M.G. Devasahayam 
Recently, the Government of India removed the six-decade-old ‘ban’ on government employees taking part in the activities of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) through a Department of Personnel & Training, ‘order’: “The undersigned is directed to refer to the OM (office memorandum)..dated 30.11.1966, OM No. 7/4/70-Est.(B) dated 25.07.1970 and OM No. 15014/3(S)/80- Estt. (B) dated 28.10.1980 on the above subject. 2. The aforesaid instructions have been reviewed and it has been decided to remove the mention of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (R.S.S.S) from the impugned OMs dated 30.11.1966, 25.07.1970 and 28.10.1980.”
One thought this was a sacrilege committed to the secular fabric of India and its constitution. Besides, it is a brazen violation of Section 5 (1) of The Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964: “No Government servant shall be a member of, or be otherwise associated with, any political party or any organisation which takes part in politics nor shall he take part in, subscribe in aid of, or assist in any other manner, any political movement or activity.”
Also read: ‘RSS Was Wrongly Banned, Took Govt 5 Decades to Realise Mistake’: MP High Court
But the honourable judges of the Madhya Pradesh high court do not think so and they are upset because it took almost five decades for the Central government to realise its mistake, in acknowledging that an internationally renowned organisation like RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations of the country and that its removal therefrom is essential. The court felt that the aspirations of many Union government employees of serving the country in many ways got diminished in these five decades because of this ban.
The court also questioned as to why the ban had been imposed in the first place. “The question therefore arises is, on what study or basis, activities of RSS organisation as a whole were treated in the decades of 1960s and 70s as communal or antisecular; what was the empirical report, statistical survey or material, that led the then government of the day to arrive at an objective satisfaction that involvement of Central Government employees with the RSS,” the court asked. It also questioned the treatment of RSS’s subsidiary non-political organisations.
A history loaded with violence, hate and bigotry
Such loaded rhetoric can be responded to only with a historical perspective. As soon as the British finally left in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation-states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history. Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence.
Some 75,000 women were raped, and many of them were then disfigured or dismembered. Gangs of killers set whole villages aflame, hacking to death men and children and the aged while carrying off young women to be raped. Some British soldiers and journalists who had witnessed the Nazi death camps claimed Partition’s brutalities were equally bad: pregnant women had their breasts cut off and babies hacked out of their bellies; infants were found literally roasted on spits. By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than 15 million people had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead.
There is a reason why such horrors happened. H.B. Hedgewar, the founder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had openly declared that its aim was not to oppose the British and join the movement for independence but to oppose the yavana-snakes (Muslims), who are the real enemies.
His lieutenant M.S. Golwalkar, who since June 1940 had been the sarsanghachalak (supreme leader) of RSS, went further and wrote this in 1938: “The non-Hindu people in Hindustan must adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of Hindu race and culture… They may stay in the country wholly subordinate to the Hindu nation, claim nothing, deserve no privileges far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights.”
It is the same Golwalkar who had also given this dastardly call: “Hindus, don’t waste your energy fighting the British; save your energy to fight our internal enemies that are Muslims, Christians and Communists.”
In his book (We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1938), Golwalkar also justified Hitler’s genocide of Jews expressing his mindset to do the same for India’s Muslims and other minority communities: “German race pride has become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture Germany shocked the world by purging the country of the semitic Races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has shown how well neigh impossible it is for the Races and cultures having differences going to the roots, to be united into one united whole, a good lesson for use in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”
With their plans to make Muslims second-rate citizens in independent India, RSS and Hindu Mahasabha bear a major responsibility for partition and the horrors that ensued. What is more, in January 1948, there was a succession of meetings between a group of fanatical young men – two brothers, Nathuram Vinayak Godse and Gopal Godse, Narayan Dattatraya Apte, Madanlal Pahwa, Vishnu Karkare, Badge and Kistayya – at the Bombay headquarters of Hindu Mahasabha and at the home of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, former president of the Mahasabha. Their plan was not only to assassinate Gandhi but Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) as well because to them Nehru was the political and JP the moral heir of the Mahatma and they wanted to finish off all the vestiges of the freedom movement.
The Indian Express front page announcing that the RSS had been banned.
This is what JP’s biographers Allan & Wendy Scarfe, who spent several years with the Sarvodaya leader, wrote: “They (Savarkar, Godse & Co) were planning to assassinate Gandhi, Nehru and Jayaprakash and Nathuram Godse was hardened in his resolve when Gandhi began a fast unto death on January 13. This Gandhi did to morally compel Patel and other Congress leaders whose anti-Muslim attitude Gandhi felt had been dishonourable, to pledge themselves to the aim of a secular state based on religious toleration. To save Gandh’s life Patel capitulated, the fast has ended and so Godse pressed on with his plans.”
This is how Narayan Desai, Mahatma’s biographer, describes the last day of his life (January 30, 1948) “Gandhi was 78, tired physically and mentally pained by the atmosphere of hate and intolerance in the country. He woke up at 3.30 am, said his prayers along with others and wrote some letters. Gandhi then meets visitors. The last among them is Sardar Patel, who spends an hour with Gandhi prior to the prayer meeting… Ten minutes late for the prayer ground, at 5.40 pm, he walks, supported by Manu and Abha. A man pushes himself forward from the crowd of a few hundred present and pulls Manu’s hand. The rosary, spectacle case, notebook and pen that she is carrying for Bapu fall on the ground. Then the bullets are fired. ‘Hey Ram’. Raghu Mali of Birla House overpowers the assassin. In the police station, he tells his name (Nathuram) and gives his address (Pune) and age (25). Godse was 37; he had wanted to kill Gandhi from the age of 25.”
Also read: Allowing Govt Employees to Join RSS is a Political Attempt to Normalise Sangh’s Majoritarian Agenda
Such is the venom of hatred and bigotry around which the colossal edifice of the RSS was built which continues to be in full display as manifested in the Haridwar genocide call in December 2021. Here is one gem: “At the just-concluded Dharam Sansad in Hardwar, Sadhvi Annapurna aka Pooja Shakun Pandey, a mahamandleshwar of the Niranjani Akhara and general secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha also gave a call to arms and incitement to genocide.”
Without any ambiguity, she gave a direct call for the mass murder of Muslims. “Nothing is possible without weapons. If you want to eliminate their population then kill them. Be ready to kill and be ready to go to jail. Even if 100 of us are ready to kill 20 lakhs of them (Muslims), then we will be victorious, and go to jail… Like [Nathuram] Godse, I am ready to be maligned, but I will pick up arms to defend my Hindutva from every demon who is a threat to my religion.”
If Hindu Mahasabha could be so virulent what could be said of the main outfit?
In 1966, Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur Commission was set up to conduct a proper Inquiry into the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. This is what A.G. Noorani wrote on the outcome of that Commission: “For years, people have tried to find the ‘smoking gun’ linking Savarkar to the assassination, as he was acquitted in the Gandhi murder trial. The Jeevan Lal Kapur Commission report came close; the commission found that: ‘All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.’ But it still did not clinch matters. We believe the August conspiracy is the smoking gun everyone has been looking for.”
But Vallabhbhai Patel had seen through the game well in time. So, he dug into the roots, found out the facts as to who was behind these acts of hate crime and communal horrors following partition banned the RSS and wrote to its chief M.S. Golwalkar on September 11, 1948: “All their (RSS) speeches were full of communal poison.… As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the valuable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of sympathy of the Government, or of the people, no more remained for the RSS. In fact, opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions, it became inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS…”
Sadhvi Annapurnas of this world prove that even now communal poison is in full flow probably with more intensity. As for the praise that RSS is an ‘internationally renowned organization’, this graph says it all:
Does this answer the poser of the Honourable Judges? Can the nation and its government be handed over to such venom? The jury is out!