Dec 24, 2024 19:38 IST
First published: Dec 24, 2024 at 19:38 IST
The RSS chief has yet again made a bold and welcome statement to promote unity and harmony in the country. His efforts to achieve the constitutional goal of “fraternity” must be appreciated. Speaking in Pune on December 19 on India as Vishwaguru, Mohan Bhagwat sent a stark message to the Hindutva leadership and its foot soldiers: “We have been living in harmony for a long time. If we want to impart this harmony to the world, we must model it. After the Ram Mandir, the new- They think that it is not acceptable to raise such an issue in a new place and become a Hindu leader.” Although the late Sushma Swaraj admitted in Bhopal on April 14, 2000 that the “temple movement was purely political in nature and had nothing to do with religion”, the RSS chief made it clear that the Ayodhya issue was a matter of faith. Away from any political motivation. Many have indeed made huge political fortunes from temple politics. The RSS chief’s attack against the future breed of such leaders who want to climb the ladder through religious politics is timely and should be taken seriously by all Hindutva political leaders and organisations.
Referring to the recent controversies, Bhagwat expressed his displeasure when he said that “every day a new issue (controversy) is arising. How can this be allowed? It cannot continue.” If the local civil courts had given more weight to the judgment of the five-judge bench in the Babri Masjid case (2019), the oral observations made by Justice DY Chandrachud had made it clear that such observations had no legal sanctity, his words would have had a calming effect. .
Unfortunately, most Hindu liberals and some Muslims do not give enough weight to such positive statements. They do not understand that it is not easy to come out so strongly against the repeated claims of the Hindutva brigade on mosques and dargahs. Popular digital platform Jaipur Dialogues reacted angrily, “RSS chief is not the mouthpiece of Hindus and we will take back every inch of our land.” The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, an organization of Hindu saints, also criticized Bhagwat and asked him to leave such matters to Hindus. In 2021, former CBI chief M Nageswara Rao called the RSS a “pseudo-Hindutva fraud” and urged Hindus to work towards “RSS-Mukt Bharat” (RSS-Mukt Bharat). Bhagwat was also criticized for saying that Hindus and Muslims share the same DNA.
On October 12, in his annual Dussehra address, the RSS chief criticized repeated blasphemous statements against the Prophet of Islam, when he asked people not to “resort to violence, to instill fear in a particular section of society or to disrespect someone’s faith, place. Worship, sacred The book or their sages in thought or word. The RSS chief is really walking a tightrope and receiving intabats from both sides. The die-hard Hindutva supporters are fast rejecting him and the Muslims Liberals have not yet developed the confidence to believe in his words, despite the consistency of his statements. At times, he repeats classical Hindutva positions: In a program for the daily Tarun Bharat on August 31, 2023, he said: “India is a Hindu nation and that is a fact. and all Indians are Hindus”; on 10 January 2023 he said that Hindus have been at war for a thousand years and on 7 October this year he asked the Hindu community to unite for their protection.
However, when there is so much hate and poison injected into our society, we should look for the positive and appreciate Bhagwat’s words. This may encourage him to take the next logical steps to create social harmony, peace and unity and especially by using his influence on central and state governments to keep politicians away from boycotts and communal statements and make them more accountable.
On September 17, 2018, Bhagwat shocked everyone when he told a packed Vigyan Bhavan audience that “Hinduism remains incomplete without Muslims and there will be no Hindu nation without Muslims.” On January 1, 2021, at the release of JK Bajaj and MD Srinivas’s book Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background to Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj, the RSS chief argued against Hinduism’s narrow conception of nationalism and patriotism, which gave land and territory an overwhelming importance. In his characteristic style, he said, ‘Love for the country is not only the land, it means the people, rivers, culture, tradition and everything here. On July 4, 2021, while launching Khwaja Iftikhar Ahmad’s Be the Meeting of Minds: A Bridging Initiative and, in a way, acknowledging that many Muslims today are indeed living in fear, he urged Muslims not to “fall into the cycle of fear”. Islam is under threat in India. Condemning the mob lynching in strong terms, he said, “These lynchings are against Hindutva”. Bhagwat also reiterated that talk of Hindu-Muslim unity was misleading, saying, “They are not different, but one.”
In an interview with a Hindi daily, the RSS chief said that the constitution nowhere mentions that only Hindus can live in India or that only Hindus can speak in this country or that Hindus must accept supremacy to live in India. Refusing to buy the argument of Hindu supremacy, the RSS chief said, “We are in a democracy. There cannot be Hindu or Muslim supremacy.” He reiterated this stance in his December 19 speech.
In today’s climate of hate and bigotry, the RSS chief is perhaps the only person who can restore sanity, tolerance and accommodation through his massive influence on the people and the government. India cannot become a developed nation by 2047 if we continue to live in the past and correct historical mistakes. Let us look to the future and let bygones be bygones.
The author is the Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law University, Patna. Views are personal
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