"No Death Of Communal Organisations"
                                                --Des Raj Goyal

Des Raj Goyal, editor of Secular Democracy, has since long been a vehement critic of
religious revivalist organisations. His book, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, published after
the emergency, is one of the most comprehensive studies on the ideology and conduct of the
ASS. He was, interviewed in Delhi by Factsheet.

On the role of communalism in Indian society and politics:

"Communalism, as we see it today, is really a consequence of the freedom movement as it
developed when the past had to be glorified and had to be integrated into the national
mainstream. If today politics 15 based on exclusivist communal mobilisation or on a
contractual integration of various communities, then we have to consider that the freedom
movement itself has been responsible for this.

"I would like to see communalism as the manifestation of various primordial sentiments: take
for instance how neighbourhood groups, which at their extreme, lead to regionalism; kinship
groups lead to casteism; and religious groups lead to communal uprisings. This is bound to
happen in the absence of a vigorous scientific thrust in our society.

"Let us see how the present situation has come about. Right from the sixties there
has been a major swing towards the right. In the 1967 election it was the right which
asserted itself. Now, Mrs. Gandhi who had seemingly broken away from the right, after
1969 has never organised her party along secular lines. In the period following the Congress
split, she gave the call and the nation responded to her populism but no one was clear as to
how genuine social redistribution would take place under the new circumstances. For
example, the nationalised banks were supposed to be instruments of structured change,
but no one considered how they would prop up new sectors of development or how would
they redistribute capital in an egalitarian manner. We therefore had a situation where
increased bureaucratisation took place side by side with a capture of the state apparatus
by an individual and not by an organisation.
 

"Now all the other parties are modeling themselves on Mrs. Gandhi's party, bearing
top-heavy names and very little grassroot organisation. They are all urgently in
search of a mass-media other than print which will enable them to reach out to the 'masses',
without looking at social groups as other than consumers or voters. This is authoritarianism.
It is a necessary backdrop to our understanding of communalism.

"As a result there has been a smoothening of definitions. Even the Bharatiya Janata Party,
inspite of its basically communal motivation, is able to adopt a secular veneer. It faces no
threat from the democratic process, in fact it is using this to propagate its own position.

"If today, communal issues are somehow seen as more realistic by certain sections than
secular issues, there can be no other reason than that there is no force which is able to
articulate the secular needs of the society, whereas there is no dearth of communal
organisations".

On the RSS and allied organisations:

"For 50 years now the RSS has concentrated single-mindedly on developing a cadre
that is hardworking, devoted, fanatical and impervious to outside thinking, and
most of all, remarkably dynamic in implementing whatever plan is given to them.
This cadre has issued out into society under the concept of the powerhouse--- the
headquarters and the substation--- the shakha. There is no question of a political party
like the BJP using the RSS; it is exactly the other way round.

"Along with the BJP, and its work among Harijans and tribals, the RSS has received
feedback on the new requirements of the cadres. In the sixties and the early seventies,
there was a tactical organisational shift where the maximum concentration was on building
up student cadres--- the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)--- and trade union
cadres too--- the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS). By the mid-seventies, this led to a
situation where the shakha become less important and consequently the inflow of school
children into the RSS was reduced. Therefore, from the late seventies, we can see another
campaign --- setting up of schools, kindergarten classes and even nurseries. This has been
seemingly spontaneous  and not according to any plan, but the names usually are the same:
Rashtriya Shiksha Samiti, Shishu Mandir, Geeta Shiksha Samiti and so on. In the Janata
movement, all these came together under the generic name of Vidya Bharati.

"Their latest organisation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has to be seen in the light of the
re-orientation that took place in their thinking during the Janata period. The V HP was
formed in 1964, and was supported by Gulzarilal Nanda, then home minister. The areas
they took up were in north-eastern India, Assam, Manipur etc, where they functioned in
collaboration with the Ramakrishna Mission. Their main effort was to Hinduise the tribal
areas and to integrate them into their areas of control.

"Today, one can see a dual role of the VHP- of injecting a communal orientation into political
negotiation, which they began doing after the Janata period when the RSS realised that
their davs in power, and of actual field work as they have been doing in Assam,would not last.

"In Assam, they were in collaboration with Marwari tea-garden owners. The marwaris, who
have always had to justify their presence in Assam have always been at the receiving end of
agitations, whether in the question of refineries, or the language issues etc. In 1978-79, there
was a new wave of agitation, but this time the Marwaris were not at the receiving end at all.
First it was anti-Bengali, which the RSS and the V HP have now successfully converted into
anti-Muslim fury. Since 90% of the refugees that have come from East Pakistan have been
Hindus, in 1978-79 the RSS gave a slogan distin- guishing refugees,that is the Hindus,from
the infiltrators who were obviously the Muslims. So now, after the election there, the
violence has turned anti-Muslim, and the entire atmosphere has been communalised,
which is exactly what the VHP always tries to do. This is, I think, a growing trend, and
we must watch it carefully".

On Communalism in the South:

" I think the RSS has grown tremendously in Kerala.   It has really thrived on the Muslim
League there and on the Moplahs, who were supposed to be anti-Hindu.

" When Mallapuram district was made a separate district in the Malabar, and it was
obviously a Muslim majority district, this was made much of as a 'gain' for Muslims
although it was purely administrative measure.  Then in Kerala, the RSS captured the
devasthanam movement (temple lands) of the Brahmins and the Nayars.  These have
been the ways the RSS has grown, particularly in Kerala.

"In Tamil Nadu, the attempts of the DMK towards an anti-BrahmIn caste mobilisation
came up against difficultIes when the Brahmins made common cause with other upper
castes. They have used issues like these, as also the fishermen's agitations in Kanyakumari,
the anti-Christian feeling there, and the Meenakshipuram conversions last year. In short,
wherever a communal situatIon has existed, the ASS has not been slow to take it up.

"They have had literally hundreds of conferences in the south-- 'Hindu Ekata sammelans'
as they would call them. They have had about 100 in Karnataka itself in the last few years.
The idea is to build small, almost autonomous organisation in every state, orient groups of
20-25 people properly and then leave them on theIr own".

On the possibility of a Muslim communal reaction:

"I certainly see a very assertive Muslim communalism emerging. Since the demand for a
separate state Is no longer possible, the demand has changed to one for reservations.
The problems are that the communal Muslim sectIon does not artIculate Muslim aspirations in
secular terms; all they really seek is a slIce of the national cake for themselves.

"Till 1960, the Jamaat-i-Islami was almost dormant. Now, although it is numerically strong,
it is a major component of Muslim communalism which exerts a very large influence on the
community. One of the consequences has been that organisations competing for a
following have been gIving more and more communal slogans, and thus the influence of
traditionally nationalist organisations like the Jamat-ul-Ulema has reduced .
 

"The rise of an organisation like the Ittehadul Muslimeen in Hyderabad is interesting in this
context.  This is an out-and-out fascist organisation. It began with the support of the Nizam,
and today glorifies the Adil Shahi dynasty. The classes who support it are either the old
Nawabs, a decadent feudal order who are on the point of becoming some kind of lumpen, or
poor Muslims who live in slums. The Ittehadul Muslimeen began the Mulkigeir-mulki
(sons of the soil versus foreigners) when Hyderabad was made part of Andhra Pradesh,
and today it has developed a complete hold on the old city through its programmes.
No one fights them as party. In 1978 they had an adjustment with the Congress (I), and
now they had an understanding with the Telegu Desam.

"There is no movement at all really among Muslims for a secular orientation. Rather is often
the other way round. When someone like Syed Shahabuddin, who is basically a secular
person, tries to reinstate himself within a communal thrust he is only leading Muslims into
a blind alley.

"After Assam, Muslims have begun coming together. Mrs. Gandhi's role really seems to be
that of a Hindu leader best prepared to extend protection to Muslims. She takes an organisation
like the VHP under her umbrella, not overtly but by always staying away from dealing a mortal
blow to communal forces It is in this way that she keeps it alive while publicly condemning it".