Narendra Modi was a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
pracharak or leader and automatically an ideologue and a demagogue. He still
is. Therefore most of his pronouncements have provenance in the hate ideology
of the organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and consequently Hindu
mythology and legends.
Speaking from the Raigarh fort on 5 January 2014 he said
that the sack of Surat on 6th January 350 years ago “was not loot.”
Shaistekhan had hidden treasure there at the behest of Aurangzeb. Shivaji wanted
that wealth to help him establish his own Hindu kingdom. Therefore Modi’s
penchant for hidden health is to enrich the Hindu rashtra or nation he like his
fellow extremists on the right want to establish. He calls it Hindavi raj as
the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna of 6th
January puts it.1 The sack wouldn’t have
been possible without the secret support of the natives of Gujarat. This surely
is insidious way of suggesting that the Hindus were not all loyal to the
emperor but had atavistically cleaved to their religion and hence they were
ready to help the pillage. That was for a good cause. He dilated on his fellow
Gujaratis of yore: “They informed him about the treasure, helped him and
offered food. With the support of locals, Shivaji attacked the treasure of
Aurangzeb.” Thus Modi has clearly attempted to view history in the light of the
saffron ideology to create suspicion and hate against the Muslims by using and
distorting history to suit his election campaign. He remarked that ascribing the Maratha warrior plundering
of Surat would be an insult of Shivaji maharaj! Modi even went further and said
that Shivaji in fact wanted to teach a lesson to Aurangzeb. Suratey wer keyleyli chal hi Aurangzeb la
dhada shikvineyasathich hoti. The standard politics of bringing hidden gold
and Indian money stashed away in Swiss banks is often the boast of BJP pastime.
They want to get it back to develop India. May be this would enhance Modi’s
development model that his Gujarat is. Thus he continued and remarked that
Aurangzeb had looted the wealth of Surat with the help of Shaishtekhan and had
it hidden there. This hidden treasure the Maratha warrior wanted to bring back
to India and help in the welfare of the poor people. Hatch
khajina maharajani parat aanoon hindusthanatil gorgarib jante cha kalyansaathi
upyoguat aandla. The Marathi version would imply that whatever development
took place in India was on account of what Shivaji plundered and invested in
the people. This is how development took place at that time. 1
Another aspect of Modi’s Hindutva is that all the
legends have a real base in life. Once he prayed for rain on the Sabarmati River
and lo there was rain. He then challenged the Muslims to bring rain in their
Ramzan, holy month of fasting. Even the two sisters Tana and Riti could pray
through their Malhar song so melodiously that rain would come and drench the
sunstroke affected Tan Sen. He would be
refreshed and rejuvenated. But there is also politics here. The sisters had helped
Tan Sen to perform raag Deepak so well that it pleased Akbar and the emperor
ordered that the sisters should be brought to Delhi. It was against the village
culture and the sisters refused to go. Akbar sent his soldiers to capture them
and bring them to his court. The sisters preferred death rather than break the
tradition, they committed suicide. The two sisters were Modi’s fellow villages
of immemorial days of the past. Modi instituted celebration of the two sisters
by instituting an award and every sixth day of Diwali there is a musical
concert in their memory. Lata Mangeshkar was the first to have bagged the
award. The ceremony was held in Modi’s
village Vadnagar.3 Whether it is music or
hidden treasure there is a superimposed Hindutva tag.
Without it he has no chance of winning election. For
this reason Shrimant Kokare of Maratha Seva Sangh in Maharashtra put his finger
at his attempt of communalizing politics a la Savarkar: “It is an attempt to
create fissures between Hindus and Muslims, Shivaji fought political battles,
not religious, but Mr Modi was trying to make it appear like a religious
battle. There were 35 per cent Muslims in Shivaji’s army, 12 of his bodyguards
were Muslims, his navy chief was Daulat Khan. Yet Mr Modi never spoke on these
aspects of Shivaji Maharaj.” 2
Modi like other RSS die hard extremists has learnt more
from the Anand Math of Bankam Chand
Chatterjee than other books.
There is a tremendous amount of ready material of
improbable cruelty ascribed to Mughals.
A reporter with Newsweek-Washington post had
interviewed this writer. The occasion was of a large number of books donated by
the US embassy to him. The books were put in the library of the college where
he worked. He told the interviewer that had the books been donated to a madrasa
the Muslims who supposed to have turned against the US in 9/11 attacks would
have realized the importance great learning facilities in the US of which the
books were only a part. He casually mentioned American Literature which could
inspire secularism. This produced a cascade of letters and comments in the
paper of which one was about barbarity of Emperor Babur: “The kings are tigers,
and their officials are dogs; they go out and awaken the sleeping people to
harass them. The public servants inflict wounds with their nails. The dogs lick
up the blood that is spilled. Source:Rag Malar, (pg.1288).” 4In
all this the strains of secularism in Akbar, Babur, Shivaji is made to eclipse
for a right wing ideology.
That ideology has its spring source in the novel Anand Math where fighting the Muslim and
killing them is justified but the foreigners like the English are supposed to
be superior and hence protected. A summary of the early part in details shows
it as it includes the plundering of the revenue by the extremists among the
Hindus because it was collected by a Muslim subaltern although the overall
authority of the revenue collection was in the hands of the English. The
English are not only not blamed but held in awe and veneration.
Anandmath begins in the year 1770 when there was famine in
Bengal. The hungry were driven to cannibalism. There lived in the village of
Padchinha a man called Mahender Singh with his wife Kaleyani and an infant
daughter. What little was left during the famine was taken away by the revenue
officers of the government. One such officer Mohammad Raza Khan had announced
that the revenue collected from the crops would be raised to ten percent. It
came as a death warrant. Into that tragic gloom came the epidemic of small pox.
In every neighbourhood scores of people died everyday so much so that the dead
and the living ‘lived’ together. People did not have time and strength left to
bury their dead. The starving began to eat the dead putrid flesh of dogs,
hyenas and humans.
They
walked a long distance and were tired. Mahendra went to fetch water and food
leaving his family in a dharmshala. After sometimes thugs came to the place and
robbed them of their ornaments. But they were so hungry that they did not find
any immediate use for the gold and silver. They quarreled with their chief and
killed him. They made fire to roast and eat his dead body. Then someone thought
that Kaleyani’s daughter’s meat would be soft and fresh and easy to eat as they
were disgusted with the stiff meat of the dead. When they turned to the two
they found the place empty and so they went after them. The woman could not
escape their chase but she stopped and hid and was saved by a brahamchari.
Mahendra
Singh and his wife decided to leave their ancestral house and property and move
to a city. He brought his rifle for protection, she brought poison. They came a
long way when they were very tired and hungry. He told them to wait in the
dhrmshada until he brought them some milk. Starving farmers took Kaleyani and
her daughter. She was hiding in a green spot covered by bushes. When she woke
up she was in a temple where a bharamchari brought some milk for them. She gave
the milk to her daughter but did not take any herself. When the priest insisted
she washed his feet and drank that water.
The
priest went out in search of Mahender Singh.
Mahender
Singh saw how an English officer was carrying revenue to Calcutta under guards.
One of the guards saw Mahender with a gun and called others to catch the thug.
The officer asked them to tie him to the cart. The English were revenue
collectors of Nawab Mir Jaffer whom the narrator calls sinner, murderer,
treacherous. The narrator says that Nawab Jaffer was drunk on opium and
neglected Bengal crying in pain and suffering. The revenue was collected and
distributed among the people and the extremists.
Some aspects of the novel reveal the ideology of the
Hindutva. One of the leaders of the group in the novel is Satyanand. He has
taken the vow [mahavarta] that they would be devoted to Bharat as their real mother;
their biological mother is only physical conduit. Satyanand also asserts that
he and others like him think of the land called Bharat as their real mother.
Satyanand tells Shanti that he believes that he thinks motherland as the only
mother. Mi fakt deshalach maan manto.
They would also remain celibate in the service of mother India who is a goddess
in incarnation. Another thing is that there is need for men and weapons. If
they are in short supply they could not defeat Muslims.
During the pogroms of 2002 RSS volunteers along with
Bajrang Dal activists were made available well in advance, that too in their
familiar uniform. Arms and ammunition were well stocked and were transported
even during the curfew hours. They were imported from UP, Punjab, Bihar and
other states.
-------
1.Saamna. 6 January 2014.
2 Asian Age, 6 January 2014.
3. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Narendra Modi :The Man. The Times Tranquebar, 2013 p 21.
4. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/america/2007/07/mark_twain_turned_madrassa_stu.html
5. Quotes are from Marathi edition of Anandmath.
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