This article is co-authored by Shanmukh, Saswati Sarkar, Dikgaj.
Introduction
The series has been documenting the abuse of certain ethnicities in the RSS-BJP ecosystem, by the leaders and media and social media thought leaders of the community. A roadmap and motivations for the set of articles was published in the first of the set of articles [1]. In the second article, we documented the abuse of the Bengalis in foul terms by those appointed to constitutional offices and statutory bodies by the BJP government [2]. In the third article, we examined the hatred exhibited by the BJP-RSS media and social media stalwarts towards the Bengalis [3]. In the fourth article, we examined the pejorative characterisation of Bengalis by the kith and kin of those high in BJP-RSS ecosystem [4]. Continuing in the series, in the current article, we examine the pejorative characterisation of Kerala by the BJP-RSS ecosystem.
What is the image that Kerala evokes to an Indic mind? Seat of Indic scholarship (Sanskrit, Vedas, Math), dances like Kathakali, colourful festivities like Onam, lush green nature like Periyar National park, the abode of majestic elephants and tigers, beaches like Varkala and Kovalam, glorious food. Yet, to the RSS mouthpieces, it becomes the `Godless country’ [5]. The attempt is to extinguish all of Kerala’s spiritual connect by damning them with their political choices – Communism. On a deeper level, we show the disconnect exhibited by the RSS mouthpiece with Hindu ethos outside their core of the Hindi belt (Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, parts of Bihar) and Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharasthra, that is, the North and West India.
Further, in the article, we show that the BJP-RSS has a deeply Abrahmic notion of Hinduism. It is ignorant of the core evolutionary and integrative ethos of Hinduism which enabled it to spread far and wide without any coercion, by integrating local customs everywhere and facilitating the coexistence of those customs that conflicted with each other. In contrast, just as fundamentalist Islam and Christianity seek to obliterate local customs, and languages, and replace those with Arabic equivalents, BJP-RSS ecosystem seeks to impose North-West Indian Hinduism and Hindi on all Hindus. It would be up in arms to defend real and perceived attacks against Hindu customs of, and only those of, the North West and Central India. It also defines Hinduism in terms of the mores of the North, Central, and West of India.
Its vision of a unified Hinduism is of a Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan, which correlates Hindi to Hinduism, just as fundamentalist Muslims would conflate Arabic with Islam. On the Hindi Diwas in New Delhi, the governor of Haryana and former BJP politician and Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Kaptan Singh Solanki mentioned that ``Hindi and Hindustan are synonymous. If you want to understand Hindustan then you must know Hindi.’’ [6]. He also opined that the identity of India is incomplete without Hindi. Similarly, Tarun Vijay, an RSS ideologue, former editor of the Panchajanya, and former Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand, opined that the “Hindi is not in danger. It is you who are in danger because your [Indian] identity is nothing without Hindi’’ [6]. These examples should serve to convince the views held by the thought leaders of the BJP-RSS vis-a-vis the rest of the culture of India.
We also note that just as Islamic law divides the world into Dar-ul-Islam (territory of Islam), Dar-ul-salh (territory of treaty) and Dar-ul-harb (territory of war), the BJP-RSS narrative divides India into Dar-ul-BJP (states ruled by BJP, alone or with allies), Dar-ul-BJP chance (states ruled by non-BJP allies, but those where BJP has a chance of coming to power, or the ruling dispensations generally cooperate with a central BJP government), and Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties (states where the BJP has no chance of coming to power, principally, Kerala, Tamizh Nadu and West Bengal). Incidentally, except in election times, the North East of India barely finds a mention in the BJP-RSS discourse, much though the BJP has little chance of coming to power in many states therein, simply because most of the BJP-RSS ecosystem is barely even aware of their existence, so its hard to place the North East in the above taxonomy. Nonetheless, whenever anything goes wrong in “Dar-ul-BJP’’, it is a minor aberration which has nothing to do with the ruling dispensation or the people therein. Whenever there are crimes in “Dar-ul-BJP chance’’, it is only the fault of the ruling dispensation. Whenever something goes wrong in Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties, it is the fault of both the people of the state and the ruling dispensations.
We highlight the above distinction through one recent example. BJP leader, Himanta Biswa Sarma has threatened the Tripura Chief Minister, Mr. Manik Sarkar with a deportation to Bangladesh or West Bengal or Kerala (that is, the Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties) post the upcoming assembly elections [7], [8], on the charges of killing of political activists of rival parties. Political rhetoric against opponents are but expected from parties during polls, and are to be defended against only by the respective affiliates. But, this characterization goes beyond in the sense that it is based on an ingrained ethnic and territorial contempt. First, note how the territories for the deemed deportation have been chosen, not neighboring Assam which now belongs to Dar-ul-BJP, but Kerala and West Bengal of the Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties, that is, the enemy territory. Also, note how along with West Bengal, Bangladesh, but not Pakistan, have been added to the list of territories where Mr. Sarkar would be exiled, the choice reflects the ethnic identity based mappings that come naturally to the BJP-RSS ecosystem as we are repeatedly showing. Together with the fact that BJP-appointed Governor of Tripura, Tathagata Roy, had abused Hindu Bengali refugees from Bangladesh as chuhas, the contempt and the deportation prescription may be intended for a wider target populace [2]. This is exactly why the contemptuous comment of BJP-RSS against Manik Sarkar deserves greater scrutiny, and we contrast his actions with those of the BJP-RSS governments at the center and different states, the contrast would also go on to reinforce the distinctions between the Dar-ul-BJP, Dar-ul-Left/Regional, which are so ingrained in the BJP-RSS ecosystem.
First note that lifelong RSS man and current BJP Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, has permitted massive rallies of an Islamist organization, the PFI, in his state. That the PFI is recommended for a ban by the NIA [9] is irrelevant. That even after this recommendation for a ban, the Maharashtra government permits them massive rallies in communally sensitive Aurangabad to spread the message that both Dalits and Muslims are victims of Hindus [10], is irrelevant too. Incidentally, Modi government is yet to enact the ban on the PFI. After all, the PFI kills lesser Hindus of Kerala (Dar-ul-Left/Regional) and Karnataka (Dar-ul-BJP chance, but located in South India and its current Congress CM Siddaramaiah has been persistently opposing PM Modi), who are expendable for the BJP-RSS. Then again, the Modi-government has cut a peace deal with the NSCN(IM) group [11] that has many forcible conversions [12], among other far more heinous crimes, to its credit. The Modi-government has refused to make public the terms of the peace agreement [13]. Also, the BJP has been allied with the NPF, in both Nagaland and Manipur. The NPF chief ministers have disavowed all sympathy to the Heraka and declared themselves good Christians [14]. Heraka, it may be mentioned, is a reformed Naga traditional religion, and was the faith of Rani Gaidinliu, among other resisters of British imperialism in Nagaland. Never one to err in its messaging, the BJP has sought to adopt her as its icon for the North East, but it does not hesitate to ally with those who disavow any allegiance to her indigenous faith [15]. It is also pertinent that Christianity is rapidly spreading in small towns of Vidarbha like Sironcha, Chandrapur, etc [16], all just a stone’s throw away from Nagpur, the headquarters of the RSS.
In contrast, it was the CPM government of Tripura under Manik Sarkar that uncovered the Christian terrorist links of the NLFT and produced the evidence concerning the involvement of the state’s Baptist Church with the separatist rebels. Manik Sarkar is on record stating that Tripura police had uncovered details of the alleged link after questioning a church leader. Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested with a large quantity of explosives [17]. It may not be a coincidence that the demography of Tripura is the only one in favour of the Indics in the North East. All the other states are rapidly losing Indics.
We now focus on one particular region of the Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties, Kerala, and show that BJP-RSS seeks to denigrate the Hindu ethos and the people there, much as in West Bengal, which constituted the focus of the last few articles. We have picked up the gauntlet for Kerala, because we have seen almost no Kerala BJP-RSS folk, similar to Bengali and other South Indian BJP-RSS folks, defend the attacks on their own ethno-religious identity. This is consistent with what Sitaram Goel observed many decades ago, “What was most revealing to me about the RSS people was that, by and large, they did not react to expression of any opinion on any subject except that about their organization (sangha) and their leaders (adhikaris). One could say anything one chose about Hinduism, or Hindu culture, or Hindu society, or Hindu history, without drawing any reaction from an average RSS man. He became warm or cold only when something favourable or unfavourable was said about his organization, or his leaders, or both. I wondered what sort of a Hindu organization it was. I expected the RSS to be alive to Hindu causes rather than to the reputation of its organization or its leaders.’’ [18] This reveals that BJP-RSS, particularly RSS here, brooks only one identity of its adherents, that of the RSS-identity, which obliterates their religious, national, regional and linguistic identities. The adherents learn to view their worlds through the RSS lens, thus, they hold their ethno-religious group in contempt for choosing to belong to the Dar-ul-Left/Regional, rather than the holy Dar-ul-BJP. This again reminds us of Islamist social constructs which allows for only the global-ummah identity, and which turns converts against their earlier communities. In contrast, an Indic mind allows the co-existence of multiple identities, religious, regional and linguistic, each reinforces, rather than competing with, the others. It therefore seems that in the guise of a Hindu organization, RSS has rejected Hinduism in all but name.
Section A: RSS discourse on Kerala
Section A.1: Denigration of the Hindu Ethos of Kerala
We show how RSS has institutionally denigrated the Hindu ethos of Kerala through falsehood and partial truths, in an article in its mouthpiece, Organiser [5]. In sum, there are so many errors in the article, by commission and omission, which we will document, that those come across less as mistakes and more as gross and mala fide distortions of the truth for ethno religious reasons and appears to be a hit job on the Keralite Hindus.
On a direct attack on the Hindu ethos of Kerala, the Organiser article states: “it has the highest number of youths of opposite sex living together without marriage ever since the UPA-Parliament enacted the legislation, viz, “The Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act, 2004” which for the first time in Bharat introduced the concept of living without marriage known as “Live-In-Relationship”, which was the brainchild of militant feminist and Bharat’s foremost communist ideologue, Indira Jaising, who is an iconic woman amongst the college-going girls of Kerala;’’
The castigation of Kerala for high rates of divorce and abundance of hetero-sexual live-in relationships is symptomatic of the Abrahamic orthodoxy of RSS. Vedic Hinduism accommodates 1) Gandharva Vivaha, in which couples who verbally commit to each other are considered wedded, 2) temporary sexual liaisons between consenting adults including children born of them (Vishwamitra-Menaka, Vikram-Urvashi, union of Satyavati with Parashar Muni leading to Vyas Dev, Jabal Satyakam), and 3) divorces initiated by women (Ganga deserted Shantanu after he dishonored his promise of never questioning her). Consistent with ancient Indic ethos, the matriarchial rules in Kerala permitted easy divorce and remarriage, and the matrilineal system prevalent in Kerala permitted women a large number of rights. So, Kerala drew its liberal social ethos from its ancient Indic traditions, rather than from Communism which has been conceived only a hundred years back. It was also the matriarchial custom prevalent both in Coorg and Malabar that excited the Islamist fury of Tipu Sultan : “From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused numbers of our warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter you must proceed in an opposite manner, dwell quietly and pay your dues like good subjects: and since it is the practice with you for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the field : I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and to be like the rest of mankind; and if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows to honour the whole of you with Islam and to march all the chief persons to the seat of Government.” pp. 717-718, [19]. The rules of divorce and remarriage were in Malabar (and other parts of Kerala) were always simple and it is this factor that has always excited the fury of the more conservative of our populace, whether it is Tipu or the Organiser. Thus, Kerala is Hindu, while Organizer is RSS.
We next show how the Organiser article understands the Indian nation in terms of that of North, West and Central India:
“In fact it is only in Kerala that the text book concerning the life and time of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was banned throughout the State by a government Notification. It is pertinent to state here that during my childhood pursuing my educational life at a Government High School, I had to study the life of Hindu saints, warriors and Kings like Raja Harish Chandra, Shivaji, etc. whose lives were centered around human nature of compassion, love, spirituality, nationalism, moral philosophy, vegetarianism, etc. However, those studies were removed from the syllabus of educational institutions funded by the government and in their places books pertaining to the life and time of public prostitutes [like “The Autobiography of a Sex Worker” By Nalini Jameela); the life and time of notorious thief (like “The Autobio-graphy of Maniyan Pillai, The Thief”) etc. were introduced.
Kerala, however, has no real State or Bharateeya national heroes. Its heroes were/are Marxist leaders of China, Russia, etc. and Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia. Presently none of the youths who were born after the Communist Government consolidated power in the State knows anything about the ancient spirituality, human values-based scriptures, folklores and civilisation as they were consistently deprived of these studies of virtues by all the successive governments in the State in the name of “secularism”.’’
The article is up in arms that Kerala has no Indic hero, and the Keralites do not study national hero’s like Harishchandra, Shivaji, whom the author grew up reading. The first assertion is a blatant denial of Kerala’s ancient Hindu history extending to the present, she is the land of Shankaracharya, she has also given birth to Ayyankali and Narayana Guru. The author also doesn’t mention that the “nation” rarely studies the above Hindu heroes from Kerala, or for that matter Hindu heroes from Karnataka, like the Vijayanagar kings, or those from Bengal such as Shri Chaitanya Dev, Sadhak Ramprasad, Bamakhepa, Bengal revolutionaries, etc. Nor are the revolutionaries from Andhra like Alluri Sitarama Raju, the Tamizh revolutionaries like VVS Aiyar, Vanchinathan, Subramanya Siva, etc, the Kannada freedom fighters like Rani Chennamma, Sangolli Rayanna, etc mentioned much in the “nation’’’s discourse. The author doesn’t mention studying them either. It is interesting that the author is exercised over the fact that the Keralites do not study Shivaji, although Shivaji’s career didn’t affect them much, but we are not given any inkling as to whether he studied the Vijayanagar kingdom, which held the Bahmani Sultanate at bay for 200 years, and whose defence the Keralites contributed to. The heroes the author mentions growing up reading are only from the North and West India. In contrast, Kerala seems to be celebrating not only its own heroes like Narayana Guru [20], but also non-Keralite Hindu philosophers like Vivekananda [21]
The article also makes a large number of assertions regarding the alcohol consumption, rationalist agitations, number of lost working hours, etc, but there is no data provided to supplement these assertions. Consequently, it becomes difficult to figure out how these assertions were arrived at.
The article repeatedly condemns Kerala for defying the sentiments of the majority citizens of the country, through its dietary choices and other political activism, which constitutes a clear attempt towards ethnic imposition:
“Rationalists NGOs regularly carry on street activism like the “Mangalsutra Burning”, “Beef Festivals”, etc. in total defiance of the sentiments of the majority citizens of the country.
The question, therefore, of beef being regularly served at the Kerala House canteen at the far-off New Delhi, in direct contempt of the popular sentiments of the Hindus of Bharat as a whole, the threat held out by the Communist-minded CM of the State of dragging the Delhi Police to the court, etc. are to be taken in the light of the factors which evolved the historic unusual non-vegetarian food preference of Keralites.
Similarly, with a view to wooing the Dalits of Kerala, EMS adopted various drastic steps for the appeasement of the Dalits. Thus, he described Mahatma Gandhi as a “Hindu Fundamentalist”. He fully agreed with the view of Kancha Illaiah, a self-proclaimed Dalit leader, that “Gandhi and his ‘Brahmin’ principles such as vegetarianism, swadeshi, cow protection, Brahmacharya and non-violence, etc. should be out-rightly shunned and discarded forever”. EMS also regularly visited the houses of Dalits and took part in their social functions at which dishes of beef were served which he partook affirming to them with his purported logic that “there is nothing wrong in eating beef when one can eat mutton’’
As for the rejection of Gandhian non-violence, it may be worth pointing out that plenty of non-Communist Hindus including Aurobindo Ghosh, Vinayak Savarkar and Subhas Chandra Bose rejected it. As for `Brahmacharya’, it is unknown if any Hindu organisations other than RSS have a fixation on it. The author seems to have a grouse with the meat eating in Kerala and illogically conjoins vegetarianism with Hinduism, though majority of the Hindus are non-vegetarians. As a coastal state, Kerala has always been a heavily non-vegetarian state, although beef is generally limited to very small segments [22]. Further, Hinduism is diverse enough to accept different traditions, without imposing one set on everyone. There seems no earthly reason to preach vegetarianism as a vital tenet of Hinduism, and indeed, this would reduce the diversity of Indic traditions. This is a very Abrahamic outlook, based on one set of customs. His repeated equation of Hinduism with vegetarianism, is typical in North and West India, particularly UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, while Hindu Shakta rituals in East India involve fish and meat. Subhas Bose has written about the ethnic discrimination he had experienced while traveling as a 17-year old student in North India: `` The first shock that I received was when, at an eating-house in Hardwar, they refused to serve us food. Bengalees, they said, were unclean like Christians because they ate fish. We could bring our plates and they would pour out the food, but we would have to go back to our lodgings and eat there. Though one of my friends was a Brahman, he too had to eat humble pie.’’ p. 80, [60]. Kerala is being castigated for offending the sentiments of the majority citizens in the country, by holding beef festivals. Note, the sentiments of the majority Hindus of Kerala doesn’t even figure in the consideration. So Kerala Hindus are expected to choose their norms, accord due respect to “majority” citizens of the country, not the majority Hindus of Kerala. This is a textbook instance of ethnic imposition.
Kerala is also being castigated because its Communist leader, EM Namboodiripad, who happens to be a Brahmin, regularly attends social functions of the Dalits, and consumes the beef dishes they offer rather than educating the Dalits towards relinquishing beef consumption. Specifically, is the accusation that EMS Namboodiripad did not try to change the customs of the Dalits whose homes he was visiting? The patronizing and presumption of superiority here is mind-boggling- the Kerala Dalits need to be educated to give up their custom of beef consumption, in deference to the norm of “majority” citizens in the “nation”, rather than that overwhelming majority letting the Kerala Dalits live by their customs. It is unclear why the author expects Namboodiripad to try and impose his customs on the Dalits who eat beef in Kerala. Or why some Kerala Dalit communities that have a tradition of beef eating would/should give up beef, just because it happens to be distasteful to the majority community (which is a bit ironical, considering that Dalits too are Hindu). Perhaps, the Dalits should have been educated through thrashing as in Gujarat [23]? It is also interesting to see that this `other-ing’ based on vegetarianism is a mirror image reflection of the Liberals `other-ing’ of vegetarians. Nandita Haksar writes, “I told Prabhawati that we, the Kashmiris of Delhi, also celebrate Shivarathri and even today, eat dishes made out of goat liver for breakfast on that day. I thought that this might build a bridge between us. But Sampat’s brother’s wife, Asha, looked at me with cold eyes and said, `We do not eat non-vegetarian food any more. We are vegetarians.’ Later, Sampat told me that she was a hardcore member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS.’’ Loc. 225, [24].
BJP-RSS ecosystem is up in arms to defend real and perceived attacks against Hindu customs of North West and Central India, but not those of the rest of India. In Kerala, the RSS has taken stands against the use of elephants in temple processions and also, the use of fireworks, in temple festivals [25]. The ecosystem is silent, and actually leading the defense of Tipu Sultan by having him glorified in a speech by the President of India, who happens to be a lifelong RSS man, while BJP is running the central government with a full-majority, and the government and the party are headed by lifelong RSS men like Modi and Shah [26]. Speaking out the truth on Tipu’s persecution is not a Hindu issue in BJP-RSS’ worldview, perhaps because Tipu persecuted the lesser Hindus, those of Kerala and Karnataka. In contrast, consider the concerted defense accorded to Jauhar. Jauhar was practiced only to very limited extent outside the North-West belt, and only to a very limited extent in Karnataka and Kerala, to the best of our knowledge. There is only one major Jauhar instance recorded in the history of Karnataka – the Kampili Jauhar in the time of Muhammad bin Tughluq, and there is no case of Jauhar known in Kerala, unless one counts the mass suicide of both men and women in Kozhikode, with the Samudhri Raja of Kozhikode setting fire to his own magazine and arsenal to escape humiliation at the hands of Haidar Ali. Sati has, likewise, been extremely rare in Karnataka and Kerala, though there are a few recorded instances, at least in Karnataka. Jauhar is not considered a badge of honor in Bengal, although Sati crept in at some point. Sati was forbidden through a reform movement led by Rammohan Roy, which constitutes one of his landmark contributions to Hindus, amidst his different acts of collusions with the British. Subsequently, or possibly from before, there has been no tradition of commemoration of the Sati ritual in Bengal, unlike the Sati cult in Rajasthan [27]. Rani Sati worship is particularly prevalent among the Marwari ethnicity, important temples dedicated to her can be found in Jhunjhunu and Shekhawati. But, BJP-RSS ecosystem is projecting and defending Jauhar in the name of Hindu honor.
Similarly, even during its growth phase in Bengal, the BJP-RSS ecosystem there calls for Hindu solidarity in the name of Rama [28], [29], not in the names of the principal deities of Hindu Bengal, Durga or Kali. The rallying call is Jai Shri Ram, not Jai Ma Durga, or Jai Ma Kali. Lifelong RSS man and the current President of West Bengal BJP, Dilip Ghosh, frequently describes local festivals such as Durga Puja in terms of the equivalents in the North and West of India, namely the Navaratri. While visiting ancient Kaali temples, he chants the Maratha War cry of Har Har Mahadev, not the Bengali Shakti call of Jai Ma Kali.
We do not however see the Presidents of the state units in the North, West, Central India relate the Hindu festivals there to those of Bengal or elsewhere in India.
As an aside, not all politicians in India are refined, but even in their crudity, those from BJP-RSS, but outside North, West and Central India, resort to Hindustani or British racist lingos, rather than those in their mother-languages. For example, RSS man and current West Bengal BJP President, Dilip Ghosh calls for a fight between Ramzada and Haramzada [30], RSS man, former West Bengal BJP President and current Governor of Tripura, Tathagata Roy, calls Hindu Bengali refugees from East Pakistan and Bangladesh, chuhas [2], Reshmi Dasgupta, wife of BJP ideologue, MP and member of Finance Minsiter Arun Jaitley’s inner circle, Swapan Dasgupta hurls British racist stereotypes on Bengalis [4]. In contrast, the politicians outside the national parties resort to local crudities when they must, eg, Mamata Banarjee’s `Pechone bansh’. The point we are arriving at is that the BJP-RSS politicos and their inner circles are rooted in Hindusthani or British ethos, more than those of their native lands, whereas, the politicians from the regional parties and even the local units of the Communist parties are rooted in their local ethos.
Interestingly, the Organizer article did not criticize Kerala Hindu society on perhaps the most legitimate ground, that of prevalence of casteism and caste conflicts. Kerala is not the exception in this regard, and indeed, the casteism in Kerala is less pronounced today than it is in most other places of India. But, the article is clearly not bashful of selectively targeting Kerala on any negative aspect. The reason why the Organiser does not criticise Kerala on casteism is because casteism is widely prevalent in North and West of India, and RSS grows and BJP wins through social engineering that exploits conflicts and bad-blood between different castes [31], [32], [33]. This is one principal reason why the East is not its stronghold yet, caste-bonds are weak, and votes almost never happen on caste lines. BJP’s recent victory in Assam and growth, albeit slow, in West Bengal can be attributed to the desperation of the local populace about Islamist onslaught. Its of course another matter that BJP would do nothing to provide them succour, even when it assumes power (case in point being Jammu), but that the populace discovers only after the party acquires power, and until then its Hindu messaging successfully deceives a desperate populace into considering it as a last resort.
Section A.2: Political Falsehoods about Kerala
RSS discourse on Kerala, as exemplified in the Organiser article, we have been discussing abounds in political falsehoods. To be fair, truth is a rarity in the political discourse of all sides in Indian, and perhaps global, polity. Nonetheless, in BJP-RSS discourse, the people of the Dar-ul-Left/Regional regions are vilified for their political choices, based on falsehoods and exaggerations regarding the malpractices of the parties they vote for. It is to counter the vilification of the people that we expose the political falsehoods in the Organiser article in question, which will also go on to show that BJP-RSS constitutes yet another political organization – no additional morality need be attributed to voting for it in preference to any other party.
The article claims the Communist cadre of Kerala are either indifferent or hostile to Hinduism: “If you happened to ask any common Hindu native of Kerala of Communist background regarding Hinduism, he/she would instantly respond to you by saying: `Oh! Religion is opium of the mass’’
While we would not harp on the actual doctrine of Communism, and not contest that the top level of visible Communists have often been openly anti-Hindu, but point out that the cadre tend to be very Hindu in belief, and regard their religion as something more than `opium of the masses’. Among other things, it is the CPM cadre that often undertake the Sabarimalai pilgrimage, including the Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan in 2017 [34]. Further, it is the Kerala CM who has been campaigning for a national pilgrim centre status for Sabarimalai [35]. In 1950, when the Sabarimalai temple was damaged in a fire, it was Govindan Nair of the (then united) CPI that campaigned on the investigation into the culprits of the arson and the Hindu sentiments involved therein, and then won the 1957 election on that basis [38]. Further, it has been recorded by Dilip Menon that, “The adherents of a supposedly atheist, or at least agnostic, creed were responsible for shoring up religion in the countryside [of Malabar].’’ p. 1, [36]. In his book, Dilip Menon has described the role played by the Communists (or those who went on to become Communists) in the self respect movements, which were based around temple building and worship of the lower castes in temples in the rural areas of Malabar. The CPM cadre base is drawn mainly from Hindu groups that have espoused the material and spiritual development of lower caste and lower class Hindus. Consequently, the Communists of Kerala have been anything but irreligious, far less anti-Hindu.
The Organiser article opines: “Kerala Marxist Chief Minister, VS Achuthanandan, openly declaring during the election campaign just prior to his assuming power in 2006: `It is the Government’s obligation to bring all the Mullahs and Madrassa teachers of Kerala on the pay-role of the Government’’. While it is certainly true that CPM has played its role in appeasement, it may be worth remarking that it was the former Kerala CM, Achuthanandan, who first highlighted the role of Love Jihad in 2010 [37]. This was well before the Love Jihad issue was espoused by the BJP.
The Organiser article falsely claims:“Kerala is the only State in the country which has a gory tradition of political annihilation, popularly known as “the game of toppling of governments”. Since the formation of the State and since the first communist government came to power in 1957, there were numerous instances of “formation of governments” mostly by political parties represented by the CPI (M) and intermittently by the IUML, President’s Rule, Indian National Congress, Praja Socialist Party, etc. till today, who upon coming to power on the political stage turn-by-turn on this toppling game remains seated for strange periods, ranging from few days to five years. Except one of two governments, none of them ever completed the prescribed term of office.’’ From 1991, all governments in Kerala have completed their full term. Even before that, many Congress governments completed their full term. It was CPM led governments that were arbitrarily subjected to president’s rule by the Centre. In fact, from 1982, governments in Kerala have been, as a rule, very stable.
The article accuses EMS Namboodiripad of wooing the IUML, and asserts “It is pertinent to state here that similar to the grabbing of world-wide attention on the formation of the first Communist Government in Kerala in the democratic Bharat, it was in Kerala in post-independence of the country, which brought the first Islamic rule by Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) under CH Mohammed Koya, a hard-core Muslim fundamentalist.’’ This conveniently, glosses over the fact that from the 1970s, continuously, it has been the Congress that has been in league with the IUML. In fact, the first (and only) IUML chief minister of Kerala, Mohammad Koya, was propped up by the Congress and the KEC, to keep out the Marxists from power in the late 1970s.
“It is a curious case of the CPI (M) workers belonging to Hinduism with its murderous violence-ridden ideologies of Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao attacking RSS professing ancient Sanathan Dharma and nationalist ideologies which one can never find in any human settlement at any point of time in the history anywhere in the world. It is precisely this reason that Kerala had become a fertile ground for the Islamic fundamentalism to entrench deeply in the social milieu of the State, the intensity and enormity of which has since then alarmingly grew in the state. Presently the State is regarded as the nursery of Islamic fundamentalism, financially and logistically supported by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.’’
While it is certainly true that there have been many clashes between the RSS and the CPM, the point of contention between them is rarely ever about religion. As the author himself acknowledges, it is (usually) Hindu CPM cadre that attack Hindu RSS cadre, usually for purely political reasons. Further, it must be seen that the RSS cadre are not helpless lambs being butchered by the CPM wolves. Both sides have slaughtered each other ruthlessly [39]. It is, further, worthwhile pointing out that the clashes between the CPM and the IUML (which often seem to take overt communal overtones) have been ignored by the author. Here are a few examples of clashes between the CPM and the IUML in the last few years [40], [41], [42], [43], [44]. In Nadapuram, the CPM cadre killed an IUML worker and told his mother to go to Pakistan [45]. In the Marad riots, many CPM workers were indicted by the Thomas Joseph inquiry into the riots [46]. Even if we ignore the clashes between the CPM and the IUML as purely political, there have been clashes aplenty between the CPM and the PFI, which is more an Islamist rather than an overtly political organisation, as evidenced here [47], [48]. Similarly, there have been clashes between the CPM and the SDPI, as may be seen here [49]. In 2012, the Congress government submitted to the High Court that the PFI was involved in the murders of 27 RSS and CPM workers [50]. Many CPM leaders, including the ex-Chief Minister, VS Achutanandan, have spoken of the dangerous activities of the PFI [51].
The Discourse of the Media close to BJP-RSS
As previously mentioned in the series, we will consider the discourse in the Swarajya Group, which is close to the BJP. Swarajya Magazine’s positions are mostly supportive of those of BJP at the Centre and at different states. Three of the four members of its editorial advisory board can be described as follows: 1) a BJP MP (Dr. Swapan Dasgupta), and (2) two high appointees of the BJP government at the centre, Manish Sabharwal, appointed as RBI Director, and Dr. Surjit Bhalla, appointed as the member of the Economic Advisory Council. More often than not, its views appear to be those of an unofficial mouth-piece of various BJP governments.
In the last few months, Swarajya has been publishing mostly negative articles about Kerala, regarding their development model [52], the worsening Hindu demographics [53], the murder of RSS cadre by CPM [54], etc. This is consistent with the BJP-RSS mindset that sees only negatives in Dar-ul-Left/Regional parties. In the context of the decline of Indic demography in Kerala, a few points are in order. The first and the foremost is that most of the conversions of the Indics occurred in Travancore and Cochin and much before there were any Communists on the scene there pp. 230-232, [55]. There are very few converts in the Communist dominated Malabar, where the few Christians are mostly remnants of the older Christians converted in Portuguese times or else, immigrants from Travancore during the British times. Further, after the rise of the Communists in Kerala in the late 1950s, the number of Christians as a proportion of the population has been declining every decade pp. 230-232, [55], mostly due to lower fertility of the Christians and the higher fertility of the Muslims. It may also be worth remarking that the Communist dominated Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram have had a far more stable demography pp. 231-232, [55] than the RSS stronghold of Kanyakumari in adjoining Tamizh Nadu p. 264, [55], where the number of Christians has risen hugely since 1951. Similarly, in RSS dominated Kasaragod tehsil, the Hindu population has already become a minority [16], while the adjacent Communist dominated Kannur has better Hindu demographics [16]. It may also be worth remarking that both Kasaragod and Kannur had similar demographics in 1951. Similarly, there have been very few conversions to Christianity in Communist dominated West Bengal, while the number of conversions in adjoining regions of Jharkhand and Odisha, which have a stronger BJP-RSS presence are far higher [56]. Finally, the Communist dominated Tripura and the once Communist dominated Imphal Valley have mostly retained their native faiths, with conversions to Christianity being far fewer, while BJP dominated W Arunachal Pradesh has far higher conversions to Christianity. [16]. In this context, recall the close connections of the Modi government and BJP with various Christianist parties and militant groups, as documented in the Introduction.
We now visit the Social media discourse of personnel associated with the Swarajya Group. We start with Prasanna Vishwanathahan, the CEO of Swarajya,
Its rather incredible that the Swarajya magazine CEO has forgotten Jammu and Kashmir that elects the brazenly Islamist parties like PDP and NC, or Nagaland electing Christianist parties like Naga People’s Front, or Mizoram electing Mizo National Front or even UP electing quasi-Islamist parties like SP. A more plausible conjecture is that this is an attempt to malign Kerala through falsehood, following the lead provided by RSS mouthpiece only a few days earlier. To be fair, he similarly derogatorily characterized Kerala even earlier:
Below, Mr. Vishwanathan will overlook that it takes immense courage to oppose a conservative Muslim custom in Muslim majority countries (particularly in Arab countries) that accord overwhelming primacy to Islam, and will reinforce ethnicity in negative connotation. We have not come across examples from Hindu mercantile communities who have been opposing Muslim customs while residing in Arabia (such communities have indeed resided in Arabia for a long time and their leaders have been close to despotic Islamist rulers of those [57]).
Another gem on Kerala will reveal the priorities of the ecosystem:
It is unclear if Kerala is a particularly fertile soil for generating trolls, our observation suggests as many or much higher number of trolls have emerged from some of the highly rated ethnicities in BJP-RSS’ pecking order. Be that as it may, one would expect that the CEO of a group associated with an intellectual endeavor would ponder on why the reviled trolls can not use their keyboards for producing some more coherent long-forms, or if it has to be short forms, why not Haikus? But of course the only meaningful pursuit even for supposed intellectual groups has to be startups.
Below, Mr. Vishwanathan abuses an entire state as “Commie hellhole’’ – the treatment reserved for Dar-ul-Left/Regional Parties:
In the tweets below, Mr. Vishwanatham abuses the state of Kerala invoking the scandals that have occurred in the state. Kerala is at fault.
In contrast, only the Congress Party, and not the Rajasthan model was ridiculed in the wake of the scandal involving sex, sleaze and the murder of Bhanwari Devi, even when the political rival of BJP was in power in Rajasthan, that is when Rajasthan belonged to Dar-ul-BJP-chance [58]. Further, Mr. Vishwanathan has been far more respectful of the state than Kerala, particularly after it became Dar-ul-BJP. Everything good comes from Dar-ul-BJP, or at least Dar-ul-BJP-chance, everything bad comes from the Dar-ul badlands of Kerala, West Bengal and other Communist states.
In our previous article [3], we pointed out that the tweep @UnSubtleDesi is associated with the OpIndia magazine, and appears to be close to the Honourable Union Minister, Smt. Smriti Irani. Consequently, it is in order to mention her slight on all the denizens of Kerala too.
Note almost all the above pejorative connotations appear in 2016 or after, that is just around and after the state democratically elected the Communist Party to run the state.
Interestingly, after we began our series on the ethnic hatred in the BJP-RSS ecosystem, the Swarajya has published an article on the achievements of the PN Panikkar [59], associating the good things in Kerala with the Modi Sarkar, praised Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer, whose position as Dewan was very controversial, and as usual damned the Communists. This discourse is the typical political propaganda, but much better than the stomach churning bashing of entire ethnicities that do not vote the BJP. On a different note, we have noticed that it is the habit of the BJP-RSS ecosystem to associate everything from Dar-ul-Left/regional parties that they can not discount, with the BJP-RSS and the wider India, and carefully edit out the Dar-ul-Left/regional parties parts. This is a mirror image of the Left which tends to strip Hinduism from everything good about India.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we would like to mention that we critiqued the Organiser article mainly for two reasons. First, the BJP-RSS folks of Kerala, who are supposed to defend their land, religion and culture, were conspicuous by their absence about this article which denigrated their land and their way of life, their customs and their traditions. That Kerala, which has one of the highest number of Shakhas and RSS followers, did not even put up a semblance of protest against this denigration of their own state by their own organisation, and that RSS members of other ethnicities, such as Bengalis, similarly meekly accept and even cheer-lead the denigration of their ethno-religious identity by the RSS, lead us to believe that once one becomes an RSS man, all identities other than the Sanghi identity are stripped away from them and they are no more the denizens of their own land. This is consistent with an Islamist rather than an Indic mindset which we have noted in the introduction.
Second, we have not found a mainstream (at least in the English media) criticism of the Organiser article from the Kerala Hindu perspective by the Left. This, we suspect, is precisely because the intellectual components of the Left have become so passionately anti-Hindu that a defence of anything Hindu is unthinkable for them. Never mind the fact that the Leftist intellectuals owed the defense to their Hindu base, which has elected them and allowed them to enjoy the perks of power. The Hindus have been the mainstay of the Left, and indeed, it is worthwhile pointing out that the Leftists have rarely (if ever) won from Muslim and Christian dominated areas, anywhere in India, including in their strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. That none of them even cared to defend the sentiments of their own base, which was being vilified by the Organiser speaks volumes about their connection to their base. The anti-Hindu intellectual and parts of political leadership of CPM conducts beef fests, but doesn’t dare conduct pork fests. No wonder, then, that the CPM is dying everywhere, since they have lost touch with their Hindu base. Its end is probably nigh – the red bastion of West Bengal has fallen, Tripura is under siege, and as we speak, its opponents are gaining strength in Kerala. The decimation of the Left will be a shame, for no one will be left to espouse the cause of the Indics of states outside the North, West and Center of India, even to the limited extent that they did, as our documentation reveals. Yet, there is probably a silver lining in this cloud too, as a genuine Indic Left, that draws inspiration from Indic resistance against different invaders, espouses the cause of deprived Indics including against aggression by Islamist and Christianist forces, can rise, perhaps under a different name, from the ashes of the current anti-Indic Left leadership and intelligentsia which has outlived its utility for the Indics.
References
[1] https://sringeribelur.wordpress.com/2017/12/09/the-social-evil-of-ethnic-bias-in-bjp-rss-ecosystem-introduction-and-road-map/
[4] https://sringeribelur.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/the-cowardly-bengalis-and-the-deleted-tweets/
[5] Surendra Nathan, “God’s Own Country or Godless Country?” Organiser, November 2015 http://organiser.org//Encyc/2015/11/9/Kerala—God-s-Own-Country-Or–Godless-Country-.aspx
[6] http://www.ptinews.com/news/8276538_To-understand-Hindustan
[9] https://theprint.in/2017/09/13/ban-keralas-pfi-role-acts-terror-nia-tells-home-ministry/
[12] http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/buddhists-allege-nscnim-threat/624612/
[16] Census of India, 2011 http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-01.html
[17] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/717775.stm
[18] http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hibh/ch9.htm
[19] Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, Vol. 3
[24] Nandita Haksar, The Many Faces of Kashmiri Nationalism.
[27] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_Sati
[28] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/rss-vhp-plan-mega-ram-navami-celebrations-in-west-bengal/
[33] http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/after-lingayats-now-vokkaligas-want-separate-religion-tag-66700
[36] Dilip Menon, “Caste Nationalism and Communism in South India’’
[38] https://www.telegraphindia.com/1140406/jsp/frontpage/story_18161069.jsp
[51] https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/in-gods-own-country/268143
[54] https://swarajyamag.com/magazine/the-unreported-pogrom-in-kerala
[55] AP Joshi, MD Srinivas, and JK Bajaj, “Religious Demographics of India”
[56] http://indiafacts.org/tribal-regions-central-india-rapidly-christianized/
[58] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bhanwari-devi-murder-case-top-10-facts-469399
[60] Subhas Chandra Bose, “An Indian Pilgrim’’.