Ram Puniyani
Posted October 1, 2000 

  He 'advised' the minorities that they could not build National identity on the basis of religion, stating that attempts to build nationality on the basis of faith had not worked anywhere. Sane words indeed. But probably they need to be followed by the organization whose chief he himself is. RSS right from beginning has made religion as the base for national identity while a majority of Indians preferred to adopt Indian as the National identity and based their religious identity on the faith they practiced. Barring the communalists of Muslim League, who could mobilize a section of elite Muslims and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS combine who could spread this vicious ideology amongst a section of elite Hindus, most of the Hindus, Muslims and people belonging to different communities followed the politics of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. This politics rejects the notion that the nations are based on faith. This politics does not reject religion as one of the identities but gives primacy to Indian identity with the result that most of the Indians gave overwhelming response to them and even in the electoral arena their politics swept the polls and set the tone for the Secular Democratic India.

 In contrast Muslim League and Hindutva ideologues believed in the two Nation theory, as for them Religious communities form the Nations. Muslim League felt that since Muslims are a separate Nation they should have Pakistan, while the Hindutva ideologues asserted that since this is  Hindu Nation, people of other religions should remain subordinate to the Hindus. Bhai Parmanand a leader of Hindutva politics articulated it, "Mr. Jinnah argues that there are two nations in the country..... If Mr. Jinnah is right & I believe he is, then the Congress theory of building common nationality falls to ground. This situation has got two solutions.  One is the partition of country into two & the other is to allow Muslim state to grow within the Hindu State" (Presidential speech of Mr. Paramanand at the annual Convention of Hindu Mahasabha, 1938).  Even RSS and its progeny have been repeatedly asserting about this being a Hindu Rashtra, Hindu Nation. They have been using faith as the National identity as the base of their politics. That belief of theirs' explains so many of their actions like centrality of Ram Temple campaign in their political mobilization. That belief of theirs also explains the lack of certain actions like aloofness from the freedom struggle, which led to the formation of India, in which the identity of nation does not derive from anybody's faith. It may surprise many of us but Hindutva ideologues blackened pages after pages in criticizing the Anti-British struggles, they were critical of the freedom movement on the ground that it is a 'mere' anti-British movement and it cannot lead to formation of National spirit (THEIR national spirit i.e. Hindutva). Though today many of them are trying to take the credit for RSS participation in Freedom Struggle in reality they looked the other way when all our freedom fighters were rotting in jails or were facing the British bullets and batons on the streets.

 Now as a demonstration of double standards RSS boss is advising the minorities not to build their national identity around their religion (which any way most of them don't!), while sticking to the religion based nationalism: Hindu Rashtra for his own followers.

 In this society we live with multiple identities at different levels, and each of those have their own importance and relevance. While the world is moving towards a global village and even the identity as world citizens is vaguely visible, the primary identity in the current times is definitely that of a Nation state i.e. that of being an Indian in our context. The other identities of religion, region, gender, language, profession etc. have their own importance and place. What Mr. Sudarshan needs to learn is that already most of the Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others, unlike RSS and its progeny do not build their National identity around religion?

 These double standards are very motivated. For their own self, faith is THE basis of National identity. But for minorities different yardsticks are being prescribed. As recently the same person has also gone on to say that all those living in this country are Hindus. Also in a similar tone, in the new found assertion of post Babri demolition phase, the then President of BJP Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi had dictated that, as all of us are citizens of a Hindu Nation, we ALL should use the suffix Hindu to our religious identity. As per him Muslims should call themselves as Ahmadiya Hindus and Christians should call themselves as Christi Hindus. Of course Hindus need not call themselves as Hindu Hindus. This once again shows Sangh Parivar aim to ensure the total subjugation of all Indians into the
 cultural paradigm dictated by them.