Is 'Hndu terror' so shocking?

TK Arun
25 January 2013, 03:33 PM IST

The BJP has reacted very sharply to home minister Sushilkumar Shinde's accusation that the RSS and the BJP are training terrorists. It is entirely understandable that the party should demand solid proof and follow-up action for the charge that the BJP and its parent organisation, the RSS, are training terrorists. But the umbrage over Hindu terror is overdone.

Most people foaming at the mouth over the phrase Hindu terror consider 'Islamic or Islamist terror' or 'Sikh terrorists' par for the course. Of course, the intended meaning is not that terror is sanctioned by the religion or by the vast body of its followers. It refers to terrorism carried out by some groups in the name of their religion. These groups might claim to represent the faith as a whole but are supported by a tiny minority of those who practise the faith. Hindu terror is different only in the name of the religion in whose name tiny groups carry out terror activities.

In the wake of a series of terror strikes by groups claiming to represent Islam, some Hindu right-wing groups decided to carry out terror strikes of their own. Pragya Thakur was arrested as long ago as in 2008 for the Malegaon blasts. Swami Aseemanand made extensive confessions as to how Hindu fundamentalist groups planned and carried out a series of bomb blasts as revenge for bomb blasts carried out by groups that claim to be carrying out Jihad. This is well known and well recorded.

Going by the tenor and tone of outrage professed by BJP leaders over Shinde's statement, one would think violence in the name of religion is completely unthinkable and alien for Hinduism. Bankim Chandra Chatterji's Anandamath fictionalised the sanyasi rebellion of the late 18th century, to celebrate the violent attacks of people whom the British called religious bandits. Anandamath became popular enough to inspire later Bengal terrorists to carry, it has been said, a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, along with their revolvers.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, proponent of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra, ridiculed Gandhi's non-violence. He advised that young boys should be given air guns rather than cricket bats. He was one of the accused in Gandhi's assassination but was acquitted for want of evidence. Gandhi's convicted assassin, Nathuram Godse, was, beyond dispute, a Hindu extremist. This was the reason why the RSS was banned for a while after Gandhi's assassination in 1948.

Violence, however, is not the same as terror. Terror is violence with non-specific targets, the victims being considered collateral damage in a war waged for a higher cause. While the RSS' association with violence is no secret, it has no record of terror. In fact, all the 10 people who have been arrested in connection with 'Hindu terror' are former RSS activists, some of whom joined newer, more extreme organisations like the Abhinav Bharat. Therefore, Shinde is saying something new when he says that RSS trains people for terror.

When Pragya Thakur was arrested, those who protested were, of course, leaders and organisations affiliated to the RSS, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. That the Sangh champions and spreads an ideology that defines Indian nationhood in terms of Hindutva and sees all non-Hindus as second-class citizens is set out in its ideological documents. Cultural nationalism is euphemism for the repressed violence immanent in the notion that all non-Hindu cultural influences have to be thrown out. That such a violent ideology can spawn terror outfits and terrorists should surprise no one.

The RSS control of the BJP, it may be noted, is increasing, not getting attenuated over time, against the fond hopes of many who would like the BJP to evolve into a normal, right-of-centre political party without a baggage of communal hatred. Whereas the BJP used to have one RSS person in its central decision-making body, today, the RSS has its own people manning the office of party organisation at the centre and in the state units of the BJP. This continuing dependence of the BJP on the RSS for its cadre and for its topleadership appointments means that those waiting for the BJP to evolve away from its communal parentage have a very long wait ahead of them. They could try reading Samuel Beckett to pass the time.

It is entirely correct to say that religions should not be associated with terror. Religions seek to give people a sense of their place in the universe and create a moral discourse that helps individuals live together as a functional society. Terror has no place in this scheme of things. But all through history, people have misused religion for politics, war and destruction. That being the case, the point is not to wax apoplectic over 'Hindu terror' but to combat the ideology and practice that seek to overturn India's democratic order to establish a Hindu India.