New Delhi: The Supreme Court’s decision last week to allow the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to carry out planned route marches in Tamil Nadu over the state government’s objections was a “slap on the face of the Dravidian model”, the RSS’s English mouthpiece, Organiser, has said.
On 11 April, the Supreme Court rejected the M.K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government’s appeal against a Madras High Court order allowing the RSS to carry out the marches. This judgment came after the state government had refused permission, citing the alleged threat of an attack from the outlawed Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI). The Sangh went on to hold marches in 45 locations across the state on 16 April.
Other topics the Hindu Right press and Right-wing writers covered this week included gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed’s killing, an alleged trend of “growing proselytisation” in the erstwhile “Hindu kingdom of Nepal”, and the “Great Congress Exodus”, referring to leaders such as Anil Antony and C.R. Kesavan leaving the party for the BJP.
ThePrint brings you a roundup of the Hindu Right press this week.
RSS, DMK and Tamil Nadu
The RSS’s English and Hindi mouthpieces both hailed the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the route marches in Tamil Nadu.
Calling the decision a victory of India’s “national power” and a big loss to “appeasement politics”, the Sangh’s Hindi publication, Panchjanya, said it was once common to ban people from the RSS and sack them from government jobs.
Organiser, meanwhile, said, “The apex court’s recent decision permitting the RSS to its annual Path Sanchalan (foot march) in Tamil Nadu is literally a slap on the face of the Dravidian model or Dravidian stock (and) DMK government for its staunch, biased attitude towards RSS, the BJP, and Hindu outfits for reasons better known to it alone.”
What the judiciary said in its decision will be discussed going forward, the Organiser article said, “but what is important to note is that the SC ruling will be applicable across the country”.
“It means that whether it is SP, Congress or Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, nobody will be able to ban the organisation on imaginary grounds,” it said.
‘Atiq Ahmed brought opposition together’
Atiq and Ashraf Ahmed were shot dead late Saturday evening when they were speaking to reporters outside a hospital in Prayagraj, where the police had taken them for a medical examination. The entire incident was caught on camera and three suspects were immediately arrested.
In a column in Punjab Kesari, former BJP MP Balbir Punj wrote, “Most of the opposition parties were not able to gather on one platform for years,” adding that this has now been made possible by “the ‘anti-corruption’ campaigns against the Modi government, coupled with the murder of mafia Atiq-Ashraf, named in 101 criminal cases in Uttar Pradesh, the arrest of their other henchmen and their deaths in a police encounter”.
“While the Opposition, in one voice, termed the death of Atiq-Ashraf-Asad and the action being taken against their black empire politically motivated, 14 parties of the country have recently approached the Supreme Court to stop the anti-corruption actions of the central investigative agencies. It is a different matter that the court refused to hear this plea,” he added.
Punj was referring to Atiq’s son, Asad Ahmed, who was gunned down by the police in an alleged encounter last week. He also mentioned a joint petition by a group of opposition parties alleging misuse of investigative agencies against them. The parties withdrew the plea earlier this month after the Supreme Court expressed doubts about its validity.
The former MP further wrote that the lack of cohesiveness in the Opposition could be seen by the fact that not every party supported Rahul Gandhi on various issues.
“The ill-conceived undertaking given by Rahul on the Savarkar-Adani affair has been dismantled by Sharad Pawar, the chief architect of the anti-Modi coalition and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president,” he said.
He further wrote: “While Pawar rubbished the anti-Adani campaign and the demand of the Congress and other opposition parties for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) inquiry, he advised Rahul to shed his inferiority complex against Savarkar. Not only him, but another Congress ally, Uddhav Thackeray, has also warned Rahul against insulting Hindutva thinker Vinayak Savarkar.”
‘Great Congress Exodus’
In an article on the ‘Great Congress Exodus’ Organiser attempted to decode why Congress leaders such as former defence minister A.K. Antony’s son Anil Anthony and C. Rajagopalachari’s grandson C.R. Kesavan decided to join the BJP.
While Antony joined the BJP on 6 April, Kesavan followed him into the party two days later.
“The Congress under the Gandhi family has been compromising with the ‘national interest’, whether Article 370, development policies or foreign and defence policy choices,” the Organiser article said. “The recent BBC documentary episode and Rahul Gandhi’s heroics in London have also become disturbing points for the patriots within the Congress.”
It also accused Rahul Gandhi of making a multitude of irresponsible statements during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, from “anti-Hindi comments” to insulting Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar. “Since he has assumed the leadership role, the alienation of traditional Congress workers is directly proportional to the fringe Communist elements’ influence within the party,” it added.
The publication also carried an interview with Anil Antony in the same edition. Antony accused Gandhi of tilting “more and more to the extreme fringe Left” where there is a “very closed echo chamber”.
“Ironically, the day I made the tweet against the BBC documentary, Rahul Gandhi suddenly held a press conference and issued full support to the documentary. That changed the mindset of the party completely, and then they were completely supportive of the documentary and my view was an eyesore for the party,” he claimed.
Also Read: Anti-social elements emerge from unauthorised mazars, Uttarakhand CM Dhami tells Hindu Right press
‘Proselytisation in Hindu kingdom of Nepal’
Another piece in Organiser worried about an alleged rise in missionary-led religious conversions in the erstwhile “Hindu kingdom” of Nepal and the “socio-religious and political consequences” of this.
“Miracle in the typical Christian missionaries’ style is happening in the erstwhile Hindu Kingdom of Nepal. The magic of this miracle embedded in the infamous aggressive proselytising has made Christianity as the fastest-growing religion in this Himalayan country,” the article said.
“From 458 Christians in 1961 to constituting around 14 per cent (2011 Census) till 2011 and now touching around 10 per cent of the total population (Federation of National Churches of Nepal), the number of people finding ‘new meaning to their lives’ by abandoning their traditional religions are growing rapidly. This huge change in the demography of Nepal comes with serious socio-religious and political consequences”.
Proselytising in the grab of welfare and poverty alleviation programmes has been one of the time-tested tools deployed by missionaries, the article said, citing the United Mission to Nepal (UMN), which was set up in the country in 1954. “With a history of more than 65 years of serving in the name of Jesus, United Mission to Nepal has a stated mission of “to make Christ known by word and life,” it said.
Another standard modus operandi for these missionaries is to make full use of natural tragedies under the grab of relief work, the article said. “In the case of Nepal, be it the earthquake of 2015 or COVID-19 of recent times, maximum conversions have happened during these grim times.”
‘Unfriendly’ labour policies
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the RSS’s labour wing, has slammed the Narendra Modi government’s policies for not being “labour friendly”. In three resolutions passed in its triennial conference held earlier this month, the BMS has called for a comprehensive labour policy for both unorganised and organised labour sectors and more collective bargaining powers to workers.
“In this period of economic development, there has been a rapid increase in the wealth of the rich while there has not been a proportionate progress in the economic level of the workers,” one of the resolutions said, according to Organiser. “It is clear from this that the labourers are being deprived of their legitimate rights. The present labour policy and labour laws in the country are only for 7 per cent organised sector workers. There is no labour policy and labour law for 95 per cent of unorganised sector workers.”
It further said: “In this resolution. BMS makes few demands: Labour policy and laws should be made for the entire unorganised and organised labour sector; mutual agreement and collective bargaining should be encouraged; and priority should be given to maintaining industrial peace.”
The article also quotes BMS president Hiranmay Pandya as saying that if the central government doesn’t take steps in the interest of labourers, the BMS “will go to people”.
‘History meant to be rewritten’
In his column in The New Indian Express, Makarand R. Paranjape, a Right-leaning author and English professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that history is meant to be “written and rewritten”. He was writing in the context of controversy that followed the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) decision to drop certain contents from school textbooks.
“We may quibble till kingdom come on what should or should not be included in our textbooks. But what both students and teachers need to understand is that there is no such thing as a completely true and totally impartial history,” Paranjape said in his opinion piece. “This is an error into which many fall, whether we are Left, Right, or Centre. Why is this so? Simply because of the innumerable possible ‘facts’ and events from the past, it is only their selection and arrangement that makes them comprehensible”.
In every such instance of rewriting, revision, and correction, there are always both positive and negative outcomes, he wrote.
“Why should our history be so Delhi- or Mughal-centric? Why can’t students spend more time and attention on other parts and dynasties of India? In any case, there is enough information available for any intelligent or curious person not to take whatever is in their textbooks as the gospel truth.”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also Read: Khalistan activists are ‘useful idiots’ for Islamists’ anti-Hindu campaign, says Hindu Right press