WHY DO COMMUNISTS OPPOSE THE RSS?

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded on Vijayadashami, 27 September 1925. (Interestingly, the officially recorded date of the founding of the Communist Party of India is 26 December 1925!) The founder of the RSS, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgawar, was a Congressman. The objective of this organisation came from an understanding that ‘values’ always decay over time. Societies that keep their values alive do so by escaping the process of decay by a powerful process of regeneration. That was what the founder of RSS, Dr.Hedgewar wanted to do with the organisation. The perpetual rebuilding, of Hindu community, to enable each generation to discover the living elements in its own culture (the “usable past” as T H Eliot wrote) and leaders who could assist in that rediscovery in the Hindu community which while trying to create a generous cultural space for all immigrants to our ancient land, had allowed our own inheritance to be relegated to a peripheral role. It was unquestionably clear to ‘Dr’ and his band of young and educated disciples that the metaphysical invocation of India’s diversity cannot serve the purpose of this national rejuvenation. History stands testimony to the fact that Hinduness is a movement and a growing tradition truly reflecting the uninterrupted life of this nation. It is the raison d'être of Bharat. In short, Hinduness is the selfhood of Hindustan evolved and developed through centuries. It is the vital force that keeps the nation going and doing. It belongs to all the children of soil without any discrimination. It enters one's inner being as a legacy and not as a choice. It creates in every child born in this land a sense of belonging to the nation. In other words, an individual develops into a national by inheriting Hinduness. The singular becomes the collective. A fierce commitment to nation-building, loyalty to Mother India and to reviving and nurturing is civilisational values were the obsessive concerns of the RSS. For this ‘Hindu unity’. Hindu here was a term that included all faith groups with Indic roots!

Before we go to the Communist movement, let us go to the Congress Party. What was the purpose of Congress? Founder WC Bonnerjee explained - "British viceroy Dufferin felt that it would be in the interest of BRITISH rulers that Indian politicians should meet yearly to discuss how the administration could best be improved and British rule stabilized." That it evolved and became the “be-all and end-all” of the Freedom struggle was an evolution....

What was the background of the Communist movement in India? The Communist Party of India was inspired by the Russian Revolution. It had its roots in the erstwhile Soviet Union. The party was born in Tashkent in 1920 as the brainchild of M.N. Roy. Some British Communists and M.N.Roy inspired a group of young Indians, who were great admirers of Marxism and the Russian revolution to set up in India an organization to spread the Marxist ideology. This organization came formally into existence on 26 December 1925, and was named as the Communist Party of India. Shortly after, the CPI was recognized on Roy’s advice, as a branch of the COMINTERN (Communist International). Roy was the founder of Mexican Communist Party.

So Communism in India was born under the sign of internationalism. The project of the world revolution did not recognize national boundaries. (It is funny to see Indian communists today positioning themselves as great protectors of national sovereignty!) Indian communists have always had a very uncomfortable relationship with nationalism. Their behavior throughout India’s existence as an independent nation does not exactly hold up the comrades in an edifying light. From the British Communist Party’s influence they went to Soviet Communist influence and from there, most of them went to the Chinese Communist Party. “Stalin’s mustache is the mustache” & “Russia varanam, Russia varanam” (Russia has to come) to "Chiner chairman amar chairman" (“Chairman Mao is our Chairman”)!

They had supported Muslim demand for a Muslim ‘Home Land’! In 1948, within a few months of India becoming independent, the CPI under the leadership of B.T. Randive launched the line that this freedom was fake (yeh azadi jhooti hai), and argued that the situation in India was ripe for an armed revolution. They tried it in Telegana region of old Madras State, and also in Punnapra-Vayalar in the then Travancore State; and failed in both places. They supported the Sikh’s demand for Khalistan, though Khalistanis hated irreligious Communism! They tried to whitewash the Mopla Riots of 1921 in Eranad taluka of Kerala and their government gave the remaining killers of Hindus pensions as “Freedom Fighters” to win Muslim votes. As early as 1942, a Muslim member of the central committee of the Communist Party of India asked its Muslim members to join the Muslim League in Punjab. One should understand that it was not opportunism. It is more because of the intuitive understanding of the synergy between Marxism and political Islam as totalitarian movements, which while making use of democratic polity, could strangle the same when they got their hands on power.... In 2006, the same year Kerala banned the movie Da Vinci Code, Frederick Forsyth made an insightful observation on Kerala in his Al Qaeda-based thriller, The Afghan: “Once a hotbed of Communism, it has been a particularly receptive territory for Islamist terrorism".

The Communist slogan "Inquilab Zindabad" is credited to Hasrat Mohani. (It was actually a straight lift from "Viva la revolution" (long live revolution) used during French Revolution. Hasrat Mohani is often painted as an "Indian freedom fighter". A look into his history dispels such notions. Hasrat Mohani became a member of Jinnah's Muslim League and actively campaigned for Pakistan in the 1945-46 provincial elections which decided Pakistan. He was the star campaigner for Muslim League in UP. After Partition, he stayed back as a Communist leader (!) like many others and expressed no regrets.

The work of RSS during the days of partition is described in the book ‘Now It Can Be Told’ by A N Bali. Late Prof. Balraj Madhok, a Jan Sangh MP was the chief organizer of RSS in Jammu and Kashmir and he has written how RSS was left to hold the fort when Pakitan attacked the Kingdom which was yet to join India, as the Indian Army arrived only after the kingdom's accession to the Union of India was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh. Similarly, in the liberation of Dadara, Nagar and Haveli, and Goa, the RSS was at the forefront of the agitations!

In 1962, when the Sino-Indian border conflict occurred, a section of communists, among whom EMS Namboodiripad was prominent, chose to uphold the cause of China and portrayed India as the aggressor. The government threw several communist leaders in prison. V S Achuthanandan then a Central Committee member, was in Thiruvananthapuram Central Jail and mooted the idea of donating blood for the jawans and contributing money from the sale of prison rations saved by inmates to the defense kitty of the government, actually to blunt the campaign accusing the comrades of being Chinese agents. But the party opposed it, and senior party leaders scowled at Achutanandan and he dropped the idea. But in 1965 a party worker filed a formal complaint with the leadership about Achuthanandan’s ‘anti-party activities’. A probe panel was formed, which found Achuthanandan guilty, and by the end of that year, the Kerala committee ratified the findings of the panel: that Achuthanandan’s approach was anti-communist, and he should be demoted from the Central Committee to the Branch level!

Post-1989 (since the collapse of the USSR) most communist intellectuals have turned mercenary, offering their services to the highest bidder! They favor group rights, identity politics, perpetual inter-caste/interreligious grievances, the flouting of laws that don't conform to their own political preferences, a bloated government that intrudes upon every facet of individual life, a socialist economy, and raging intolerance for anyone who holds an opposing political view. The systematic debasement and criminalization of public life in Kerala and West Bengal (for 34 years continuously!) where normal politics has been replaced by crude attempts to impose single-party dominance.

Their electoral performance during the two last General elections in the country is known to all. Communists will continue to hemorrhage voters among the ‘working class’. Hence the Communists use the new argument against elected governments (when they aren’t the ones elected!) “Hitler himself came to power through the process of elections and established legal procedures!” Modi, Trump included!

So, given its track record, the Communists’ attempt to see themselves as protectors of India’s national sovereignty, Constitution, and democracy is a disgrace. Communists in India have acted, at critical periods, at the behest of the Soviet Union or China. In so doing, communists have sacrificed India’s national interests.

Right now, what is going on? Those who had, in utter disregard of the appeal of Islamism which led to the creation of Pakistan, and has fuelled the growth of separatist consciousness and fundamentalism, indulge Muslim communalism in contemporary India on the ground that this is the consequence of fear psychosis among minorities. This identity-politics mindset has been used as the raw material of public policy by Congress party and Communists in power, which has not led to increased harmony between separate demographic groups. Without exception, it has increased intergroup hostility and violence! With assistance from the mainstream media, Communists and the Left-liberal combine has been peddling a narrative of supposed widespread hate crimes against Muslims, Dalit, fuelled by the election of BJP-NDA, as part of a continuing effort to delegitimize Modi government and attack RSS. (Part-2 to follow)