CAN LIES AND UNTRUTHS RESHAPE INDIA?

Mukesh Devrari   

It is good to have nationalism in newly carved out states, but it is grossly wrong to use lies and untruths and twisted history to mislead about the greatness of the past. RSS and its ideologues are ravaging the modern Indian history. They are giving new twists and turns to thoughts of our great leaders of the past. Unfortunately, they also have great acceptance among the youngsters who have no exposure to social sciences beyond school days.

In the absence of access and exposure to correct history, youths pursuing disciplines other than social sciences do not have a tool to deal and make sense of right-wing propaganda. Recently Indresh Kumar, member of the national executive of RSS visited Dehradun and delivered a speech in Graphic Era Hill University in a seminar organized on national security. He said many good things, but also many baseless things. This author dismisses some notions narrated by RSS ideologue in his speech.

He said, “Mahatma Gandhi did not deliver any speech after independence because he wanted one India, not truncated India. Gandhi compromised with two nation theory. If he would have declared fast unto death, The British government and Congress party would not have dared to sign the partition plan. Nehru and other Congress leaders pressurized Gandhi to remain silent. He buckled under pressure.”

RSS ideologue conveniently ignored that Jinnah and his direct action day (call for communal riots by Muslim League) type of events would have resulted in an unparalleled blood bath in the history of mankind. Jinnah and other Muslim leaders were not ready to compromise. They were seeking a very weak centre or complete partition. Jinnah was never very fond of non-violent and peaceful methods to achieve political objectives. He would have gone to any extent. His direct action day resulted in the large scale killings of Non-Muslims in the Muslim majority areas. In retaliation, many Muslims were also killed in communal riots.

It will be an injustice to Congress and Nehru to say that they willingly accepted partition. In fact, Congress was forced to accept the partition by the circumstances of that period. Secondly, the Muslim League was asking for the weak union. In that case, Balkanization of India was almost a certainty. Even with a strong centre, India is facing difficulty at so many places today.

RSS also rewriting the roles and values held by Dr B. R. Ambedkar. According to RSS ideologue, “Ambedkar’s greatness lies in the fact that he refused to accept Islam and Christianity. He did not want to lose Indian culture. That’s why he went for indigenous religion, not for the foreign one. The British government wanted to divide India into three parts. First, Hindu dominated the state. Second, Muslim dominated state and third is Christian states with Dalit, SC, ST and OBC communities. But they could not find the leader of the third group. Ambedkar refused to become the leader of the third group. Christians wanted to convert all lower caste Hindus.”

This argument seems impossible in the face of the facts. In their 200 hundred years rule, the British government did not bother much about the religion of their Indian subjects. If they would have decided to change the religion of people of this land, they could have easily done it. It is only a conspiracy theory. In fact, a separate homeland for untouchables was a threat to Congress to mend its ways and care more about the interests of marginalized groups. It will not be totally correct to put the entire blame of partition on the British government. Muslim League successfully mobilized Muslims on this issue. The British government did not have perfect control over the evolution of political forces in India.

The list of right-wing lies is long.

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