This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
Undeterred by cases registered against three of the several Hindutva leaders who delivered hate speech during a recent Dharam Sansad in Haridwar, the swamis of several Akhadas met in the city on Tuesday and formed a core committee of 21 leaders. They resolved to continue their fight against Islam, which they called a “gang of armed people”, and even filed a police complaint against the Quran and a number of the city’s maulanas and imams at the Haridwar Kotwali police station.
“The Quran incites you to kill kafirs. This book has provocative sections. It should be banned,” Niranjani Akhada’s Darshan Bharti told The India Cable.
The leaders also decided to step up their campaign to convert India into a “Hindu Rashtra” and defended their speeches during the earlier event. “We are holding three more sansads in Aligarh, Kurukshetra and Shimla. We have resolved that this is about our freedom of speech, and we will continue to speak up,” Swami Anand Swaroop told The India Cable.
Among the core committee members are Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, Swami Prabodhanand, Hindu Mahasabha’s general secretary Annapurna Bharti alias Pooja Shakun, Pandit Adhir Kaushik, Sindhu Maharaj and Swami Darshan Bharti. All were present at the event where calls to eliminate Muslims were made.
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In what seems to be a tactical decision, they unanimously “decided to stay quiet on M.K. Gandhi”. “We have decided not to comment on Gandhi,” said Bharti, refusing to elaborate on the reasoning.
The India Cable had reported on Monday about the armed vigilante brigades which these leaders have raised in the last few years. They reiterated their resolve to continue with weaponization in today’s gathering.
“Is it wrong to talk about Hindu dharma in India? Adi Shankaracharya had established akhadas 1,400 years ago and armed them with various weapons to save our religion from Buddhists. Akhadas were like an army of the religion, just like Guru Gobind Singh had created his army. There was never any controversy then. Why is there an issue now? It’s because Islam ek hathiyarband giroh hai (Islam is an armed gang). You can fight them only with arms,” said Darshan Bharti.
Expressing satisfaction at the response generated by the previous event, they said that Haridwar has delivered an apt lesson to the world. “Dharma Sansad is a step in the direction of making India a Hindu Rashtra.”
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As they go about in their plans, how will their ideological patron, the BJP, deal with them? When asked whether the BJP would be able to publicly support them in their armed ventures, Bharti said: “BJP and RSS ne Hinduon ka theka thode le rakha hai? Koi jaruri thode to BJP, VHP kahegi, vahi hoga. (The BJP and RSS are not the sole custodians of Hindus. They can’t dictate terms.) Anything is possible if people are awakened.”
The Hindutva leaders have declared their intent. A few mild police cases against just three of them seems to have only emboldened them. With BJP leaders tacitly supporting this brigade and Uttarakhand and UP elections just months away, its electoral impact can’t be underestimated.
Ashutosh Bhardwaj is an independent journalist and author of the the award-winning The Death Script.
