Hindu Dharma or Sanātana Dharma?

 

 

Hindu Dharma or Sanātana Dharma?

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

A question which keeps cropping up constantly, especially among those Hindus who are proud of their identity but who also like to split straws and to squabble over names and words, is whether we should call our religion Hinduism (Hindu Dharma) or Sanātanism (Sanātana Dharma), and ourselves Hindus or Sanātanīs. The main argument of these people is that Hindu is a name or appellation given to us by "foreigners" or "outsiders", whereas Sanātana is a self-descriptive name for ourselves.

 

But is Sanātana really a self-descriptive name for our religious, cultural or civilizational identity, or for our Dharma?

1. In the earliest Vedic texts, the Samhitas, the word sanātana occurs (by itself, and not as a joint phrase with the word dharma) only twice in the Atharvaveda (X.8.22,23), and here it simply means "eternal", and is applied as a descriptive epithet of Brahmā. or the Supreme Being or Supreme Consciousness.

2. Later the word sanātana occurs several times in the Brahmana texts, but again always without the accompanying word dharma, with the simple meaning "eternal", and applied specifically to different Gods or to the Supreme Being or Supreme Consciousness.

3. Perhaps (though I am open to correction, if anyone can produce older citations) the first use of the combined phrase containing both the words (Sanātana and Dharma) is in the Manu Smriti, 4.138 and 9.64. And these are not referring to any self-identity, but to what they describe as an "eternal law" (of morality or ethical social behavior):

Manu Smriti, 4.138:

satyam brūyāt priyam brūyān na brūyāt satyam apriyam.

priyam ca na-anṛtam brūyād eṣa dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ.

"Let him say what is true; let him say what is agreeable; but let him not utter a disagreeable truth, nor utter an agreeable falsehood: that is the eternal law".

Manu Smriti, 9.64:

na-anyasmin vidhavā nārī niyoktavyā dvijātibhiḥ.

anyasmin hi niyuñjānā dharmaṁ hanyu sanātanam.

"A widow must not be appointed, by a twice-born man, to cohabit (perform niyoga) with any man; he who does so will be violating the eternal law".

It will be noticed that not only does the phrase not denote identity in any way in either of the two contexts, but it looks as if it is just a phrase used to emphasize that any social or moral act recommended or forbidden is claimed to be recommended or forbidden as per an "eternal" code. The caste-specific references in the second reference, additionally, make clear the narrow social relevance of such "eternal" laws.

Even for the meaning "eternal" the Manu Smriti much more often uses other words, most commonly śāśvata. And the word sanātana occurs by itself in reference to other things sought to be described as eternal: brahmā/brahman (1.7; 6.79); the Vedas (1.23; 3.284; 12.94,99); the Vedic sacrifice (1.22); and some general other laws pertaining to kingly duties (9.325), or the caste status of children born out of inter-varṇa unions (10.7).

The same practice is followed in later texts (starting with the Epic and Puranic texts), where either some God or Goddess, to indicate his/her ancientness and importance, or some social or ethical rule or law, to indicate its sanctity, is called sanātana (eternal).

Hence, I really would be extremely interested in finding out, from those who advocate the term Sanātana Dharma, as opposed to the term Hindu Dharma, the earliest ancient or medieval source which uses the term Sanātana Dharma as an identity term for what we today call Hindu Dharma: by which I mean the Hindu religion or (to preempt diversionary straw-splitting polemics from people who would like to divert the discussion into an endless debate about whether or not "dharma" means "religion") our indigenous Indian national-civilizational-spiritual-cultural ("way of life") identity.

 

Even more to the point, a follower of Hindu Dharma would be a Hindu. Who would be a follower of Sanātana Dharma: a Sanātanī? Which ancient or medieval text contains this word Sanātanī? And that too, as a name or identity word for what we would today call Hindu?

All these words (Sanātanī, Ārya, etc) produced out of an inexplicable allergy for the word "Hindu" and as substitutes for it, were nothing but ill-thought-out pseudo-nationalistic reactions to colonial rule and scholarship, and do not in any way reflect our own self-description in the same way as the word Hindu:

1. They were perhaps influenced or induced by all the nasty things written in colonial times by western scholars and missionaries about Hindus. Just as the Arya Samaj decided to answer criticisms by the missionaries about Indian idolatry and polytheism, and about the lack of a "canonical" text, by claiming that the "pure", "original" and "unpolluted" or "uncorrupted" Indian religion was idol-less and monotheistic and had a set of "canonical" texts (i.e. "the Vedas"), so also these renamers of Hinduism decided to answer criticisms of Hinduism by the simple process of changing the name of the religion itself. It may be noted that the choice of the word sanātana (eternal) as the epithet for our dharma also seems to give a befitting reply to the Christian/Muslim claims of their religions (in spite of having founders) being "eternal" as per various twisted arguments and pieces of "logic"!

2. There are also the kīḍās (worms) of history-phobia in the minds of many Hindus. This is demonstrated most typically by the recurring trends of trying to erase history and historical memories by changing place-names on specious pseudo-nationalistic and pseudo-patriotic grounds − an easy, cheap (though not to the exchequers who have to execute all the name-changes out of the tax-payers' money) and painless (to the renamers) exhibition of patriotism, as I have already pointed out in detail in another article. This itch to ditch the word "Hindu" is one more manifestation of that same mentality.

3. Basically, instead of comparing the Hindu religion with the Muslim and Christian religions, and showing why it is superior to them, these Hindus prefer to run away from the battlefield under the cowardly pretext that there can be no comparisons between Hinduism on the one hand and Islam and Christianity on the other, because the former is not a "religion" at all, while the latter two are "religions"!

Hinduism is superior not because it is "true" while the other two are "false", but because, Hinduism has no fixed religious dogmas: you can believe or disbelieve in any religious or philosophical idea, doctrine or text, or in any ritual act, without becoming any the less a "Hindu" for it. Hindu thought covers almost every possible part of the intellectual and ideological spectrum, unlike the other two which are based on fixed dogmas and have narrow boundaries.

And this is where the name Sanātana Dharma falls flat as a cover-all substitute for Hinduism: in every context where it is used in our texts, it refers to some specific belief or moral/ethical or social viewpoint specific to the text or to the particular sect, or school of philosophy, that the text belongs to, which naturally considers its own beliefs "eternal". If someone now wants to use it as a substitute for the word Hinduism or Hindu Dharma, it must be recognized as a modern and reactive revisionist interpretation of the traditional term with a totally new meaning, and not as the traditional term.

[Incidentally, silly political events − such as DMK leaders, or others of similar ilk, making derogatory remarks about the term Sanātana − give additional impetus to these revisionist attempts].

 

The argument that the term "Hindu" was given to us by "outsiders" is extremely misleading for two reasons:

1. Identity terms which effectively cover all the sections of Indian society (or of any society or entity under discussion) are of necessity ones given by "outsiders". The word ārya was used in the Rigveda by its Pūru composers to refer only to Pūrus: in the Rigveda, the Pūrus are ārya, and all others (including the Anus and Druhyus to the west and northwest, the Yadus and Turvasus to the south, and the Ikṣvākus to the far east) are non-āryas or dāsas. Note that in the eyes of the composers of the Rigveda, not only the Andamanese, Santal and Dravidian speaking people from the rest of India, but even Rāma and Kṛṣṇa would be non-āryas or dāsas. Trying to use the word ārya as a substitute for Hindu would be an extremely new and revisionist reinterpretation of the term. Even when later and later texts extended the term  to include larger and larger areas and to extended contexts (e.g. as in the geographical name āryāvarta, or in the much-later-recorded extant versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata where the heroes are often described as ārya, or the Buddha, with a new meaning to the word referred to the four ārya truths), the term never covered the whole of India.

The same is the case with any other "Indian-origin" word that anyone may seek to prop up as a "native" alternative to the "outsider" word "Hindu" − including the word Sanātana. This is because it is only from the point of view of an "outsider" that the oneness of India, as a distinct entity for purposes of identity, would normally be apparent. Sources from inside India would normally only be inventing or using words from a point of view distinguishing their own group from other Indian groups (until of course contact with outsiders brought into focus and emphasized their commonality with those other Indian groups in contrast with the "outsiders"). So any word used by any "insider" as a self-identifying term of cultural-civilizational-religious identity would normally refer to a (big or small) section of "insiders" but not to all "insiders" as opposed to "outsiders": any identifying term of this kind could normally only be given by "outsiders". [I am repeatedly using the word "normally" because Argumentative Indians spoiling for a fight are quite capable of managing to concoct abnormal scenarios to endlessly argue against the facts].

Thus, the European colonialists concocted the phrases "American Indians" or "Amerindians", and the phrase "Australian Aboriginals",  to cover all the inhabitants of the two continents. It is inconceivable that the original inhabitants of those two continents could already have had (given the wide geographical areas, isolated locations, and different unconnected languages and cultures in both continents) a common name to express their common identity as opposed to that of the "outsiders". Hence, today, any hypothetical attempts to have a common name for the "insiders" as opposed to the "outsiders" in either of the two continents would necessarily have to accept the colonial-given names "American Indians" or "Amerindians", and "Australian Aboriginals", or coin some totally new common name from native sources (and from which particular native language would that new name be derived?).

In the case of India, despite all the "insider"-"outsider" claptrap, the name "Hindu" though given by "outsiders" (and, as I pointed out above, it would be outsiders who could logically give a all-covering name for India and its diverse inhabitants) was not given by colonial invaders: it is a name, in different forms (which includes all forms and variants of the words "India" and "Hindu") more than two millennia ago by inhabitants of most of the rest of the civilized world which came into contact with India, including the Persians, Greeks, Arabs and Chinese.

2. And, what is more, unlike the common name for the native peoples of America or Australia, the "outsider"-given common words or names for India and its people were originally based on a purely Indian word: the name of the river Sindhu, which became Hindu in Persian and Indus in Greek, and Tianzhu in Chinese (Tianzhu is one of the Chinese transliterations of the word Sindhu. Hiuen Tsang or Xuanzang, transliterated it as Yin-yu). The whole world recognized that the huge complex banyan tree of civilization, culture and peoples, with its multifarious branches and sub-branches, and unbelievably infinite variety, which flourished mainly to the east of the Sindhu river, was one entity with one common name and complex identity. All these related names, based on this universal recognition of India's unity and identity, were only emphasized when Muslims accepted the word Hindu as a common word for all Indian Pagans.

 

In this respect, the framers of the modern Indian Constitution also recognized Hindu as the all-inclusive term for followers of all indigenous or Indian-origin religions (as opposed to the followers of religions of foreign origin) by specifying, and that too in a negative manner (see clause c) (thus pre-empting foolish questions about whether atheists and agnostics can be called "Hindus"), that any laws framed for Hindus are applicable:

"(a) to any person who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developments, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj,

(b) to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion, and

(c) to any other person domiciled in the territories to which this Act extends who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion."

It must be pointed out to all those who are allergic to the word "Hindu" even when they are personally proud of being Hindus and actively involved in the defence of Hinduism, and want to change it to something else, that the word Hindu is as Indian as any word that they could concoct or derive by dubious methods such as reinterpreting other existing words (like Sanātana) to replace the word Hindu. And, if the aim is to concoct a Sanskrit word, the word Hindu is as much of Sanskrit origin as the word Sanātana, besides having a history of international usage of over two thousand years, so that there can be no accusation of "Sanskrit chauvinism" in using it; even the Tamil forms for India and Hindu are "Indiyā" and "Indu".

Let us not reject the rich history and heritage, and the unifying force, of words like "India" and "Hindu" for petty political reasons or out of extremely misguided ideas of "insider" and "outsider".

 

The Three New Techniques of Forming Governments in India

 

The Three New Techniques of Forming Governments in India

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Elections and party politics are perhaps a new phenomenon in the world, and one which came into existence only in the last few centuries. In India, although we have had party elections even before 1947 − indeed the party and electoral politics of the pre-1947 years (of the Congress, Communist, Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim League, etc.) laid the basic foundations of post-1947 party and electoral politics in the subcontinent − it is the "evolution" of electoral politics from these basic foundations in the post-1947 period that is intriguing and mind-boggling: from parties of all kinds (parties breaking-up into multiple pieces and reuniting, often temporarily, in different combinations), to caste politics (caste-based parties, reservations, caste-coalitions, etc.), to booth-capturing, to gangsters and bahubalis fighting elections from prison, to dynastic politics, to election engineering (forcing the main opponent to withdraw at the last minute, putting up multiple Independent candidates with names similar to that of the main opponent, etc.), India alone seems to have seen every shade of dubious or dirty electoral politics.

If we examine the electoral history of various European and American nations, of Communist countries, and of other "Third World" countries of Asia and Africa, we will see even more unbelievable kinds of political tactics, techniques and strategies being employed by different politicians in their quest for power.

The three main objectives are:

1. To influence voters to get votes.

2. To win seats to form the government.

3. To form the government, with or without a majority of the seats..

All these things are to be achieved using all possible ways and, by hook or by crook, through pre-election, election-time and post-election strategies.

 

As the saying goes, "there is nothing new under the sun". But, in spite of this fact, I find myself marveling at the new ways that the BJP has devised (perhaps, as a little digging into the past may show, in some cases with some obscure or unremembered past precedents as models) to subvert the electoral process.

The culture of "aya ram, gaya ram" or people jumping from one party to another, and of past foes ganging up together against past friends, is nothing new to Indian politics. What seems to be new is the degree to which these tactics have been fine-tuned and refined to a science or an art by the BJP. They have even given a new official name to this scientific process: it is called "Operation Lotus". In the last decade or so, using various tactics (I will not bother to list here what they are or may be), the BJP has managed to form governments in many states, after failing to win a majority on the basis of counted election results, by engineering defections from the other parties (mainly the Congress), e.g. in Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, etc.

But in the last few months or so, as a preliminary to the presently approaching Lok Sabha Elections 2024, three new techniques have been developed (with the active help of a captive Election Commission) which must be noted to understand what is happening to electoral democracy in India, and to appreciate the highly advanced and futuristic state of Indian electoral politics. They may be called:

1. Operation Split-and-Officialize (Maharashtra).

2. Operation Disqualification (Chandigarh).

3. Operation Uncontested-Victory (Surat).

 

1. Operation Split-and-Officialize (Maharashtra)

The state assembly (Vidhan Sabha) elections took place in Maharashtra in 2019, with the BJP and Shiv Sena aligned on one side (the alliance being called the Maha-yuti) and (mainly) the Congress and NCP on the opposite side (the alliance being called the Maha-aghadi). The results (out of a total of 288 seats in the assembly) were as follows:

Maha-yuti (161):   BJP (105), Shiv Sena (56).

Maha-aghadi: (98):  Congress (44), NCP (54).

Others (29).

 

Clearly, the Maha-yuti had won the polls by a clear majority. But sharp differences developed between the BJP and the Shiv Sena over the issue of Chief Ministership. As a result, the two partners started exploring options of breaking the alliance and aligning with one or the other of the other parties to form a government. While the Shiv Sena was unofficially holding talks with NCP leaders in this respect, the BJP tried to execute a "midnight coup" (as it had done earlier in the matter of cutting off thousands of trees in the Aarey Complex) by hijacking a section of the NCP. However, this was nipped in the bud, and a government (cutting across the two electoral alliances) was formed between the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP: having a total of 154 seats in the 288-seat assembly (plus of course the usual extras from among the "Other" parties not part of either alliance). This government lasted from 28-11-2019 to 29-6-2022.

On 29-2-2022, a section of the Shiv Sena split from the main party (which was aligned with the Congress and NCP),  and realigned itself with the BJP, and formed a new coalition government consisting of the BJP (105) and the breakaway Shinde Shiv Sena (40 of the original 56 Shiv Sena MLAs).

On 2-7-2023, a section of the NCP split from the main party (which was aligned with the Congress and UBT Shiv Sena),  and realigned itself with the BJP and joined the Maha-yuti government.

 

All this (and there are some more murky things which we will skip) is a sad commentary on Indian politics. But there is nothing new here. What followed was the new part:

Now there were two Shiv Sena parties (led respectively by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde) both claiming to be the original Shiv Sena, and two NCP parties (led respectively by Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar) both claiming to be the original NCP.

There have been defections and splits in all parties in India throughout the history of electoral politics in Independent India. But whenever a faction split away, howsoever big the leader leading the break, the original name and electoral symbol of the original party have remained with the original party and not with the breakaway leader:

When Indira Gandhi broke away from the Congress in 1969, and formed a new party, her party came to be known as "Congress R" and the original Congress came to be known as "Congress O" (for Old but perhaps also Original). and "Congress O" retained the earlier electoral symbol of a "pair of yoked bullocks", while the "Congress R" was given a new electoral symbol of a "cow and calf".

Again, Indira Gandhi split the party in January 1978, and formed a new part called "Congress I": again her party was allotted a new election symbol: a "hand". Although the party got a landslide victory in 1984, it was only in 1996 that the Election Commission allowed the "I" to be dropped from the name and the party could again be called the "Indian National Congress" (but with the "hand" symbol).

When Sharad Pawar split from the Congress in 1999, he personally founded the NCP or the "Nationalist Congress Party" with a new electoral symbol of a "clock".

The Shiv Sena has seen many defections of groups of leaders or elected MLAs leaving the party. none of them claimed to represent the original party, or claimed the Shiv Sena electoral symbol, a "bow and arrow":

Long ago, in the seventies, a popular leader Bandu Shingre broke away and formed a party called Prati-Shiv-Sena. Later, Chhagan Bhujbal left with a significant group of MLAs a leaders, but he did not claim to represent the "real" Shiv Sena, he just joined the Congress/NCP. And so, later, did Narayan Rane and his group of supporters. When a big split took place with Raj Thackeray forming his party the MNS, he neither claimed the name nor the symbol of the Shiv Sena. There have been other genuine splits and defections based on differences, without anyone trying to pirate the name and electoral symbol of the Shiv Sena.

In fact almost every time, anywhere in India, one group or faction has broken away from an existing party, it has taken on a new name and electoral symbol and not tried to claim or usurp the name and symbol of its parent party: whether the countless parties (including the BJP itself) which broke away from the Janata Party formed in 1977, or the CPI(M) which broke away from the CPI, or the MDMK, PMK, AIADMK, etc. which broke away from the DMK, or the TMC which broke away from the Congress, or the various caste parties which split into smaller ones.

This time, with different tactics (that we will not bother to go into here), the BJP not only split the Shiv Sena and the NCP, but even used a captive Election Commission to declare that the breakaway groups that split from the original parties and joined up with the BJP were the original Shiv Sena and NCP, and to have the name and electoral symbols of both the parties allotted to the two breakaway factions.

This represents a totally new phenomenon in India politics.

 

II. Operation Disqualification (Chandigarh)

A second new and seminally historical technique was introduced and employed by the BJP in the Chandigarh mayor's election. Though it may appear a small and local affair − just a municipal mayoral election after all − it had great significance because of the approaching Lok Sabha elections, the AAP-Congress alliance, and the growing power of the AAP in Punjab and Haryana.

In these mayoral elections which took place in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on 30-1-2024, the AAP (13 councilors) and Congress (7 councilors) formed an alliance with a majority of 20 in a house of 35 councilors. The BJP had 14 and the Akali Dal 1. Although one vote (a 36th vote) was to be cast by the local MP (of the BJP), it was inevitable that the Congress-AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar would win over the BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar.

But surprisingly, the AAP-Congress candidate got only 12 votes while the BJP candidate got 16 votes − while 8 votes were declared invalid by the Returning Officer, Anil Masih (interestingly, a Christian convert). The BJP candidate was declared Mayor, and there were all round celebrations by the BJP.

But the bubble burst when it became clear that the Returning Officer was a BJP member, and the 8 votes he declared invalid were all in support of the AAP-Congress candidate. And, for a rare wonder, the whole sordid drama where the Returning Officer invalidated the 8 AAP-Congress votes, including the sly looks directed at the camera by him as he carried out the shady operation, was recorded on tape! This became a national (and even international) news-item and the Supreme Court not only declared the results invalid, and directed that the AAP-Congress candidate should be declared the elected mayor, but also passed strong strictures against the BJP-member Returning Officer who carried out the fraud, and ordered that stringent legal action should be taken against him for his criminal attempt to subvert the electoral process.

This represents a totally new and ultra-brazen technique or "operation" in the history of Indian electoral politics. To my mind it not only shows how much further the ruling party will not hesitate to go when the electoral process is taking place over a voter-base of lakhs of voters spread out over a large area, but even, for the first time, made me realize that the popular charge of critics of the BJP that the EVM machines have a big role in their electoral victories may not be all that completely wrong. Apparently honesty, ethics and scruples have no place in Indian electoral politics today.

 

III. Operation Uncontested-Victory (Surat)

The Lok Sabha elections 2024 are going on, with one phase of voting in 108 seats already over. The counting of votes for all the phases of voting will commence on 4-6-2024. Nearly one and a half months are left for this crucial event. But, amazingly, the result for one seat, Surat in Gujarat, has already been declared: the BJP candidate, Mukesh Dalal, has been declared the winner. And here we get this newest of techniques: the technique of winning a Lok Sabha seat without a single voter in the constituency having cast his or her vote!

There is no doubt whatsoever (to my mind at least) that the BJP would have won this seat anyway in the normal course of things: opinion polls and experts have consistently predicted that the BJP will win every single one of the 26 seats in Gujarat. So what was the need for this new technique to be employed here? Clearly this was basically a preliminary test-case to gauge the efficacy and durability of this technique.

To get down to the facts, there were 11 candidates in the fray: Mukesh Dalal of the BJP and Nilesh Kumbhhani of the Congress (AAP did not put up a candidate of its own despite indications of its increasing influence in Surat, where it had won a number of seats in the municipal elections a year or two ago, since it had agreed to support the Congress candidate), another dummy candidate of the Congress, four candidates from smaller parties, and four Independents. And then the dramas started, personally conducted throughout by the state BJP President, C.R.Patil, who later described the result as his personal tribute for the PM:

The Congress candidate filed his nomination with the Election Commission official alone and unaccompanied by the mandatory proposers to his candidature, and the official accepted the application which itself was unprecedented. The three proposers were not Congress party functionaries, as should normally have been the case, but relatives and business partners of the candidate Nilesh Kumbhani. The dummy Congress candidate  − parties often put up dummy candidates in case the main candidate gets disqualified − Suresh Padsala filed his application with only one proposer, again a relative of Nilesh Kumbhani. All the four proposers for the two Congress candidates then went into hiding within a few hours of the filing of the nominations, but before disappearing they gave written affidavits to the district official as soon as the nominations were filed, stating that their signatures on the applications had been forged. The EC officials forthwith rejected the applications of both the Congress candidates. The other 8 candidates in the fray (4 from smaller parties, and the 4 Independents) also went missing. They were all found to have congregated in the La Meridian hotel at Baroda, and were closeted in a meeting with the BJP state president C.R.Patil, and all these 8 candidates withdrew their nominations for the Surat seat.

Now, the BJP candidate, Mukesh Dalal, was the only candidate left in the fray, and he was declared elected unopposed to the Surat constituency, giving the first victory in this Lok Sabha elections to the BJP, 40 days before the start of counting! Needless to say, the "Congress candidate" Nilesh Kumbhani, is reported to be all set to be welcomed into the BJP.

 

An incredible story. But (apologists will crow) was the Congress party sleeping, or is it completely brainless and stupid? Yes, every time a candidate or party wins any election, the stupidity, or lack of alertness and preparation, of the opponents, always has a part in it. But if that is the only point that apologists will be able to make in order to excuse what happened in Surat, then the prospects in India − for the future of Indian democracy and public morals, and the welfare of the Indian people − are indeed bleak beyond description.

Predictably, supporters of the BJP will be gleeful and triumphant over all these things happening in India. And that is the biggest tragedy.

 

  

 

Raj Thackeray, Ram Mandir and Modi

 

Raj Thackeray, Ram Mandir and Modi

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

In an earlier article, "The Twelve Indian Political Figures I Like, Respect and Admire the Most", I had written:

"By coincidence, six of them are no more with us (and the first of them is in a class by himself in my estimation), and six are still alive (at least I hope the last one is, but I have no means of knowing), and the list, except for the first name in each of the two categories, are not in order of preference:

1. Swatantryaveer Savarkar.

2. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

3. Lal Bahadur Shastri.

4. Balasaheb Thackeray.

5. Balraj Madhok.

6. Hamid Dalwai.

7. Arvind Kejriwal.

8. Manik Sarkar.

9. Raj Thackeray.

10. Arif Mohd. Khan.

11. Dara Singh (of Orissa fame).

12. The unknown, unnamed Sentinelese tribal who shot an arrow and killed the American missionary boy of Chinese origin in November 2018".

 

It is always hazardous to express admiration in writing for politicians (or politically active figures) who are still alive and politically active. I should have learnt from the experience of Arun Shourie, who wrote a book in fulsome praise of Ramnath Goenka, and Madhu Kishwar, who likewise wrote a book in fulsome praise of Narendra Modi, and (although I do not know if they would like to openly admit it, but), both of whom (in my opinion at least) lived to feel some embarrassment over their words. In the above article, I included two names, Arvind Kejriwal and Raj Thackeray, and I have been left a trifle red-faced by subsequent events. In fact, in the case of Arvind Kejriwal, I was forced to write a mea culpa appendix to the article (on 24/3/2022: the actual article was written on 4/9/2021) as follows:

"NOTE added 24/3/2022: If I have made a mistake, I will accept it. In the above article, I have praised Arvind Kejriwal, and written: "Well, I have not as yet seen him do anything much more anti-Hindu and secularist than the Congress or the BJP or any other secularist or "Hindu-when elections-approach" party." Today, by referring to the film The Kashmir Files as a "jhoothi" film in the Delhi assembly, Kejriwal has made me eat my words and made me feel ashamed of myself for the praise I heaped on him in the above article for which I apologize to all Hindus and especially Kashmiri Pandits. Anyone who can deny the massacre of Kashmiri Hindus and the forced migration of 500,000 of them from Kashmir, and vindicate the powerful Leftist lobby which is out to destroy India and which has been exposed in the film, is a very dangerous person for the country. This does not whitewash the multiple sins of the BJP, but it does show that Kejriwal is not an alternative. I am adding this as an addendum rather than making any change in the above article.

In a Hindi film, there was a famous dialogue: "ek macchar aadmi ko hijda bana sakta hai" (one mosquito can make a man into a eunuch). Likewise, "ek shabd aadmi ko hijda sabit kar sakta hai" (one word can prove a man to be eunuch).

All in all (I think I am fairly confident I will not have to eat my words, and eat humble pie, in respect of any of the other names in the above list), it is true that almost all politicians are crooks: "birds of a feather", or as a Marathi phrase puts it: "ekach maleche mani" (beads from the same string), or, most accurately, as an earthy Konkani phrase from Mangalore puts it: "ɛkkā:: lɛṇḍyᾱ: ku:ḍkɛ" (pieces of the same lump of shit)."

 

Yes, it is time to eat my words, and eat humble pie, in respect of the other name as well: Raj Thackeray.

I was an admirer of Raj Thackeray's forthrightness and sharply logical analyses since many years (although the record of his party in respect of physically attacking North Indians, and in extortionism, and his own personal past, in for example the notorious Ramesh Kini case, were not positive factors), but it was his detailed and absolutely unparalleled analytical critiques of the BJP during the 2019 elections which aroused my admiration, and made me list him as one of my favourite present-day political figures. Today those same speeches from 2019 present a study in irony: they show how he has executed a sharp and totally inexplicable u-turn (whether to rescue the sinking ship of his party, or to escape the attacks of the now notorious governmental agencies like ED and IT). I think someone should make an equally detailed analytical critique of those speeches from 2019, and list out in detail the variety of issues on which he had exposed and criticized the BJP in detail and in totally unanswerable ways − in fact he himself would not be able to answer any of them now to explain why those points do not matter anymore and why they do not discredit his complete u-turn. He now completely ignores every single thing he had said at that time on any and every issue, and indulges only in child-like praises of the Great Leader, of the kind which have become a hallmark of the present day culture of political bhakti but are totally out of sync with his own bold and forthright personality.

After keeping observers and analysts guessing as to what exactly he would say in his Gudi Padwa speech at Shivaji Park on 9 April 2024 this year, he finally delivered an ambiguous and uncharacteristically muted speech in which he announced his "bin-shart pathimba" (unconditional support) for the BJP without being allotted a single seat by the BJP in the election. This speech resulted in confusing even his staunchest followers, with some prominent ones leaving the party or openly expressing their dissent, and most others (barring the inevitable blind followers) left clueless as to what exactly had happened or was happening.

 

Let me add here at this point that I still hold Raj Thackeray in great respect for his sharp analytic mind and deeply intelligent vision in many respects. Even as I was writhing in agony at his ignominious "bin-shart pathimba" speech, I came across the following (four-year old) video on youtube, which left me breathless with admiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-27USHlNiEw

 

It is incredible and almost impossible to believe that the man who gave the anti-BJP speeches in 2019, and who made the above video (which is not about electoral politics, but about nation-building in general, as, unfortunately, only a person knowing Marathi will be able to understand since the video is in Marathi), all of which demonstrate his incisive analytical logic, is the same person who called a press-conference on 13 April 2024  to try to stem the currents of dissatisfaction and confusion within his party after his "bin-shart pathimba" speech, by trying to explain why he extended his full support to Modi, and gave the Ayodhya Temple as the main reason for this support. At the very start of this apologetic press conference, he gave his views on this subject, and made two points:

1. That the Ayodhya Temple would never have been completed and inaugurated "so fast" (or perhaps "at all"?) if not for the leadership of Modi.

2. That, because of Modi's completion and inauguration of the temple, the souls of all those martyrs who died in the course of the Ayodhya agitation and (in his own words) whose bodies were to be seen floating on the waters of the Sharayu river at the time, can now rest in peace.

Is it really the incisive-minded Raj Thackeray making these above points?

 

To take the first point:

a) the Ayodhya movement for the restoration of a temple at the site of the Birthplace of Rama has been going on since centuries.

b) In 1857, a "chabutra" (platform) was erected at the spot by unknown Hindus to mark the birthplace.

c) In 1949, unknown Hindu devotees of Ram installed the idol of Rama inside the premises, and subsequently, it became a functional temple once again, although the century old court cases continued.

d) The actual present Ramjanmabhoomi movement and agitation in the nineteen-eighties was started by a group of Hindu Mahasabha and Congress leaders around 1983. The two prominent Congress leaders in the forefront of the movement were Dau Dayal Khanna and Gulzarilal Nanda: the latter, it must be noted, was a minister in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, and became temporary acting/interim Prime Minister of India twice: in 1964 after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and in 1966 after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. In the initial years of the movement, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, it was fully backed by the Hindu Mahasabha and some prominent Congress leaders, while the BJP (which had taken on a Secular avatar) was totally aloof from the movement; and it was only when they lost the 1984 elections (winning only 2 seats out of 543) and were on the verge of being wiped out, that the party suddenly (but unofficially) re-transformed itself into a "Hindu" party and was forced to plunge into Hindu/"Hindu" issues like Ayodhya, Bangladeshi infiltrators in Assam, and the Shah Bano judgment.

e) In 1985 (after the results of the 1984 elections), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad launched the Ayodhya movement in full blast all over the country, and it became practically the major agenda for all the affiliate organizations of the RSS.

f) In 1990, the BJP officially and directly entered into the fray, with L.K.Advani's rathayatra. With the killing of the karsewaks in Ayodhya by the U.P government, and the arrest of Advani (on his rathayatra) by the Bihar government, the BJP numbers in the Lok Sabha started shooting up graphically, and the BJP won a majority in the U.P. assembly and formed its government there.

g) The VHP/BJP combine, with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra also fully on board, intensified the agitation. The whole country resounded with the speeches of Ramjanmabhoomi firebrands like Sadhvi Rithambhara and Uma Bharati (who became particular icons perhaps because they represented "nari shakti": I remember my Muslim friends in Bhendi Bazar, all of them undoubtedly Babri Masjid supporters, asking me at the time to bring a cassette of Sadhvi Rithambhara's speeches I had bought at a VHP rally, and, even they were impressed with her rhetoric!)

h) But while the organizers were only interested in holding periodical ritual mass-participation ceremonies all over the country (baan-pooja, paduka-pooja, and the like) at the time of elections to keep up the political tempo, a group of unknown Hindus (including those belonging to all the Hindu organizations involved in the agitation, and many organizationally unaffiliated Hindus) decided to take matters into their own hands and started the process of demolition of the Babri-mosque-structure on 6 December 1993, and all this completely transformed Indian politics for ever. The demolition achieved a fait accompli: now that the most "controversial" part of the restoration of the Ramjanmabhoomi − i.e. the demolition of the existing Islamic structure − was a done fact, it would now always be automatically easier to build a temple on the site rather than to rebuild another Islamic structure, and it would also be easier for judges to give judgments to that effect. And both the opposing sides in the battle knew this very well!

i) What was the result of the demolition? The RSS/BJP leaders who had led the agitation were squirming in their pants at the unexpected event. They never had any intentions of actually replacing the Babri structure with a temple: they only wanted a perennial election issue. LK Advani burst into tears, and called it the saddest day in his life! He did not know what to say to the press which was bombarding him with questions. I was present in Sita Ram Goel's house on that historic day, and in my presence Goel received a phone call from Arun Shourie (who was with Advani) asking him what Advani should say to the press. Sita Ram Goel told him to point out that no-one had made such a hue and cry when a number of prominent temples were destroyed by Islamicists in Kashmir just a few weeks earlier. Within five minutes, Advani and Shourie appeared on TV, and Advani repeated the exact words suggested by Goel!!

j) But there was worse: Sunder Singh Bhandari (a top BJP leader and spokesperson) denied  that any RSS or Sangh Parivar person could have been involved in the demolition, and suggested that it could be the work of Shiv Sainiks! In contrast, Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena immediately declared that if his Shiv Sainiks had demolished the Babri structure, then he was extremely proud of them!

k) After the demolition, while arguments continued in different forums over the decades, elections continued to take place as per their schedules (with the BJP-Shiv Sena making giant strides in electoral successes) with the Ayodhya issue being only an "also-mentioned-if-at-all" issue in elections, and direct activism on the issue came to a halt: the matter now rested with the judiciary. First, the Allahabad High Court judgment in 2010, and then finally the Supreme Court judgment in 2019 confirmed that the site was indeed the site of a Hindu temple to Rama before it was replaced in medieval times by various Islamic structures, and the title of the disputed site was now fully, officially and legally awarded to the deity "Ram Lalla Virajman" for the construction of the temple. So now it was just a matter of time for the temple to be fully constructed and inaugurated, and press reports on the issue were mostly about the progress in its construction.

l) Finally, the inauguration (pran pratishtha) of the temple took place on 22 January 2024. The two dignitaries on the stage performing the rituals were PM Narendra Modi and the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat (who, only a few months earlier, had publicly admitted that the RSS had never been interested in the Ayodhya issue or wanted to take part in it, but were compelled to do so by political compulsions).

 

From where, in all this, does Raj Thackeray (or, for that matter, do bhakts making the same assertion) derive the idea that "the Ayodhya Temple would never have been completed and inaugurated "so fast" (or perhaps "at all"?) if not for the leadership of Modi"?

"So fast"? Yes indeed. Although the construction was not absolutely completed, the inauguration was definitely speeded up so that it would take place before the 2024 Lok Sabha election − and especially before the code of conduct for the elections became applicable to prevent political capital being made of it by the BJP − after all, the actual festival of Ram Navami was also before the election, but not before the date from which code of conduct would become applicable. And so, yes, it was indeed the BJP leadership (i.e. Modi) who set this "fast" date for its inauguration. Strange that Raj Thackeray should not have been able to see the coincidence: his anti-BJP speeches in 2019 constantly highlighted how "Hindu" issues, riots, and skirmishes with Pakistan always "coincidentally" took place just before elections.

 

And let us take up the second point made by Raj Thackeray, "because of Modi's completion and inauguration of the temple, the souls of all those martyrs who died in the course of the Ayodhya agitation and (in his own words) whose bodies were to be seen floating on the waters of the Sharayu river at the time, can now rest in peace".

Why are the souls of the martyrs supposed to now be able to "rest in peace"? Because Modi (and Bhagwat) usurped all credit for the pran pratishtha ceremony, after having advanced the date of this pran pratishtha to fit in with the elections, which was their only direct contribution in the entire Ayodhya story? Or because Modi and his government awarded the second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the person directly responsible for all those kar sewaks becoming martyrs and having their bodies floating on the waters of the Sharayu?

Indeed, what has been the role of the Modi government and the present BJP (half of whose leaders and office-bearers are imported from parties which viciously opposed the Ayodhya movement) in the construction of the temple? Is it just because they happen to be in power at the moment (although it was the Congress and not the BJP which was in power when the Allahabad High Court gave its pro-temple judgment which the Supreme Court has now endorsed)?

I have already, in some previous articles, given this quotation from George Orwell's "Animal Farm" to illustrate the attitude of the subject animals of Animal Farm to attribute all good things to the rule of the Great Leader: "It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!"" Such behaviour behoves hens and cows − and fervent bhakts. It does not behove Raj Thackeray.

This last press conference of Raj Thackeray has saddened me beyond words − his references to the credit for the Ram temple even more than his "bin-shart pathimba". Are honesty and intelligence completely extinct in Indian politics today?

To end this article, since we have had to refer many times in this article to various strange "coincidences" taking place, here are two more:

First: Raj Thackeray's attacks on the BJP abruptly ceased after certain ED raids on him. And second:

https://www.barandbench.com/news/bombay-high-court-quashes-criminal-case-raj-thackeray-2008-stone-pelting

On 18 April 2024, the Bombay High Court has now (9 days after the Gudi Padwa "bin-shart pathimba" speech) suddenly "quashed" a 16-year old case pertaining to 2008. I am not concerned with the rights and wrongs of the case, but with the coincidental timing of the whole thing.