Pramod Muthalik: Stalwart of sangh parivar coming home to roost!

The crisis created by Lt Col Srikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat and Pramod Muthalike of Sri Ram Sena is complementary to each other. They have been nurtured on an extreme ideology. The ‘culture’ that Hindutva laboratories have developed in the name of Hindu ‘culture’ has at long last begun to assert its Frankenstein existence of its own. The monster is no more in the control of the scientists. Both the organizations are equally dangerous to the unity and the integrity of the country. Purohit and his Abhinav Bharat have been in the news for quite sometimes but not so much Muthalik and his SRS.
Muthalik is called the Togadia of Karnataka or the south. In appearance he could still beguile a naïve person like Francois Gautier as herbivorous and toothless and even gum less oldie. But a man is known by his deeds and association. As the chip of the old block he owes his existence and essence to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In the aftermath of the Gujarat pogroms against Muslims Parveen Togadia regaling in the lusty cheering of his audience had told the people that they have to leave the path of Mahatma Gandhi for good. He was not only justifying what had happened but also the course of action that VD Savarkar, Moonje and RSS had defined—the organized secretive and physical aggression on the enemy (primarily the Muslims). They did not confront the British or the Portuguese while India was struggling for its freedom. Christians did not become target until the later part of the first decade of the twenty first century. Togadia and Muthalik have originated from the sangh but with a difference. They have a penchant for rabid tirade against the Muslims in a very open offensive manner unlike the sophistry of the sangh echelon. This is true to only an extent because the sarsangh chalak at the time of the demolition of Babri mosque and the anti Muslims riots subsequent to it had justified all this saying that the Muslims had it coming to them! Muthalik has been doing almost like the sangh and Togadia in a copycat manner.
The vandalizing of the pub and the molestation of the girls in Mangalore by the SRS thugs of Muthalik on January 25 2009 has all the hallmarks of the sangh. The Hindus have not been prudish. Muthalik and his cohorts have vividly demonstrated how Hindutva is grafting an alien mores on the indigenous vibrant culture that is famed for care free celebration of sexuality as captured in the sculptures and paintings of Khajuraho, Ajanta, Ellora, and in kamashutra, and in words and deeds recorded in history, arts and literature. Hence the attack on FM Hussein’s paintings including the much vaunted naked Darupadi on August 2008.
The other grafting that is worth note is violence or martial spirit. Hindus have been having a peaceful coexistence with people of different races and religions for ages together. This did not go well with some who were uncomfortable with this setup as they could not have their own axes to grind and so they invented ways and means of doing it. In the present case of attack on the pub SRS targeted the pub because the owner was a new comer to the place and had not coughed up the extortion money they had deemed their birth right. This is much like the sons of the soil extortion of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra which so scared textile industry that they migrated to safer havens. Therefore enforcing a different dress code and using muscle power are foisted upon the Hindus who do not have it atavistically in their blood or tradition. In Sahni’s novel Tamash the Hindu youths are inducted into culture of violence by their training in killing pigs to begin with. Examples of these are: attacks on Churches in Karnatak September 2008, on fashion shows in Moti Mahal Manglor Decemer 20, 2008 and usual run of the mill, manhandling those indulging in Valentine Day celebration. The youths carried out these attacks at the behest of Muthalik.
If it were only these it would not have been that disturbing because the people of India are inured to such nuisance. And there are enough people who have all their worth only in their nuisance value.
But then Sri Ram Sena was godfathered by Muthalik as a bunch of suicide squads ready to carry out deadly attacks. That attracted the attention of Purohit but not the government of India or the state government. This abdication of the state threatens to play greater havoc than the society has seen so far.
People are so taken in by the sophistry of the sangh parivar prattle that they find it difficult to believe the truth, even those who are within the ambit of the right wing groups. To disabuse the gullible like Francois Gautier it is instructive to illustrate from a tale from Nathaniel Hawthorn called Rappachini’s daughter. Dr Rappachini was a botanist and spent his life in his laboratory to develop a ‘culture’ that is highly poisonous. He even experimented on his daughter. She developed the poison in her breath as a result of the experiment. A prospective would be lover came to court her for marriage. As they were sitting for tea a fly flew before them. The daughter exhaled breath and the stream of breath coming out of her mouth killed the fly instantly, the lover was so scared that he ran out of the house! Gautier found it hard to believe that the RSS senior leaders he met were so old and polite and sweet ‘reasoning’ that he could not believe that they would harm even a fly. But the kind of physical culture they develop in youths is not an exercise in inanity. Moreover, you do not need a baton or a gun or a sword to kill a fly.
For SRS the ultimate objective is to strengthen BJP. If that political outfit gets a thumping majority they could ultimately do what many extremists on the right have in their mind, establishing a Hindu rashtra in essence where the minorities would know their place. After the Mangalore attack Muthalik justified by saying: "Whoever has done this has done a goodjob. Girls going to pubs are not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the state.” He even warned the party that the people would teach them a lesson "if they continue to ignore Hinduism and suppress the youth fighting to retain Hindu culture." What else could you expect him to say, a man who had spent 30 years in RSS, VHP and then was “loaned” to Bajrang Dal! Four years ago he started SRS and was affiliated with Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti factions. All these shifts are proven sangh practice of deflection and tactical manoeuvring to escape from the laws of the land. Or distancing RSS from any activity which has become a public outcry by ascribing it to individuals in one of its many conglomerates and carrying on the work of RSS as usual as if nothing has happened!
Where Muthalik and his accomplices cannot escape the laws the right wing government is always at hand to bail them out. The new BJP government in Bangalor withdrew more than fifty cases in which Muthalik was involved. Most of the cases were about his inciting communal hatred against the Muslim minority in the state especially in Haveri, Shimoga, Belgaum, Gadag, Bijapur, Mandya, Bagalkot, Kodagu, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts. Among the cases is one over the dispute of Baba Budangiri grave where the.SRS wanted to occupy the Muslim shrine and turn it into a Hindu temple. They say it is the Ayodhya of Karnataka. As the BJP came to power at the centre after the demolition of the Babri so it would in Karnataka. Because of his strong posturing on the issue, the party wanted to distance itself from Muthalik. But when the party came to power it withdrew the case of the Chikmaglur shrine. This shows beyond doubt that Muthalik and the BJP have close relationship and the deflecting strategy finally helps them get beyond the reach of the laws.
Muthalik’s influence is very much wide spread in the coastal regions as well as in the border regions like Belgaum. He even joined Shiv Sena but was afraid that the Kanada speaking people in the region and the state would not like him so he left it. Regionalism is a catalyst agent against communalism at times and they know it and circumvent it deftly. During the protest over the Cavery river water dispute Muthalik was involved in the attack on the house of Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s daughter’in Bangalore.
As Babu Bajragi abducted Hindu women who had married Christians or Muslims and brought them back to their parents’ houses and imprisoned them to get them back to the fold, the SRS also followed suit. For example they attacked a bus in which school children were touring Mysore on December 28 2008. The boys and girls belonged to different faiths. There is a deep rooted conspiracy of the sangh parivar to segregate people on religious lines and maintain the standoff because that helps them in their works or what else is their raison d’ etre?
Regarding Purohit praising Muthalik it is under investigation but what is undisputable is SRS cadres present in full strength outside the court when sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit were brought to the Nasik court. They carried saffron flags and shouted slogans against the ATS officials.

There is an eerie connection between terrorism and mixed marriages. Gujarat 2002 carnage followed close on the heels of Bajrangi’s kidnappings of women who had married outside the Hindu fold. The Malegaon bomb blast of September 29 2008 was the pretext on which the Hindu Surakhsa Samiti of Dhulia started riots in the first week of October 2008 in and around Dhulia against Muslims as a Muslim youth had married a Hindu girl in Nardana where they had burnt many houses including that of the relatives of the boy. Muthalik has blamed that the girls in the Amnesia pub were with boys from other faiths. He is also suspect in the bomb blast in the court of Hubli where SIMI activists like Safdar Nagori and others were to appear. Thus keeping the public attention spellbound to conversions, mixed marriages and the so called “Islamic terrorism” a much more heinous thing was underway. It was subverting the very democracy and constitution of the country.