The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh RSS the ideological mothership of the BJP and its extended family of front organisations has performed one of the most cynical feats in modern Indian politics: the hijacking of a civilisational identity called Hindu and the conversion of it into a political war cry called Hindutva. This transformation has not just polarised India it has permanently altered the national character weaponising religion not for spiritual awakening but for electoral arithmetic and majoritarian muscle flexing.
Make no mistake: the word Hindu was never a religion to begin with. It was
a geographical identity a loose term describing the people living east of the
Sindhu Indus River. Over centuries it evolved into a mosaic of faiths practices
contradictions and philosophies. A way of life some said. A civilisation others
argued. But it was never a monolith and certainly never an ideology. That
distortion that vile simplification came with Hindutva.
And who brought it The RSS. An organisation that sat out Indias
independence movement. While Mahatma Gandhi was being arrested while Nehru was
in jail and while countless Indians were laying down their lives for swaraj the
RSS was busy doing drills in khaki shorts perfecting salutes and preaching
cultural nationalism inspired not by Ashoka or Akbar but by Mussolini and
Hitler.
Yes you read that right. The early Hindutva ideologues Savarkar Golwalkar
Hedgewar looked to fascist Europe for inspiration. Golwalkar even praised Nazi
Germanys race pride as a model for India to follow. These are not accusations
these are documented facts buried deep in their writings and conveniently
omitted from their propaganda.
Fast forward to today and you will see the same legacy playing out only
this time with more money more media and more menace. The RSS and its political
face the BJP have turned the Hindu Hindutva binary into a mass production
factory of fear and fiction. Under the guise of cultural renaissance they have
peddled myths revised history textbooks and reduced Indias rich diversity into
an Us versus Them narrative.
Who is this Them Muslims Christians liberals dissenters anyone who
questions their monopoly over nationalism or dares to see Hinduism as something
deeper than temple photo ops and cow vigilantes. The irony is sharp: a movement
that claims to protect Hinduism does not even understand it.
Let us talk plain. Hinduism is about questioning. About doubt debate
dialectics. The Upanishads are not instruction manuals but conversations. The
Gita is not a war mongering tract but a discourse on duty renunciation and
inner conflict. The Rig Veda does not say my god is better than yours it says
truth is one the wise call it by many names. Can this be the foundation of an
exclusivist ideology Of course not.
But the Sangh does not care. Its project is not religious it is political.
It does not want to protect Dharma it wants to consolidate votes. Its soldiers
do not chant mantras they hurl abuse online and drag citizens out of trains for
eating beef. The average RSS foot soldier is not meditating under a Bodhi tree
he is manufacturing hate under a fake Twitter handle.
Look at how they operate: with slogans not substance. With symbols not
spirituality. From Love Jihad to Ghar Wapsi from cow protection to Ram Mandir
every issue is designed not to unite Hindus but to divide India. They promise
cultural pride but deliver cultural paranoia. They invoke Bharat Mata but abuse
her very ethos.
And what about the so called Hindu Rashtra they dream of A theocratic state
run by scriptures and mob sentiment The idea itself is anti Hindu. Hinduism has
survived precisely because it did not have a Pope a single Book or a rigid
dogma. It allowed Buddha to challenge the Vedas Kabir to ridicule rituals and
Meera to dance with her Krishna. Can the same tradition tolerate hate campaigns
and moral policing Can it live under lynch mobs and textbook lies
Of course not. But these are inconvenient truths for the Sangh. So they
whitewash history. They erase uncomfortable facts and rewrite the past as per
their political convenience. Tipu Sultan becomes a tyrant Gandhi becomes
irrelevant Ambedkar becomes a Hindu mascot and Savarkar becomes a reluctant
patriot. This is not history it is fiction wrapped in saffron.
Worse the children of the very leaders who scream Bharat Mata ki Jai send
their own kids to convent schools to Ivy League universities abroad to air
conditioned enclaves of globalisation. The public is fed cow dung and WhatsApp
forwards the private elite lives in gated hypocrisy.
And yet this con has worked. The RSS BJP machine has managed to convince a
majority of Indians that being Hindu means hating the Other. That defending
culture means destroying coexistence. That ancient India was some kind of
golden theocracy that must be recreated through violence and exclusion.
It is the greatest betrayal of Hinduisms spirit and Indias soul.
It must also be said that the so called secular parties allowed this to
happen. By appeasing the minorities in token ways and abandoning grassroots
education they created a vacuum that the Sangh filled not with values but with
venom. Where the Congress once promised Garibi Hatao the BJP today offers
Muslim Hatao. The slogans have changed but the scam remains.
So where do we go from here
First we reclaim the difference between being Hindu and being Hindutvavadi.
You can be a proud Hindu and reject the RSS. You can chant Om and oppose
lynching. You can visit temples and still stand for constitutional rights. Do
not let them tell you otherwise.
Second we must call out their hypocrisy. Loudly repeatedly and
unapologetically. When a mob kills in the name of cows ask why the same godmen
dine in Dubai. When they invoke Rashtra ask where their kids study. When they
talk of sabhyata civilisation ask about unemployment education and healthcare.
Strip the mask off. Mock the fraud.
Lastly we must revive the secular inclusive argumentative tolerant ethos of
this land the real India. The India of Ashoka of Kabir of Tagore of Ambedkar
not the sanitised saffron tinted circus that the RSS wants us to clap for.
Because if we do not we risk losing not just Hinduism but India itself.
As Khushwant Singh had warned before his death India will survive only if
it remains a secular state. Once it becomes a Hindu Pakistan it will perish.
The clock is ticking. And the Sangh is watching.
Siddhartha Shankar Mishra
Advocate Supreme Court of India and Political Commentator
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