RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat
Counterpoint: Mohan Bhagwat is talking sense
By Vivekanand Jha*
The Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Dr Mohan Bhagwat is talking sense.
India stands today on the cusp of inner turmoil; the religious polarisation brought about by fanning the Mandir-Masjid issue, especially with media, has a singular agenda: to engage the nation in the parochial framework of Mandir- Masjid dispute.
When the ‘godi media’ purportedly has a vested interest in orchestrating the Mandir-Masjid agenda of the incumbent government with a greater elan, least concerned about its pitfalls, it becomes highly imperative that men who can foresee the nation digressing from its raison d’etre should speak out the truth, unconcerned about the degree of criticisms and fulminations for calling spade a spade.
Thus the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, against the backdrop of this aggressive religious polarisation, has dared to bite the bullet and pick up the gauntlet to tell the truth to the nation: “It is the time to preserve the communal harmony as our avowed mission, and we shall try to avoid raking the Mandir-Masjid issue, claiming the mosques to be erstwhile temple, seeking their excavation underneath. Moreover, Ram Mandir at Ayodhya was a phenomenal issue, extremely sensitive for Hindus, but was resolved amicably. Let us not go for witch-hunting to undermine the communal harmony.”
This was the most deserving observation from a man of eminence like Bhagwat, to warn the nation of its pitfalls ahead. However, the hordes of Hindu religious leaders, unleashed their fangs upon Bhagwat’s reasonable stand, whereas, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party maintains a strategic silence on this contentious issue–where even the Prime Minister remains commital to Bhagwat– smacks of deep-rooted aspiration of BJP to keep the communal pot boiling for exploiting the religious sentiments of Hindus, to continue in the position of power.
Bhagwat could seldom have been wrong! His advocacy of maintaining communal harmony given overcharged religious scenarios redefined against the backdrop of religious polarisation stresses the paramountcy of the polity.
Despite the Muslims’ characteristic resistance to non-Muslim domination in the polity, the concept of ‘ India First’ introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his strategic vision, has regrettably fallen casualty to the intermittent whipping of religious sentiments by his Bharatiya Janata Party.
Such is the degree of religious frenzy in the polity that far from streamlining the urgent issues seeking their strategic elevation in the eyes of citizens, they are injected with the religious poison of hating the people of other religions.
Whereas Islamic zealots were at the forefront to take their jihadi mission to convert India into an Islamic nation, the Hindu religious leaders, not to be outclassed by the Muslim clergies, are increasingly taking recourse to propagate the claim over multiple temples which lain buried under the mosque. The Islamic fundamentalists’ propaganda to convert the behemoth of Hindu population into Muslims, is flawed and childish. But the eventual cacophony engendered by the Hindu saints and seers to orchestrate the claims over several mosques being temples, needed to be resurrected, is equally flawed.
With the BJP going berserk with its pet agenda of Hindu polarisation, the dynasty-based parties, not to be daunted by this BJP’s Hindu card, have taken an invariable recourse to pandering to chauvinistic Muslim interest. Little wonder then, at a time when the central as well as state Waqf Boards have been involved in corruption, land encroachment, and misappropriation of funds, the Waqf Bill introduced by the present government to check such activities by repealing the Mussalman Wakf Act, 1923, and amending the Waqf Act, 1995, that regulates waqf property in India, ended as fodder for political polarisation. Inarguably the Waqf Board, a genuine menace for this country–for both Hindus and Muslims– is now falling casualty to this religious polarisation, where even good-thinking Muslims are being persuaded to back the agenda of vested interest.
In short, the situation unfolding in the polity arouses dread in the hearts of the right-thinking citizens of this country. Hence, against the backdrop of a high mutual trust deficit between Hindus and Muslims in the country, Mohan Bhagwat’s very prophetic statement ought to have been lapped up by the Prime Minister and his party along with the religious leaders across the nation.
However, in the face of the scale of recriminations his statement has evoked from religious leaders, the BJP’s strategic silence on this issue beggars the belief that the ruling party is just not interested in toning down the pitch of its ongoing agenda to polarise Hindus by whetting the demand for claiming ownership of Hindus over the mosques in every nook and corner of this country.
Whereas the BJP has struck gold in fanning religious sentiments for its empowerment, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar exhibited a greater circumspection when he said that he would not allow the communal harmony of the state to be jeopardised when Giriraj Kishore, the BJP leader, was embarking on his plan to tour the entire state apparently to fan the communal sentiment.
Thus, it is time for the intelligentsia to take serious cognizance of Bhagwat’s statement and strangle any religious provocation. The vision of ‘India first’ is the need of the hour if India is to survive as a vibrant nation. Let Bhagwat’s prophetic statement find salience with the citizens of India, where none is Hindu or a Muslim, he or she is an Indian first.
*Author, Academician and Public Intellectual. The views expressed as personal.
