CURRENTLY, European democracies are facing a wave of anti-immigrant sentiments. France is in the grip of riots which have so far left three persons dead. Apparent racism and Islamophobia have resulted in the death of Nahel — a 17-year-old French-Algerian — who was shot dead by a police officer when he allegedly refused to cooperate with the authorities. Analysts have focused primarily on demographic and economic factors as potential threat inducing contexts that lead to anti-immigrant sentiment but the corridors in power are backing the anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe with a vested interest. Since Narendra Modi took up the mantle of power in New Delhi, Indian Muslims and Sikhs have been vehemently targeted in an ethnic cleansing program.
Modi’s tyrannical regime is apparently vying to support the anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe to deflect censure on fanatic Hindus firing broadsides against Indian minorities. Even the European Parliament took cognizance of the wave of terror unleashed against Indian Muslims citing hate-mongering leading to violent clashes in India’s northeastern city of Manipur resulting in 130 deaths.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the perpetrators of India’s despotism follow the dictat of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s ideology “Hindutva” which preaches intolerant Hinduism. It has nothing to do with the historical tradition of spiritual practices in the Hindu religion. This centralized and chauvinistic Hinduism—Hindutva—has been brought to the forefront today by a group of political organizations called the Sangh Parivar (Sangh Family)—consisting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers Association—the mother organization after which the label Sangh Parivar is coined), the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian Peoples Party—Hindutva’s constitutional front that fights elections etc.), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP—World Hindu Council – the formation’s activist front), the Shiv Sena (the fascist front), the VHP of America (Hindutva’s overseas arm) and the Hindu Students Councils (VHP of America’s student wing).
The various facets of Hindutva’s state terrorism have remained hidden from the world far too long. Crushing popular uprisings with the blatant use of force, intimidating innocent people, threatening their lives, destroying their property, depriving their liberty and creating tension amongst them, killing and maiming the youth, raping women and incarcerating the blameless are dastardly acts which cannot be excused. Modi is a self-proclaimed Pracharak (activist) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) whose radical activist Nathuram Godse had assassinated renowned peacenik Mahatma Gandhi with the plea that he was trying to pacify Muslims. Modi’s regime has chosen to idolize Gandhi’s assassin by erecting his statues and making movies to venerate the cold blooded killer.
Savarkar, in his book Hindutva Ideology Developed, written in 1920 in Andaman Jail refers to Hindutva as a history of the religious communities which regard Hindustan as their pitribhoomi (fatherland) and punyabhoomi (holy land). By this logic, Muslims, Christians and Parsis are excluded from that history for their punyabhoomi is not Hindustan. These communities are almost projected as aliens for their ‘extra-territorial loyalties.’ Savarkar’s concepts of Holy Land, Fatherland and Hindudom as the defining features of his Hindutva and the construct of Hindu Rashtra (Nation) were seriously flawed because he claimed that “in Hindustan, those who failed the test of having a common Fatherland or Holy Land or Hindudom are but ‘communities’, ‘numerical minorities’, who do not deserve any privileges.”
The successor of Savarkar, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, founded the RSS in 1925. He propagated that India was a Hindu Rashtra (nation) distinguished from Hindu Raj” and proliferated Savarkar’s views: “Oh, you sons of Hindustan, if we make up our mind, we can destroy the enemy in no time! We will destroy the enemy and will release from dead our religion and our country, dearer to us than life itself!” Hedgewar, as a staunch Maharashtrian Brahmin, was looking for a chance to effectively oppose the three enemies of that time namely, “The emergence of Socialism, the fear of Muslim domination of the country and the revolt of the lower castes and the attendant disruption of the Varnashrama dharma”. The whole propaganda and the thrust of its strategy can be understood as revolving round these possibilities and attempts to evolve alternatives.
Hedgewar’s successor, Golwalkar found an enemy in the Muslims. He wrote, “Islam was the first religion to interfere with our social organization of Chatur varna …Islam in India challenged our scheme of class-caste organization” It is very clear that the enmity to Islam is due to its opposition to the caste structure. The essentials of Hindutva, according to Savarkar is; “a common nation (rashtra), a common race (jati), and a common civilization (culture) ” that is, one nation, one people, and one culture theory of the present-day Sangh Parivar.
Narendra Modi is a keen follower of Savarkar and his divisive policies of subjugating Indian minorities, especially the Muslims. His draconian laws of Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens to give citizenship to people who want to be the citizen of India if and only if they fulfill the minimum criteria to be declared so. Definitely it is meant to marginalize Indian Muslims. Declaring the massacre of Muslims to be justified, boycotting their business and lynching them under the pretext that they were partaking cow meat, are all extremist moves meant to genetically exterminate Muslims in India. Thus, Savarkar did not profess social cohesion but dissension which is being followed in letter and spirit by Modi and his ilk.
On 5 August 2019, Modi took the extreme step of denying the Muslims of Kashmir their rights of autonomy ensured by the Indian Constitution’s Articles 375 and 35A. While Europe may be running discriminating acts against immigrants and asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Iran, whom they had welcomed earlier, India has suddenly become disenchanted with Muslims who had come to India in 711 and later while a majority of them are Hindus who converted to Islam. Thus, disenfranchising its own bona fide citizens is not only criminal but tantamount to bigotry. No wonder New Delhi wants to hide behind the skirts of Europe’s anti-immigrant sentiments.
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
Email: sultanm.hali@gmail.com
