In Pursuit of a One-Nation Theory

AN ENDURING FEATURE OF MUCH OF the writing on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is that it is authored by politicised academics and ideologues bitterly opposed to the Sangh and its commitment to Hindu cultural and religious values. To this legion of left-leaning critics, the RSS view of nation­hood is an expression of ‘communal’ history and based on an anti-Muslim mindset. Accordingly, the RSS ‘majoritarian’ project is a deliberate simplification of historical narratives that is part of an upper-caste or ‘Brahminical’ plot to retain social supremacy and ensure continued subjugation of the so-called lower orders within a discriminatory hierarchy.

The dominance of the ‘secular’ commentariat has been such that hardly anyone questioned the fairness of judging the Sangh through the eyes of its worst critics who, far from considering any redeeming features, were committed to suppressing evidence that did not support their negative portrayals. In the decades that followed Independence, the Sangh was often painted as a sinister paramilitary led by a secretive cabal pursuing a radical vision of a monolithic “Hindu Rashtra”. The success of the depiction lay in the sense of foreboding and unease it generated among many ordinary citizens who equated RSS with discord and strife.

It took a long time for the ‘secular’ commentary to unravel, but it did slowly at first and then with increasing pace. The sheer perseverance of the Sangh under its initial leaders and the rise of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and then Bharatiya Janata Party helped dispel some of the misgivings and corrected unidimensional views. But a fuller reappraisal of the Sangh came about as ‘secu­larised’ accounts of history, culture and politics collapsed under the weight of inherent contradictions. Once individuals got past the selective rendering of school textbooks written by politically committed academics, truth began to emerge. It turned out that even the more enlightened Mughal rulers were not averse to dis­patching conquered people to their deaths in thousands without compunction. The effort to somehow prove that actions of many Islamic rulers were motivated by political motives rather than religious convictions came to be increasingly questioned. It be­came evident that invasions led to widespread suffering and fear was a common emotion as people clung to their faith.

AS INDEPENDENCE NEARED and the Muslim League made the “two-nation” theory the centrepiece of its call for a separate nation on the basis of religion, RSS understood the pernicious nature of the demand. The Sangh and its leaders believed the demand for Pakistan was based on religious funda­mentalism and posed a serious threat to Hindu ethos and India’s civilisational identity. This was not going to be an amicable part­ing of ways. It was about forced conversions and mass expulsion of non-conforming populations. There was no accommodation here, only an imposition of a jihadist doctrine. It was a continu­ation of an older conflict. In its latest iteration, there would be a land for the believers and, as events after 1947 proved, second-class status for others whose numbers have since declined.

It was not that Sangh alone grasped the divisive and violent nature of the two-nation formulation. But its ability to foresee the coming communal conflict and recognise the Muslim League for what it was, was obscured by relentless accusations that it did not participate in the freedom struggle and, in fact, toadied up to the British. Sangh leaders have argued to the contrary but that discussion is not relevant to the subject at hand. By questioning its participation in the freedom struggle or accusing it of a role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Sangh’s opponents expended great energy in making it a political outcast, placing it beyond the pale and excluding it from intellectual salons.

Yet, the violent division of India into two nations did not result in the two-nation theory being laid to rest. On the one hand, it created Pakistan, a nation constantly seeking justification for its existence through relentless hostility against India. It waged wars over Kashmir that it claimed on the basis of a Muslim-ma­jority population. The leaders of the newly carved nation did not consider the presence of a large Hindu population in Kashmir a contradiction. After all, the emptying of Sikhs and Hindus from West Punjab had shown how such incon­veniences were to be dealt with. A greater tragedy unfolded on the Indian side of the subcontinent. In an ostensible bid to re­assure Muslims who remained in India, Congress leaders offered constitutional and political concessions intended to con­vey accommodation. But if the application of Article 370 to Jammu & Kashmir was meant to assuage the Valley, it achieved the opposite. It encouraged separateness and in little more than four decades after Partition, led to the forcible expulsion of Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland. Separatism in Kashmir became a full-fledged Islamist insurgency and the two-nation theory found a new lease of life in the form of politics of minority mobilisa­tion which LK Advani famously termed as “pseudo-secularism”.

The Sangh has doggedly pursued its battle against the propo­nents of the two-nation theory and their successors. Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s opposition to Ar­ticle 370 and his warnings about the dire implications of the “permit system” failed to receive due recognition. But the slogan of “Nahin chalenge ek desh me do Vidhan, do Pradhan, do Nishan (there cannot be two Constitutions, two premiers, two flags)” had a ring of truth about it. Jawaharlal Nehru’s impatience and annoyance with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and RSS seem to in­dicate that he found the criticism unsettling. Nehru perhaps genuinely believed an accommodation with Sheikh Abdullah would cement Kashmiris to India. The result was the opposite. Separatism and Islamic fundamentalism grew in the Valley, Hindu majority Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh chafed at being under the political yoke of Srinagar. All three regions experi­enced growing alienation and in the 1990s, Pakistan-scripted terrorism turned J&K into a near-permanent conflict zone. RSS understood Article 370 as an instrument of the two-nation theory and its concern that the poison would spread through India’s body politic proved correct. The Sangh’s espousal of a cultural nationalism embedded in Hindu identity represented the fight against the original “fake history”—one that imposed an ideological straitjacket on Indians.

Once cast to the fringes by the commissars who controlled the cultural discourse, Sangh’s advocacy of Hindu rights and its political articulation of Hindutva began to gain wider recognition as the campaign for a Ram temple at Ayodhya gained traction in the 1980s. Once the flimsy evidence collated by self-appointed interlocutors and labelled ‘Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid: A Historians’ Report to the Nation’ fell apart—first in the Allahabad High Court and then in the Supreme Court—a cultural awaken­ing began to manifest itself.

Today, it is not uncommon to see the national flag flutter from temples during festivals, on occasions such as Republic Day or Independence Day or even at other times. This was not always the case. The view that religious events are a community event has given way to a recognition that dharma (reli­gion) and nation are inseparable and inter-fused. The fact that dharma is of­ten interchangeably used as duty helps its association with the nation. The work of the Sangh found an apt political vehi­cle in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s elevation to the office in May 2014. The construction of the Ram temple, pas­sage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the new Waqf law and the growing support for a Unified Civil Code (UCC) demonstrate how far RSS has travelled as its cause found acceptance as mainstream opinion. The Sangh’s opponents have no intention of giving up. Their wholesale opposition to Waqf reform—even the legislation’s worst critics would agree the previous law needed improvement—does not suggest any preparedness to find middle ground. Compulsive politicisation of public discourse is a constant.

The two-nation theory did not just divide India physically. The interpretation of ‘secularism’ adopted by Congress became a means of creating captive vote banks. It inevitably played into the hands of conservative elements and the clergy. In time, it brought about a counter-mobilisation. How was it that a dis­cussion pertaining to minorities was about ‘rights’ but became ‘narrow-minded’ and ‘communal’ when it came to Hindu rights? The binary might appear simplistic but sums up the political awakening within the majority community. RSS has proved the mettle of its ideology, frustrating attempts to de-legitimise it and overcoming bans. Its task over the next 25 years is to remain a clear-headed and fair interpreter of national interest and dem­onstrate that it is capable of a cohesive social vision for a diverse and aspirational country.

ideologyIndia’s partitionNarendra ModipoliticsRSS centuryUCC