NOTICE TO ARJUN SINGH

High Time To Call The RSS Bluff

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

NO doubt the fascistic Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has kept its word (it deserves this much credit at least!) and has got a legal notice served on the human resources development (HRD) minister Arjun Singh, as it had threatened. Now the world will be keenly watching how far the RSS goes to salvage its prestige, that is, if it has any prestige at all! 

One thing is clear. Irrespective of what Arjun Singh does or does not do in future, the fact is that the RSS has thrown a challenge to the whole mass of secular and patriotic people in this country, and the challenge will be met in this very form.

The minister has been served a defamation (!) notice for having recalled the sordid fact that it was the RSS’ philosophy of hatred that led to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, a towering figure of our freedom struggle. In a statement made at a recent convention of minorities in New Delhi, Singh had said, “if an institution’s (the RSS’) biggest achievement was the killing of Gandhi, then you can expect what national purpose it can serve.” He had also said he was “convinced that the philosophy of hate and violence, which the RSS swears by, killed Mahatma Gandhi,” adding that he was aware of the RSS’ “expertise in murder and mayhem.”

RSS CHALLENGED TO DO ITS WORST

IT was after this statement that the RSS had threatened to sue the HRD minister in a court of law in case he failed to apologise, and the notice served on Singh on August 14 is in pursuance of this very threat. The notice has asked the minister to extend an unconditional written apology for having made the said statement and also give an undertaking (to the RSS!) that he would not engage in any such “misadventure” in future. In case the minister fails to comply with the demand, the RSS has threatened to file a criminal defamation case against him.

The three-page notice has also asked Singh to clarify whether he made the above allegations in his individual capacity or as a member of the All India Congress Committee. Oddly enough, the RSS forgot to ask Singh whether or not his statement reflected the government’s viewpoint!

Curiously, however, the notice does not stipulate any fixed time period in which Arjun Singh has to reply. That not fixing a time period was a deliberate move became clear from what the RSS spokesman Ram Madhav said on August 14: the RSS ‘graciously’ accepted that Singh is a responsible person and would not take much time to reply. 

On his part, Arjun Singh has reacted just as any man of honour could have reacted. His first remark after receiving the news was: “Do you expect me to apologise? There is no question of it. Let me see it (the RSS notice). I have already challenged them to do their worst.” Apparently, he made this reaction even before he received the notice, maybe after learning about it from the media. It is evident that so far he is steadfast in pursuing the course that the RSS has called a “misadventure.”

CPI(M) CANNOT REMAIN ALOOF

HOWEVER, the RSS has forgot to do one crucial thing. Soon after Ram Madhav threatened to sue the HRD minister, the August 15 issue of our paper had concluded its editorial with the following words:

“The minister has dared the RSS to go ahead and sue him on this count. So do we. All those who cherish the secular democratic character of the Indian republic must implead in this case not merely to call the RSS bluff but to reaffirm the commitment of India and its people to the fundamental tenets of our republican constitution.”

Thus posed, our challenge to the RSS was as clear as it could be. There is nothing obscure about it, and there is nothing equivocal. Further, virtually all dailies in the capital, and many outside, did stories about it after a news agency circulated it, and it was known to the whole country through these papers on Friday, August 13 morning. It is therefore surprising that the RSS people forgot about our challenge when they were about to get a notice served on the HRD minister.

Or is it that, knowing their real worth, the RSS people have deliberately avoided to have a confrontation with us!? Be that as it may, our challenge stands. And even if the RSS avoids implicating us, let us assure them of one thing: we will definitely implead ourselves in the proposed defamation case against Singh, once it starts.   

And our challenge is motivated by a simple idea: that the CPI(M) and the Left cannot remain aloof whenever there is the question of fighting communalism and defending secularism and national unity, no matter whatever the cost.

LET SKELETONS TUMBLE OUT

THE proposed case against Singh is important not only “to call the RSS bluff” and not only “to reaffirm the commitment of India and its people to the fundamental tenets of our republican constitution,” as our editorial pointed out. As it is, the younger generations are not adequately aware of the heroism our freedom fighters displayed, the travails they underwent and the sacrifices they willingly and smilingly made for the cause of the country’s independence. Nor are these generations adequately aware of the (1) treacherous role the RSS played during our freedom struggle (and this includes Vajpayee’s role in 1942), (2) the role it played during the communal holocaust accompanying the partition, (3) the anti-national role it played in propping up the ruler of Kashmir’s drive to avoid a merger with the Indian Union, and (4) the heinous role it played in the Mahatma’s assassination. So, once the case against Singh gets going, it will definitely provide a good chance to familiarise our younger generations with the eventful history of our freedom struggle and also with the treacherous role of the RSS in that struggle.

Then the people will also know why the RSS controlled Vajpayee government and the former HRD minister M M Joshi went to the extremes to prevent the publication of two volumes under the Towards Freedom series sponsored by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). Today, people know that these volumes were suppressed because they contain documents that shed light on the RSS’ treacherous role during the freedom struggle. And once we get ourselves impleaded in the proposed case, we will definitely ask the court to ask for these volumes, to peruse their contents and take due notice thereof in order to decide the case.

To reiterate, the court proceedings in the case will thus provide a good chance to let the people of this country know about the abhorrent reality of this fascistic organisation called the RSS, and also the modalities of its working. It will be an illuminating experience, really, to see how many skeletons then tumble out of the RSS cupboard.

Here, it is worth recalling that when the Frontline, a fortnightly from Chennai, did a story in 1998 on Vajpayee’s abominable role during the Quit India struggle in 1942, the then prime minister’s establishment had similarly threatened to sue the magazine in a court of law. But then it did not have courage enough to carry out its threat. Now we all eagerly wait to see if the RSS has the guts to carry out its latest threat, which is in fact a threat to all secular and patriotic people of this country.  

THE PARIVAR’S FRUSTRATION

IN fact, it is the deep-seated frustration currently gripping the Sangh Parivar outfits that has induced the RSS to take the step it has taken by getting a defamation notice served on Arjun Singh. In the last few issues of this paper, we have already dealt with the contours and causes of this sense of frustration prevailing in the Parivar, and we do not intend to go into its details any more. Suffice it to say that all their moves to mislead the masses have so far misfired, and these include the move to raise a hullabaloo in the recently held first meeting of the reconstituted Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). As it was, it was only the education ministers of BJP ruled states that staged a walkout from the CABE meeting; even their allies or erstwhile allies, like the ministers from Orissa, Tamilnadu and Haryana, did not like to join them. Nor did their walkout make an iota of impact on the public opinion outside. 

It was in this background of utter hopelessness that Arjun Singh’s statement about their role in the Mahatma’s assassination has stung them hard.

As usual, RSS and BJP leaders first tried to divert the issue by resorting to making insinuations against their opponents --- something in which they are adept. One of their insinuations was that Singh’s statement reflected his designs against the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, whom he wants to upstage. We are not going to dwell on this insinuation simply because we have no intention to dabble in the internal affairs of the Congress party; we can only say that Congressmen would themselves take care of this insinuation. And, yes, we do hope that Congressmen won’t succumb to this threat doled out by the RSS but fight it out to its logical end.

As for their insinuation that Singh’s statement was intended to please the Left and get the latter’s support in order to capture the prime ministerial chair, the least we can say is that this is nothing but a vulgar example of the Parivar’s vulgar mode of thinking. The Parivar’s style of work is such that they are always in search of clutches, now in the form of Naidu, now in the form of Fernandes --- just what a fascistic conspiratorial outfit does in order to grab power. Nay, they are also very hungry for certificates, and for this purpose they have no compunction in misusing the names of even Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose or Jayaprakash Narayan. In fact, their conspiratorial mode of thinking and behaving tells them to simply ignore the fact that Left politics is not based on individuals but on principles. The whole world knows that if the Left extends support to a particular political formation, it is always on the basis of programmes and policies. But this is precisely what the saffron brigade deliberately ignores, lest it loses ground to malign the Left parties.  

All this must be read in conjunction with an instance recalled by Hindi journalist Prabhash Joshi and some others that when late Sardar Patel, then the union home minister, banned the RSS in the aftermath of the Gandhi assassination, the RSS rumour mill ran full steam to spread rumours about a rift between Nehru and Patel, adding that it was the “communist” Nehru who was instrumental in getting the ban imposed on the RSS. The spectre of communism has been so much haunting them that they even forgot to ask themselves a simple question: if Nehru was a communist, how come his regime was brutally suppressing the communists who at that time were busy fighting the autocratic regime of Nizam in Telangana?  

It is known far and wide that baseless insinuations and rumours have always been the Sangh’s stock in trade, and it is that stock they have used in the latest instance also, in addition to threatening Arjun Singh with a court case. 

TIME TO CALL THEIR BLUFF

BUT enough is enough. It is high time the Sangh’s bluff is called. It is a fact that all their denials of involvement in the Gandhi assassination case have simply failed to carry weight during the last 56 years, with nobody prepared to believe that they were innocent in this regard. So far, and quite naturally, all their latest protestations too have failed to get any takers in the country.

As for the gist of the case, the whole story of the Mahatma’s assassination will get unfolded once again --- if only the RSS men do not back out. And that will be highly educative for the people at large. Without going into the available evidence in this regard, we can only say that the RSS involvement in the assassination has been confirmed even by persons like Gopal Godse, one of the brothers of Nathuram Godse, the actual killer. Alongside this article, we only give a small excerpt from the interview given by Gopal Godse to Frontline in 1994, in which he has reaffirmed that the RSS was very much behind the Mahatma’s assassination.

In sum, this is the real significance of the case --- that it will intensify the ongoing battle between the secular and communal forces, and give it a sharp focus.

As the proverb goes, a jackal runs towards the town when it is about to die. The RSS has behaved exactly in the same manner by slapping a notice on Arjun Singh. That is why all the secular and patriotic people have welcomed the notice --- as its fallout will further add to the isolation the Parivar is in, and to its ignominy.