Opinion

Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam on the issue of RSS helping Anna, with the approval of liberals.

Imagine for a while, that Hitler won World War II, the Vichy regime in France remained unchallenged by the Free French of de Gaulle, that Chekoslovakia remained German territory, that V2 rockets flattened London, that there was no Normandy Landing, that the Battle of Leningrad was won by Germans, that Russia became a German colony, that…

A victorious Hitler rebuilt Berlin and other war-ravaged cities, and German companies like Siemens and Daimler Benz captured the world markets. German art, music, cinema, literature and philosophy projected its soft power. And Hitler embarked on an image make-over programme.

To begin with, he demolished the dreaded concentration camps at Dachau and Auschwitz, removed the debris to some distant landfill. Then he rolled the earth and levelled it, put up nice gardens over them, laid beautiful lawns with freshly mowed and rolled grass, complete with rows of flowers and gushing fountains. The barbed wire fences were removed and low walls built instead, covered by creepers.

The he began to talk about peace and development. Would we then say he was a great lover of peace? Would we forget the mass slaughter and the manufacture of fertilisers from human bones (some of which was used to fertilise the grass in his Peace Park)? Would people say anybody talking about Hitler’s genocide was guilty of thwarting this great peace-lover’s genuine efforts at peace and development?

Now, you would ask why on earth am I talking about all this. Well, I have a reason to: everyday we are reading articles in the media that assert RSS support to Anna Hazare’s movement is fine with them, and no fault could be found with it.

We would beg to disagree. We would not support even a hospital for the Jews, leftists, liberals built by Hitler on the site of a concentration camp. Why? Because it is morally revolting, nauseating.

Like its ideal and its role model, the RSS has no face to talk about corruption. Its own political party’s president, Bangaru Laxman, was caught on camera accepting bribe in hard cash; the party was appropriately renamed Bhartiya Janata [Petrol Pump] Party because of unprecedented levels of malpractice by BJP-led NDA in the allotment of petrol pumsp to BJP and RSS functionaries, its chief minister Yedurappa looted the country of its mineral wealth worth billions of dollars in cahoots with mining mafia. The RSS never uttered a word.

The same RSS is today riding the Anna band wagon. In its traditional way, the RSS has been supporting Anna’s movement stealthily, with its cadre and its money, without Team Anna acknowledging the fact. Now that the cat is out of the bag, despite Team Anna’s and RSS-BJP’s best efforts, they have brazenly come out in the public giving all kinds of justifications for their dubious connections.

No, there is no justification for supporting the anti-corruption drive as it is the front for establishing RSS rule, the abrogation of the Constitution, and the mass murder of Muslims and Christians. Today, this campaign is no longer about corruption. It is about replacing the present order with an RSS order. RSS being RSS, it has no moral ground to stand on and talk about corruption. It has first to answer for the deaths of innocent persons in riots across India, the more recent ones being the riots which were part of Ayodhya movement and the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, to name just two.

Its political faces like L K Advani, Uma Bharati and Murli Manohar Joshi have to account for their involvement in mass murder and come clean before talking about corruption. To the victims of mass murder–Muslims, Christians and Sikhs–justice for the monumental crimes against them is far more important than a politically motivated campaign against official corruption.

Also, we cannot be selective on the issue of corruption. For us RSS-BJP corruption is as important as anybody else’s corruption. Why is the RSS (and the Anna campaign) silent on the RSS–BJP corruption? Is it not important?

We are concerned about the possible replacement of the secular order with an RSS-inspired order. Historically, RSS never comes to power on its own, but by hiding behind a decoy. We do not want that to happen, because we care for democracy, secularism and a Constitutional order.

RSS has never accepted our Constitution. It always wants to scrap it. It tried its hand at it during the NDA rule and failed. It does not accept our national flag and wants to replace it with the bhagwa version. It does not accept secular democracy as we know it. It does not recognise the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, in whose assassination people with RSS background were involved. It was in the wilderness after the mahatma’s murder for a couple of years. It utilised the opportunity to hatch the conspiracy of putting idols in Babri Masjid and create a new focus for public attention away from the assassination of the mahatma. This new tactic diverted the anger of the public against RSS towards Muslims.

To conclude, we do not accept the idea of a corrupt RSS-BJP combine fighting against corruption. We do not accept that a fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-secular force will be of any use to democracy. We do not accept that a group opposed to the national Constitution, national flag and the Father of the Nation would be of help to the nation.

Finally, we do not believe that a hospital built on Dachau by Hitler is worth going to. RSS-backed democracy can be anything but democracy. The argument trying to justify RSS involvement in Anna campaign is seriously flawed.