling at his feet, he cried tenderly: “My Lord, you have neither a chariot nor shoes to your feet, how can you conquer so powerful a  warrior?” “Hearken, my friend,” replied the Lord of grace, “a conqueror has a different kind of chariot. Manliness and courage are his wheels; unflinching truthfulness and morality his banners and standards; strength, discretion, self-control and benevolence his horses, with grace, mercy and equanimity for their harness: prayer to Mahadeva his unerring charioteer; continence his shield, contentment his sword, alms-giving his axe, knowledge his mighty spear, and perfect science his stout bow. His pure and constant soul stands for a quiver, his pious practices of devotion for a sheaf of arrows, and the revenue he pays to Brahmanas and his guru is his impenetrable coat of mail. There is no equipment for victory that can be compared to this, nor is there any enemy, my friend, who can conquer the man who rides upon this chariot of righteousness.”

The great poet comments: “He who owns such a powerful chariot as this is a hero who can vanquish even that great and terrible enemy, the world; harken, friend, and fear not.” (The Ramayana of Tulasidasa translated by F S Growse, published by Motilal Banarasidass, 1989, pp. 586-87).

Let Adavani ponder over these words of Tulasidasa and infer whether he is a follower of Lord Rama or Ravana.

These days one hears him talk quite often of Suraj or Sushasan (good governance), but these terms are used only to deceive the gullible.  Tulasidasa has described it as follows: “Under Rama’s sway the three spheres were full of joy, all sorrow was at an end; no one had a grudge against another, every variance was extinguished under Rama’s auspices.” Further, “In the whole of Rama’s realm there was no one who suffered from bodily pains, ill fortune or evil circumstance. Every man loved his neighbour and contented with the state of life to which he had been born, conformably to the teaching of Scripture and sound morality....There was no premature death and no sickness even, but everyone was comely and sound of body. No one was in poverty, in sorrow, or distress; no one ignorant or unlucky. All the men and women were unaffectedly good and pious, clever and intelligent. Everyone appreciated the merits of his neighbour and was himself learned and wise; everyone was grateful for kindnesses and guilelessly prudent.

“Listen, O king of birds, during Rama’s reign there was not a creature in the world, animate or inanimate, that suffered from any of the ills that ordinarily result from time or past conduct or personal temperament and character.” (Ibid., pp. 641-42).

The shortage of space does not allow us reproducing Tulasidasa’s description of Suraj or Sushasan, but one can say with confidence that what happened in Gujarat under Modi dispensation or what the various wings of the Sangh Parivar have been saying and doing is not even remotely in accord with the conception of Ramraj as enunciated by Tulasidasa. The Hindus take him, not Advani, as the true interpreter of Hinduism. The destruction of Babri mosque and hurling abuses at women in general and Sonia Gandhi in particular cannot go well with true Hinduism that places even the queen of Ravana Mandodari among the five most virtuous women to be worshipped by a devout Hindu. Modis, Katiyars, Venkaiah Naidus and Advanis cannot be termed true Hindus if one goes by what Tulasidasa says.

Let us now come to Swami Karapatriji whose knowledge of Hinduism and Hindu scriptures was never called in question. Remember he had nothing to do with the Congress, not to speak of the Left. He had published a bulky book attacking Marxism. He had founded an all-India party Ram Rajya Parishad and, on many issues, he was an ally of the earlier  incarnation of the BJP. He was for banning cow slaughter and preventing scheduled caste people from entering temples. He had worked with the RSS people and observed their deeds closely. On this basis, he came to certain conclusions, which he placed before the people at large in November 1970 in the form of a book Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh  and Hindu Dharama. Veerbhadra Mishra, the mahantha of Sankata Mochan, a  place of worship of Lord Hanumana published it. Incidentally, Mishra was  the person who bestowed the title of Rajarishi on V P Singh when he declared war on the Congress. A few years ago, Mishra was praised by Time magazine for his efforts to clean the Ganges. He was also a professor at the Institute of Technology at the BHU.

Mishra in his publisher’s note appended to the book said: “His Holiness Swami Karapatriji has, after looking at from all angles and on the basis of the writings of Golwalkarji, come to the conclusion that Rashtravad of the RSS has nothing to do with Hindu religion. In fact, it is a variety of western Nazism or Hitlerism.” 

The Swami quoted extensively from the writings of M S Golwalkar to underline the fact that the RSS was completely ignorant of the rules of logic and of the tenets of Hindu religion. It was an organisation of people highly illiterate so far as Hindu religion was concerned. To give an example, according to the Swami, saffron was never the colour of the flag of Hinduism. He took Golwalkar and his followers to task for hurling derogatory remarks at the tricolour national flag.

Karapatriji objected to the definition of a Hindu given by Golwalkar and his ideological mentor V D Savarkar. He asserted that it was logically fallacious and one could look up standard treatises on Indian logic, i.e., Nyaya to see that it was hetudoshagrasta (logically fallacious).

Subjecting RSS ideology to a rigorous scrutiny and examination, the venerable Swami concluded that the RSS and its various off springs were following Hitler and Mussolini rather than the tenets of Hinduism. Their anti-Muslim plank was fashioned after Hitler’s hatred towards Jews.

It is surprising that no one dared challenge the Swami, not even M S  Golwalkar because the Parivar was suffering from “barbaric ignorance” of Hindu scriptures. Had they confronted the Swami, he would have exposed them. 

Advani and his ideological Parivar talk of the foreign origin of Sonia  Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. In both cases their arguments suffer from hetudosha i.e. logical fallacy. One of these fallacies is that of “slippery slope argument”. To illustrate, if you cannot allow a person of foreign origin to become prime minister, how can you allow her to become president, defence minister, home minister, an intelligence officer, a police official, and even a clerk or an orderly in the departments even remotely concerned with national security? Similarly, if you put a ban on her holding any of the responsible positions then you have to disqualify her descendants too.

If one looks into history books one finds that Jats came from outside the country (refer to their standard history by the late Professor Kalika Ranjan Qanungo of the Lucknow University). The same is the case of Maga  Brahmins (otherwise known as Sakyadwipis) without whose contributions Dr Joshi’s astrology will vanish. One of the best known Maga Brahmins is Varahmihira. If Advani has any doubt, let him consult Pandit Vidya Niwas Mishra who has been nominated by his government to the Rajya Sabha ostensibly for his erudition.

One of the greatest non-Muslim rulers of India, Asoka, had Greek blood in his veins. Unfortunately, Dr Joshi has forgotten to expunge his name from history. We can go on and on to demonstrate the utter ignorance of the self-declared champions of Hinduism. Advani is our home minister but law and order situation in Delhi, which is directly under him, is in tatters. Insecurity has increased, and kidnappings, rapes and murders have become daily occurrences. Even the Parliament House was attacked under his dispensation. A Swiss diplomat and an Australian tourist have been raped and murdered and a host of foreigners have been molested in recent times.  Girls are not safe and even those responsible for security cannot be trusted. Obviously, citizens are fear-stricken and in that case the rulers like Advani, as Tulasidas says, will go to hell. Let Advani challenge Tulasidasa and say he and his colleagues are not to go to hell but get into power again and he, not Tulasidasa, is the best interpreter of Hinduism. He should consult V.K. Malhotra, a retired lecturer in Hindi (but now self-elevated professor) on the credentials of Tulasidas before asking Dr Joshi to ban his works.

Advani’s trouble arises from his infatuation with power, which, according to the Gita, leads to “confusion of memory; from confusion of memory, loss of reason; and from loss of reason one goes to complete ruin.” These are the words of Lord Krishna (II/63) not of a Congressman or Communist.

According to the tenets of Hindu religion, Advani has entered the last stage or ashrama i.e. sannyasa. If he claims to be true Hindu, he should retire and spend the rest of his life in penance. Will he? (Secularism Alert)