|
Add to Interest Profile
Edit Interest Profile
Email This Message
Search
| http://www.patwantsingh.com/articles12.htm AS THE RSS MANHANDLES PUNJAB The Asian Age, January 1, 2001. Speaking at a Conference of the Association of Teachers-Educators in Moradabad?s Hindu College on December 23, 2000, Maharaj Krishen Kaw had some astonishing things to say to his audience. But before we go into that, who is the man, and does it really matter what he says? It does, because as Secretary to the Government of India?s Human Resource Development Ministry - heaven help our human resources - he is incharge of the country?s Secondary and Higher Education and his views help shape India?s educational policies. These in turn instil in young and impressionable minds ideas for the future. Not knowing more about him, it is difficult to say with certitude whether or not he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. But whatever his early inclinations, he shows a disturbing tendency to place it there now. His speech, which was also published as an article in the ministry?s Journal of Value Education under the exquisitely ironic heading, ?Education in Human Values?, could well be government?s own plan of action for advancing the Sangh Parivar?s Hindutva agenda by inciting and polarising Indians of different faiths still further. If that is the case, even these many absurdities this senior government administrator offered his captive audience need to be viewed in their appropriate context, even though his own sense of the appropriate appears non-existent: ?The greatest damage has been caused by traditional religions, especially by those which have a single holy book from which they derive their authority.? So much for 200 million Indians of Islamic, Christian, Sikh, Judaic and Zoroastrian faiths! There was much more of the same as he warmed to his subject: ?For us to say with a straight face that all the books that were written hundreds of thousands of years ago contain eternal truths should be impossible...We t end to forget that these religions have been founded and these books written by people like us. It is possible that at the time when they appeared on the scene these people were ahead of their times and propagated revolutionary doctrines which tended to restore the dynamic equilibrium in their age and clime.? But that is about all Kaw was prepared to concede. Because those religious teachers, he went on to say ?did not have access to the knowledge that you and I have, they were still living in a world dominated by the Ptolemaic view of the Universe, they had not been exposed to the theory of evolution or the concepts of quantum mechanics or Heisenberg?s principle of uncertainty. They had not witnessed the release of tremendous energy when there is atomic fission or fusion, nor the birth of a test tube baby...? Mind-boggling stuff this, though it is just a fraction of what was on offer. All one can say with an equally ?straight face? is that given his access to all this knowledge Mr. Kaw should really try his hand at a holy book of his own so he doesn?t have to worry about his post-retirement plans. But no doubt these are already assured and his future career prospects under the present dispensation are bright, considering his willingness to take a swipe at all religions other than his own. He is not the only one to show a canny sense of which way the winds are blowing. Ashok Kumar, another Secretary to the Government in the Department of Official Languages, under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, in a call given at a gathering in the UK early this year wanted Indians to address all international conferences in Hindi! That all this is part of a larger game-plan was pointed out by historian Romila Thapar while commenting on the take-over - at the Sangh Parivar?s instance - of prestigious institutions and centres of learning like the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, Indian Council of Historical Research and many others. She sees attempts to control education as a means of making ?sure that by the time primary education really opens up and nearly all of India is going to school, it will not be for a rational, secular education...(but) for a reiteration of a conservative attitude - the ?great inheritance? of India is going to be spiritualism, the Vedas, Manu and the like.? Kaw, Kumar and others of their ilk are in good company which includes secular India?s Prime Minister because even he was not averse to suggesting sometime ago - when attacks on Christians and their places of worship were escalating - that the entire issue of conversions needed to be nationally debated. A curious remark that, coming from a Prime Minister. Isn?t it a fundamental right of an Indian citizen to choose his own faith? Since constitutional niceties count for very little in today?s India the Orissa Government, more eager than most, asked the state?s churches to furnish full particulars of persons who had converted to Christianity in the last five years. Except for Christians, it might be noted, few others protested the constitutional impropriety of this move. Antipathy towards the Muslims in secular India is too well known to require elaboration. The Babri Masjid imbroglio is just one symbol of the many undercurrents of animosity; of that unholy mix of widely shared anti-Islamic attitudes and an electoral opportunism which aims at mobilizing those attitudes for wresting political power. If attaining this goal necessitates knocking other faiths and inciting Hindu militancy, so be it; the Sangh Parivar and like-minded government functionaries are perfectly willing to take that route to a saffronized India. But with two hundred million Muslims, Sikhs and Christians and an equal number of Dalits, not to mention millions of genuinely liberal Hindus opposed to turning secular India into a subcontinent of warring faiths, all that the Hindutva fanatics will end up doing is destabilise the nation by inflaming passions across the board, all over India. This is a minefield no sensible leadership or group would want to venture into. Christians and Muslims are not the only ones targetted. Since Sikhs are also being provoked beyond advised limits the biggest danger will be posed by Punjab. This border state, which stands sentinel on India?s northern reaches and lies astraddle the route to Kashmir and Ladakh, is once again edging towards violence due to the mindless folly of Hindutva bigots whose goading of the Sikhs could lead to a bloody backlash, threatening the entire country once more with disintegration and worse. Take for instance this statement made in Chandigarh just a couple of weeks ago by the organizing secretary of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat (RSS) - a fraudulent offshoot of the parent RSS - who had the impertinence to suggest that: ?The Sikh clergy, including the Akal Takht Jathedar and other high priests will do incalculable harm to the Sikh community if they link or define a Sikh just by external symbols like kesh [long hair] and turban. After all the Gurus came from the Bedi and Sodhi clans and were descendants of Luv and Kus h, hence all of them and their disciples are Raghuvanshis.? Not content with this provocation he then went on to suggest that it was a negation of Sikh principles to disallow Hindus from becoming members of organisations which manage Sikh shrines like for instance, the SGPC. There was much more of such drivel and as was to be expected the Akal Takht and prominent Sikh institutions reacted angrily to the man?s insolence. The Akal Takht?s Jathedar, Joginder Singh Vedanti contemptuously brushed the demand aside. But Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon, head of the Institute of Sikh Studies, coming straight to the heart of the matter observed that: ?The RSS wants to develop ties with premier Sikh institutions to subvert Sikh culture and identity?, from within. Baba Sarbjot Singh Bedi, chief of the Sant Samaj said that the saffron Sangh?s real aim was to amalgamate and absorb the Sikhs? distinct identity into a Hindutva brand of Sikhism, thereby reducing them to Keshdhari Hindus. Placing the blame squarely on the ruling Akali Dal for this turn of affairs, he said: ?Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is more interested in his gaddi even at the cost of erosion of Sikh tenets, and lack of any action on his part has emboldened elements like the RSS to raise such demands. But Badal is helpless because he is in their hands and has left himself open to blackmail.? Bedi warned that ?till now there was no organized movement to counter the propaganda of the RSS, but demands like these would result in such a movement shaping up?. That such a movement is already shaping was made clear by three Sikh organizations of the state: the Dal Khalsa, Akali Dal (Amritsar), and Human Rights and Democracy Forum who have quite bluntly vowed to throw the RSS out. If all of them blame Parkash Singh Badal for his indulgent inaction where RSS inroads into Punjab are concerned, they are not far wrong because a few months ago Madan Mohan Mittal, a BJP man and currently Minister of Food and Supplies in Badal?s coalition government made the statement that ?no Sikh was a true Sikh if he did not follow the Gita?, adding for good measure that Sikhs were very much a part of the Hindu mainstream and both were two sides of the same coin. On the surface this may seem reasonable, but most Sikhs will see it as a deliberate slight to their separate and distinct identity of which they are immensely proud. It is disingenuous of the RSS to offer tongue-in-cheek explanations for every devious move made to further its inroads into Punjab, like forming the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat with the same acronym as the main RSS. But the game is now in the open and its fall-out will be lethal if such reckless moves in a volatile state, where past follies took a staggering toll of human lives, continue to be made. The nation as a whole will pay the price if Punjab, which is India?s granary, provides some of the finest fighting men to the country?s armed forces, and borders a nation with whom India has already fought three wars, is destablised by the politics of religion. Ironically, when the state was last engulfed in violence ultra religious elements of the Sikh faith were accused of it, this time it is the Hindutva fanatics who are nudging Punjab - and the country - towards the precipice. Aren?t these developments reason enough to warrant a maturer, more sensitive and statesmanlike approach to the susceptibilities of the state and the Sikhs? ?By a malevolent fate Sikhs face multiple moral challenges in their own homeland,? observed The Sikh Review in its December editorial. ?A doddering and befuddled Akali Government not only remains indifferent to the basic Sikh ethics within its ranks and service formations, it has signally failed to grant amnesty to hundreds of TADA prisoners under the false pretext that terrorism will raise its ugly head again.? There are no two ways about it; militancy will definitely raise its head again if the RSS persists in its ill-advised meddling in Sikh affairs. And if its offshoots and their activities are not called off, including the holding of shakhas in Punjab?s villages. If and when militancy returns there - hopefully, never - even the government?s hired killers in uniform, like those it fielded last time, will not be able to stop the horrendous amount of blood which will flow because tampering with the Sikhs? cherished tenets and beliefs will be unacceptable to a majority of them. No matter what views the Kaws of this country hold about religions of the book, people who live by the word of their holy book - including the Sikhs - are known to die for their beliefs. So it would be prudent to let them practice their faiths in peace, and to concentrate instead on the other pressing concerns which face the nation. |
| RSS agenda... (Grubinder Singh - 19.Feb.01) | |
| . . RSS forays into Punjab... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 2.Mar.01) | |
| . . . . Poster war by Dal Khalsa... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 9.Mar.01) | |
| . . Re: RSS agenda... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 28.Mar.01) | |
| . . RSS captures Sikh Stage... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 3.Apr.01) | |
| . . . . In Parivar's (RSS) world ... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 9.Apr.01) | |
| . . . . Targetting minorities - S... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 21.May.01) | |
 | . . . . . . As the RSS manhendles Pun... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 22.May.01) |
| . . . . . . . . Hindu Sikh Conflict in Pu... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 22.May.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . Re: Hindu Sikh Conflict i... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 23.May.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Cows milk is amrit?... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 24.May.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RSS have we forgotten?... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 12.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bajrang Dal training its ... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 14.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bajrang Dal training ... (Arp Singh - 14.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bajrang Dal training ... (Sanj Singh - 14.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bajrang Dal training ... (Arp Singh - 15.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bajrang Dal training ... (Sanj Singh - 15.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bajrang Dal training ... (Arp Singh - 16.Jun.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . Re: Hindu Sikh Conflict i... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 11.Sep.01) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . "Militancy in Punjab attr... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 12.Mar.02) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . Who is a Punjabi?... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 18.Sep.04) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Who is a Punjabi?... (Waheguru P Sandhu - 18.Sep.04) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Who is a Punjabi?... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 21.Sep.04) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . Arya Samaj to remove offe... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 22.Jun.06) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Arya Samaj to remove ... (Scholar Singh - 23.Jun.06) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Arya Samaj to remove ... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 23.Jun.06) | |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Swami Agnivesh Goes Back ... (Balvinder Singh S Bal - 16.Mar.07) |
