People's Democracy

So What? On The RSS’s ‘Facts’

  Nalini Taneja

THE year (1992), in which Babri masjid was demolished, is a watershed in many ways, in the history of independent India. The terms of political discourse since then have been set by the right wing forces, particularly the Hindutva forces. What becomes a matter of debate is carefully planned out by them, the entire nation is held to ransom on a particular issue, and intellectuals are made busy refuting what the Sangh Parivar has made into a campaign point. The specific issue of debate sometimes furthers the Sangh Parivar’s political agenda.

Thus in this one decade we have had a resurgence of right wing mobilization and debates around temple destruction, conversions, the census, and cow-protection and beef eating, Savarkar, Shivaji, Muslim appeasement etc -- all aimed at re-presenting and consolidating the case for a Hindu rashtra, which had been conclusively demolished at the time of Independence, when India declared itself a secular republic.

Secular intellectuals have been kept busy arguing and proving that Babar had not demolished any temple at Ayodhya, and that no Ram temple had in fact existed at that spot. We are forced to say the instance of bigamy is more among Hindus than Muslims, population growth rate has more to do with poverty and backwardness than religion, that far from being appeased Muslims have much less representation in government services, and industry than Hindus in relation to the percentage of their population, and that they are far more deprived in terms of assets ownership and benefits of welfare schemes.

The record must be set straight and people should know what is what. It would not do for people in this country to be victims of communal propaganda, not only for reasons of politics, but because correct information, a scientific temper, and knowledge are assets in themselves. It is a truism that an informed people are the strength of democracy and popular movements.  The secular and left activists and intellectuals have been quite conscious of this, and every aspect of the RSS- initiated propaganda has been adequately countered in terms of evidence, and, if not adequately, then in some substantial measure, in terms of dissemination as well of the true facts that belie the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda.

EXPOSING THE RSS BLUFF

Yet there is a need to call the Sangh Parivar’s bluff in more political terms. There is a need to move towards a more sanguine situation where we can say, and when the large majority of the Indian people can say: “So what?”

In other words, what if it were true that Babar had destroyed some temple in Ayodhya; is it in keeping with the values of a humanist tradition, that we should wreck revenge on others for no fault of theirs, so many centuries later? Is the issue of the temple so significant that we should allow people to be butchered, and our whole polity to be divided along lines of religion? Are we to sanction the destruction of mosques and dargahs, something that has actually been happening in the last decade, which is against our constitution and the spirit of religious tolerance, even if some rulers (incidentally of all religious persuasions) had done so in bygone ages?

There was little in the recently publicized Census figures to provoke the reaction that it did, even if we do not take into account the corrected and revised information given out by the Census authorities. (It is a separate matter that what should have caused concern, the decline in female population, did not become the subject of headlines). As several concerned citizens have pointed out, “such illicit dramatizations of misrepresented statistics are quite compatible with demands for ethnic cleansing tomorrow”, and manufactured hysteria and diversionary violence such as is being voiced by the votaries of the Sangh Parivar must be strongly and uncompromisingly resisted, intellectually of course, but also morally, and politically.

Why should it matter if the growth rate among Muslims is higher? How does it affect the state of the nation for one, and, two, how would most Hindus feel if some sections of Indians resented their being born? To do so is inhuman and amounts literally to questioning the birth right of those who are citizens of this country.  

Basically people are required to take a stand along these lines, if we are to call the bluff of the Hindutva forces. The RSS, understands the relationship between information and politics very well. They use their ‘facts’ effectively only because they are able to link this so-called information with the aspirations of people for a better life. With all their influence in the media and the resources and cadre at their command they attempt to transform popular ‘common sense’ into a highly irrational approach of the people.

RELEVANCE OF SANGH PARIVAR’S FACTS

A large mass of populace goes along with them not because people are cruel or inhuman, but because they are led to believe that the ‘facts’ being marshalled by the Sangh Parivar have some relevance in explaining their increasingly difficult life situation. The Muslims, not globalization policies, are the cause of their inability to obtain for themselves a slice of the national cake. More particularly, if increasing population, rather than scarcity or criteria for just distribution, can be made the issue, it is that much easier for right wing organizations to create enemies from among those who ought to be seen as friends. In short, the Sangh Parivar is successful in creating the connection between its ‘facts’ and people’s lives because it has relied on its sectarian politics to create ‘facts’ in the first place.

This is something that cannot be done by the secular forces. The secular forces cannot concoct facts; they can only interpret facts differently, and from the point of view of the people. But what they can do is to always have a two-pronged strategy for campaign, in which the criteria of justice and equality are paramount. Secular forces should be able to say: “So what? Even if what the Sangh Parivar says is true, our methods and goals are to be guided by our social vision rather than an unpalatable fact.” Material reality is not created by facts alone. When Marx talked about the primacy of material life he saw it as a relation, not as something outside the world of ideas, which he saw as transforming reality all the time—for good or for bad.

RESEARCH SANCTIFYING RSS’S FACTS

None of the current campaigns of the Sangh Parivar are new, nor the claims made with regard to them new. Most issues dear to their heart emerged in the early twentieth century, when the movement for independence assumed a mass base, and they took from the nineteenth century heritage what fitted, and only what fitted, into their political scheme. The same have been resurrected now, with the additional respectability of ‘research’ and scholarship attached to them. The BJP government gave actual entry to the RSS shakha as an ideological factor in social science research. Conversely the National Curriculum Framework of the BJP was sanctified and given respectability on grounds of such new research, the ‘facts’ ‘discovered’ through ‘academic endeavors’. A smooth interactive passage between shakha and ‘academic’ joins politics with scholarship; through emotion rather than reason as in the case of all fascist forces.

Again, the secular and democratic forces cannot rely on emotional appeals alone; one, because they are not sufficient; and two, because we stand by a scientific temper. But we can and must appeal to people’s sense of justice and reason, on rationality in approach to all issues, and humanism. Without establishing a strong connection between democratic values and facts it would be impossible to meet the challenge of the fascist association between shakha and ‘facts’ created by the Hindutva forces.