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Bajrang dal - a threat to secular order, a
step towards fascism
By Syed Shahabuddin
The Union Government has so far
maintained absolute silence on the recruitment drive by the Bajrang Dal
and on the camps organized by it in various parts of the country to train
its volunteers in the use of arms. One wonders if the Union Government
supports the formation of what looks like a ‘people’s militia’ to
perform the national duty to defend the national territory against foreign
aggression and to counter the espionage and subversive network woven
across the country by the hostile forces, particularly the omnipresent and
omnipotent ISI of Pakistan and in the process to identify and punish its
agents and sympathizers ‘who use the Masjids and the Madrasas as their
haven and shelter’. This would mean legitimizing the oppression of the
Muslims!
But, notwithstanding the ‘nationalist’ intention of the Bajrang Dal,
no government can abdicate its own responsibility for national security
and defence and ‘privatize’ it.
If a democratic government finds the armed forces and the paramilitary
forces inadequate to deal with aggression and infiltration, it may, in a
situation of crisis, itself raise a volunteer corps to supplement the
regular forces but such a corps operates under the official command and it
is open to all able-bodied patriotic citizens, irrespective of religion or
race or language.
But the Bajrang Dal was created by the Sangh Parivar, more particularly by
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, with a communal and criminal intent. Its object
and purpose has been to terrorize the religious minorities into
acquiescence, silence and inaction and generally to create a climate of
fear among the progressive sections of the people so that they remain
silent spectators of their persecution. It came into existence when the
VHP hit upon the ‘liberation’ of three ‘Hindu shrines’ by planning
and take over and eventual demolition of the Babari Masjid, the Gyanvapi
Masjid and the Shahi Idgah Masjid in Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura
respectively. Vinay Katiyar, a swayamsevak and BJP activist, who later
became an MP from Faizabad was its founder.
To be fair to Bajrang Dal, it is not the only private militia in the
country. Nor is it the first. There were militias even before
independence. On the eve of the partition some of them indulged in street
fighting, stabbings and killings – under the excuse of protecting their
co-religionists. In the Punjab we had the Muslim National Guards, the
Khalsa Dal and the RSS. We had the Khaksars in many places and the
Razakars in the erstwhile Hyderabad State which threatened to plant their
flag on the Red Fort! We always had the RSS with its daily Shakhas which
quietly trained its members in the martial arts but, what is more
important, brainwashed them into dividing the people between ‘we’ and
‘they’ and implanted a sense of historic wrong waiting for the Hindu
upsurge to right them. After independence, we also had the Shiv Sena which
has now become respectable enough as a political party to form the
government in Maharashtra and later to form part of the ruling coalition
at the Centre. But the memories of its street role are still etched in the
people’s memory, particularly among its original victims – the Tamils,
the Muslims and non-Maharashtrians in general.
But there is also the left side of the coin. We had any number of Maoist
groups operating throughout the country – a fallout of the Telengana
Rebellion which failed. Naxalites and post-naxalite groups have mushroomed
since then. Even today in parts of A.P., Jharkhand and Bihar, Maoist
factions – call them People’s War Group or Maoist Coordination Centre,
not only flourish but run a parallel administration – dispense
‘justice’, impose taxes and control development funds and even direct
official machinery. There are of course Caste Senas galore, particularly
in Bihar and UP. We also had the Adam Sena established by Ahmad Bukhari in
his younger days, it is said, with the support of the then MOS Arun Nehru.
We have recently heard of Ali Sena, a poor cousin, judging by its turn out
to protest against ‘Ghadar’. There was also Ram Vilas Paswan’s Dalit
Sena which threatened to supply arms and give training to the Dalits under
attack.
Whatever their origin, the Senas are a threat to a democratic system. A
democracy has no place for private militias. No government worth its salt
can abdicate its responsibility or share it with private militias for
defending the country, for catching spies and for punishing subversives.
Both Vajpayee and Advani fully realize it. Then why are they sleeping over
the Bajrang Dal? Why haven’t they taken notice of its recruitment drive
and training programme despite innumerable public and private reminders on
the subject?
Is it because the BJP they lead is the political arm of the Sangh Parivar?
Because they are themselves good Swayamsevaks and thus linked with the
Bajrang Dal or its parent the Vishwa Hindu Parishad? Is it because they
are in sympathy with its ideological orientation, its political objectives
and its social purposes? It is because under ‘family pressure’, they
cannot lift a finger against the Bajrang Dal and have to look the other
way at all their unlawful doings – whether it is ransacking art
galleries, digging up cricket pitch, stopping film shootings, disturbing
public functions, harassing innocent citizens, attacking shrines and
places of worship and educational institutions?
This also explains why Vajpayee, Advani and Co. have also allowed freedom
of the land to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for its mass mobilisaiton
campaign, whose announced object is to incite the gullible Hindu masses
commit an unlawful act - the construction of the proposed Mandir on the
disputed site in Ayodhya in March, 2002, law or no law!
There are already enough fallen leaves on the ground to indicate the onset
of the storm of Fascism in our country. The RSS itself was inspired by the
‘brown shirts’ of Hitler and the ‘green shirt’ of Mussolini. The
Bajrang Dal is but the ‘desi’ variety of the Stormtroopers of Nazi
Germany, who knew no law and imposed their will on the hapless citizens,
beginning with the Jews and ending with all non-Nazis with the connivance
of the powers that be.
The secular and democratic forces must stand up and resist the advance of
the fascist forces, before it is too late. They must unitedly confront it
and thus give heart to the people and the institutions they seek to
destroy. They must endeavour to maintain the social environment of
goodwill and fraternity which they seek to shatter and launch a counter
offensive to push their powerful patrons out of the corridors of power,
into the dustbin of history, once and for all. They must save India –
its Democracy, its Secular Order, its Rule of Law and above all, its
People, from the clutches of the demons of Fascism.
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