Holding one's view in democracy

< When India won freedom from Britain there was concern and misgivings. It was on account of the paramilitary organization called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It was not just the nonparticipation of its cadres in the freedom struggle. But the kind of atmosphere RSS had prepared in the countryside and towns and continues it defiantly by all kinds of prevarication and sophistry. It is this that is now posing a mortal threat to Indian democracy. What has crystallized now over again is the milieu that is the widening gyre of turf war that is definitely assuming a civil war scenario on the western coasts of India. The consolidating the north eastern states are another phenomenon of the same. That Kashmir and Punjab fronts boil up occasionally is continuing of the same juggernaut. What chances of democracy in India when the kind of incidents that happen every now and then which go against the spirit and the idea of India! The assassination of ATS chief Hemant Karkare and the bail given to Lt Co Prasad Purohit, the evading of court appearances by Amit Shah in the Naroda Patiya genocide involving Dr Maya Kodnani, the midnight murder of Gauri Lankesh, etc. The prevarication and justification taking law in the hand and killing people for a cause of nationalism that excludes minorities of all hues and colours! But the murder of Gauri over rides religious and linguistic and provincial groupings. The lady in charge of the RSS conglomerates in Kerala generalizes and justifies continuing turf war in Kerala and now spreading to other coastal states: “Such a murder was necessary for the Congress in Karnataka, which is in a weak position. So, I want to tell the secular writers that if they want a long life, they should go and conduct mrityunjaya homam [obituary] as none can predict what will happen. Otherwise, you would also become victims like Gauri.’’ Sasikala dilates: “What all things have been artificially created to oppose Hindutva. The Sangh Parivar should be opposed. Finally, another one has fallen. What is her name, Gauri. Gauri Lankesh….. Now they all say she was killed by the RSS. The accused hasn’t be [sic] so far nabbed. The Congress (government in Karnataka) has to nab the culprit. The reason stated is that she used to oppose the RSS.” “… Only those writers to oppose the RSS would be recognized as writers. Can you give names of writers who do not oppose the RSS? Is there anyone who does not write against the RSS? Only those who write against the RSS would get money, awards and recognition. Ninety out of hundred writers are like that.” [1]Through such sophistry has RSS turned the table on those who oppose it! If Indian democracy is doomed to die since its birth at the time of Independence and even before it is this hideous ideology of hatred. Thomas Jefferson wrote the constitution of the US with the classic opening phrase “We the people” India also kept the precedent with “We the People”. Golwalkar regarded as the philosopher and learned chief of RSS took up “We” as the title of his book and added a parenthesis: or the Nation defined. The people who would constitute India would be only those who accept India as their mother and the land as their mother-land-and-father-land. The chief minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, called the shooting and killing of Gauri Lankesh (55) on September 5, 2017 in Bangalore as an "assassination on democracy". Her father was P Lankesh a left wing writer and her sister and famous film maker Kavitha Lankesh are liberals. Many writers and artists had returned their awards when Akhlak was killed in Dadri near Delhi. Thereafter there was a pattern of killing of Muslims who bore no grudge against Hindus but were murdered on the false pretext of eating beef even when they hadn’t done so, in fact. But the murder of Gauri is another pattern in the mosaic of Hindutva terror. This group is of writers and editors who are fearless but rational in their criticism of bigotry, and ruthless onslaught on free speech. As the noted Kannad writer K Marulasiddappa told the BBC: "The attack on the select writers is obviously happening because they are able to mould public opinion... there is a pattern in the way assailants come on motorbikes, kill, and vanish. "There cannot be any personal reasons attributed to her death because she had no personal enemies. So, the possibility is only political.'' [2]RSS prates every now and then that it is not a political organization but a cultural one. However every time the name of RSS figures in bomb blasts or cow vigilantism or rationalism versus blind superstition and adherence to it the organization reveals its hidden agenda. It is to establish a political dispensation through the establishment of a Hindu nation. Indresh Kumar had added his weight in favour of the Maoists in Nepal at the cost of the monarchy. Purohit, yogi Adithnath, DR RP Sigh, Bharatbhai Riteshwar were in favour of the Hindu royal family. This was one of the reasons why Purohit wanted to kill Kumar. Gauri Lankesh was in the eye of the right wing leaders including Indresh Kumar and Sanathan Sansthan for her outspoken belief in democracy: "My Constitution teaches me to be a secular citizen, not communal. It is my right to fight against these communal elements." “I believe in democracy and freedom of expression, and hence, am open to criticism too. People are welcome to call me anti-BJP or anti-Modi, if they want to. They are free to have their own opinion, just as I am free to have my opinion." [2] That freedom of having one’s own opinion was the focus of what Prof Bhalchander Nemade spoke about and demonstrated in Malegaon on March 10 2018 when he addressed a gathering in Sane Gruji Revabagh Camp and Kakani Library. He had a ring side view of events that were shaping in his birth place Sangli under social reformer Shahu Maharaj and later in the campus of Marathwada University at Aurangabad. He also created and availed from the background as he stayed in the staff quarters where my classmate and wife of Prof Pandrinath Vishnu Ranade of history also lived. Her house was ransacked because her husband had written something very frank about Shivaji, the Maratha king. For some days he was out of the university and worked at the Red Square in Moscow. PM Mrs Indira Gandhi restored Ranade to his post at Marathwada Univeristy when President Khrushchev spoke to her on his behalf. He was a communist minded person but a nice researcher and scholar. Another well known scholar was Nirupama Rao [nee Menon] who strictly kept to her pursuit and did MA in English IAS and IFS at the Aurangabad university campus later she became our foreign secretary, etc. It was possible to have lived so freely then. But now the country has been transformed. That was why Prof Nemade felt the need to speak at Malegaon what he said so lucidly. The Padmshri awardee stated that the spread of Christianity around the world halted due to the struggle Muslims made against the Christians. In India it were the Muslims who had raised their voice against the oppression and suppression practiced by the Christians. As a consequence of it the Hindu religion survived. In fact the Christians wanted to turn the whole of the country into another solely Christian kingdom. The English started communal divide in India. There was no dispute between the Muslims and Hindus till the English arrived. There was no dispute between the Muslims and Hindus and hence no tension between them. As an example of it was the appointment of Muslims in important posts in the courts of Hindu rulers. Nemade cited documents to show that the Popes wanted Indians converted to Christianity. In the 1857 struggle to recapture power from the British there was resultant violence in which Muslims saved Hindus and gave them refuge. Bhuddists even migrated to save themselves in Iraq and Iran in the aftermath of the violence. This happened during the British rule in India. All this was in direct contrast with the situation prevailing in the country today. [3] ------- [1]http://indianexpress.com/article/india/pray-to-stay-alive-hindu-outfit-leader-tells-secular-writers-in-kerala-4837691/ [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41169817 [3] Discipline March 12 2018.