New Delhi: Essaying an all-out defence of the caste system, Panchjanya — the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)’s Hindi mouthpiece — has said that caste is and has been the “unifying link” among communities in India. In an editorial published earlier this week, the magazine’s editor, Hitesh Shankar, wrote that the caste system has always stood like a fortress protecting Indian society against repeated attacks by invaders and missionaries.
“Certainly, the larger aspect of a Hindu’s life, which include his dignity, morality, responsibility and sense of brotherhood with the community, revolves around caste, which is contrary to the individualistic beliefs of Christianity. They knew that if India and its self-respect were to be broken, then [they should] first break the unity of caste by calling it bondage and shackles,” he wrote.
“So, the caste system of Hindu society had always been the target of the invaders. The Mughals targeted it with the force of the sword and the missionaries targeted it in the guise of ‘service and reform’. The missionaries understood this equation that keeps India united more closely than the Mughals did,” he further wrote.
Quoting former Bombay Bishop Louis George Mylne’s 1908 book Mission to the Hindus: A Contribution to the Study of Missionary Methods, Shankar wrote that caste in itself is essentially a social system, yet it serves every practical purpose of the religion of millions of people, and stands as the connecting link between individual characters.
Saying that capitalists believed the Indian caste system to be a hurdle after the industrial revolution, Shankar wrote that the British cut off the fingers of thousands of weavers of Dhaka who could weave fine muslin. He wrote that because of this skill, which was passed down the caste ladder generation after generation, the cloth woven at the giant mill of Manchester looked inferior and coarse compared to that woven in Dhaka, and hence, the British ordered that their fingers be cut off.
Shankar argued that Rahul Gandhi’s attacks on the caste system are similar to those of the colonisers. This is because, he wrote, Rahul, similar to the colonisers, sees “Hindu unity” as a political hurdle.
This, Shankar said, is the reason the Congress wants the caste census — to divide and rule over Hindus.
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Rahul Gandhi’s remark on ‘Halwa ceremony’ is ‘politics of enemies’
In an article in The Indian Express on 3 August, Ram Madhav — a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary and president of India Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank — wrote about what he calls the “caste politics” of Rahul Gandhi.
“His (Rahul’s) father Rajiv Gandhi had said in a debate on the Mandal Commission in September 1989 accusing the National Front government led by V.P. Singh of causing caste tensions in the country, Rajiv sought to remind that his party, under the leadership of his mother, fought the elections in 1980 on the slogan — ‘na jaat par, na paat par’ (neither on caste nor on creed),” Madhav wrote.
On Rahul’s ‘Halwa ceremony’ statement in Parliament, Madhav — borrowing a term from former Canadian Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff — wrote that it was the “politics of enemies”. “Once that form of politics begins, then the language, behaviour and tactics of partisan demonisation will begin to dominate the political landscape. Such ‘politics of enemies’ doesn’t stop at the gates of political institutions but can spread through conventional and social media and influence citizens at large,” Madhav wrote.
He added that statements like ‘Desh ka halwa bat raha hai aur 73 per cent log hai hi nahi’ may seem light or less important in the beginning, but leaders know that it will have a big impact later.
“Leaders practising such politics know that people might initially be sceptical about the language and ideas that they are championing but sheer repetition of such rhetoric will help them dominate the discourse and turn gullible people gradually to their side. All that is needed is a veneer of benignity and sincerity,” Madhav further wrote.
Quoting Ignatieff, Madhav said that “what makes the ‘politics of enemies’ seductive is that its ruthlessness is so often packaged as a defence of democracy itself”.
Organised conversion from Hinduism to Islam
Apart from the editorial defending India’s caste system, this week’s Panchjanya wrote about the issue of the alleged conversion of young Hindu men and women to Islam by Rakshanda Khan, director of beauty and makeup institute Lakme Fashion Academy in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.
In the article, Anurodh Bhardwaj wrote that the conversion is facilitated by those who were earlier non-Muslims and have now converted to Islam.
Bhardwaj wrote that a decade-and-a-half ago, Khan (formerly named Sapna Singh) was Hindu, and did not allow married Hindu girls to wear bindi, sindoor and kalava in her institute.
“The limit was crossed when Rakshanda Khan included Hindu girls in a group of Muslim boys and started pressuring them to befriend those Muslim boys. On protesting, the Hindu students were harassed in various ways. She never used to talk about triple talaq and [nikah] halala, but she used to count the imaginary benefits of offering namaz and accepting Islam,” Bhardwaj wrote.
Talking about an alleged international gang facilitating conversion busted last year in Ghaziabad by police, Bhardwaj said, “Instead of his own people, the gang leader used to give the task of conversion to those who were themselves converted. In this case, the police arrested three people who had converted to Islam. Their targets were educated Hindu boys and girls, who were converted and made suicide bombers.”
He added, “Rahil, who trapped the Ghaziabad girl in love jihad and brainwashed her and made her a human bomb, was earlier a Hindu and his name was Rahul Agarwal.”
‘Urban Naxals’ term Muslims ‘victims’, Hindus ‘fascists’
In this week’s Organiser magazine — the RSS’s English mouthpiece — author and researcher Binay Kumar Singh and columnist Divyansh Kala wrote that “urban Naxals” seek to unleash their dangerous agenda of portraying Muslims as “victims” and Hindus as “fascists”.
Referring to a Bill proposed by the Maharashtra government, the article said, “The CPI (Maoist) is the largest Left-wing extremist organisation operating in India. It is responsible for almost 80 per cent of the total Naxal violence reported during the current year.”
It added that the “mention of Dalits, Sikhs and Christians is also made strategically and all the three had been put against the whole of the Hindu community”.
Further mentioning that urban Naxals collaborate with Islamists and missionaries, the article said, “In the near future, the country will witness many more protests on different issues in the same pattern. The civil societies will become a new active platform for implementation of their agendas as well as propagation of ideologies.”
Indigenous Peoples’ Day a propaganda
In this week’s editorial in Organiser, Prafulla Ketkar wrote about the celebration of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples by the West, which is popularly known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day or, in political parlance, Moolniwasi Diwas. Observed annually on 9 August, it is recognised by the United Nations as a day celebrating diversity and contributions of the indigenous communities.
Ketkar said that the day is a means to impose the collective guilt of colonialists on countries like Bharat, which has been “living with different tribes with diverse traditions and religious practices for ages”.
“Exposing” the agenda behind celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Ketkar wrote, “The claim of Christopher Columbus discovering America itself is a nefarious and supremacist narrative of the colonisers. The myth involving Columbus reached the American shore in October 1492, bringing ‘progress and enlightenment’ sourced to a book published in 1828 by Washington Irving, titled A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.”
“In reality, Columbus and the representatives of the Catholic Church gave a devastating and existential blow to the indigenous communities who were following diverse faiths and traditions — land stolen, people slaughtered and enslaved, their resources looted, women raped, children kidnapped, treaties broken, and possessions and goods plundered over the centuries,” he further wrote.
“Why is the Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrated only in the countries that were colonised at some point in time? Who were the people who used inhuman methods to convert communities? What were the reasons that this legal categorisation of civilised and tribals created? Why do the same groups continue to use proselytisation as a tool by branding all other Bharatiya people as outsiders?,” Ketkar wrote.
Calling the Scheduled Tribes an “integral part of Indian society” he wrote, “All Bharatiyas, irrespective of faith, language and traditions, are original inhabitants of Bharat. They are not just citizens but integral parts of Bharat, whose ancestry, culture and motherland are the same. The Scheduled Tribes have their symbols of pride and celebration.”
“Fortunately, the government has recognised them by commemorating the Janjati Gaurav Diwas, on November 15 — the birth anniversary of great freedom fighter Birsa Munda, and honouring the contributions of Scheduled Tribes to the freedom struggle,” Ketkar added.
Disclaimer: This article also covers articles by pro-Hindutva authors in mainstream news publications.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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