The Wolf in Khaki Trousers, His Abettors and a Nation on Edge

Mohan Bhagwat is like the firebomber who lights a fire that threatens to become a monstrous conflagration, steps back and orders his henchmen not to fuel the fire but then suggests that on their own accord, they are free to fan the flames.

What we are witnessing today is the dangerous early stirrings of the sequel to the cataclysmic Ram Janmabhoomi movement and destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, this time helmed by none other than the RSS sarsanghchalak (chief). 

Speaking during the RSS’s centenary year celebrations a couple of weeks ago, Bhagwat – apart from blithely semaphoring ‘a Hindu Rashtra for all’ and arguing that ‘true’ Independence deliverance was achieved with the consecration of the Ram temple on January 22, 2024 – further announced that Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi were sacred sites for Hindus and as such, the “other side”, i.e. Muslims, should abandon their claims on Mathura’s Shahi Eidgah and Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque and hand them over to the Hindus in the interests of brotherhood. 

With this explosive demand, Bhagwat has let slip the dogs of war. Our benighted land will not know peace in the foreseeable future! 

In characteristic double-speak, he added that the Sangh would not participate in any temple movement, whether for Mathura or Kashi, but that swayamsevaks were free to do so in their personal capacity. Such blatant dissembling was obviously a cunning counterpoise because he knows that in raising the spectre of a Hindu takeover of Shahi Eidgah and Gyanvapi mosque, he was treading the thin line between sedition and the law. 

Viewed in the cold light of jurisprudence, Bhagwat’s statement contains all the ingredients that warrant the institution of a case of sedition against him. Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (now Section 152 in Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita), read in conjunction with Section 153A of the Code, defines sedition as spoken or written words or visible representation that incite disaffection, hatred or contempt toward the State or promotes disharmony, enmity or hatred between different groups. 

His statement points to a mass temple campaign in the near future, a deadly proposition that flies in the face of the extant law. Jettisoning his usual disingenuous trope of tolerance and accommodation, Bhagwat has bluntly presented the Sangh Parivar’s dark majoritarian project of uprooting existing Muslim places of worship. 

He knows that in the last decade, Savarkar’s worldview constructed on pathological hatred of Muslims has taken root in the psyche of people across the country and hence mobilising the hordes would be a cinch. Moreover, with all institutions heavily infiltrated with their kind, these vandals will have a free run. It’s now a matter of time! If this does not qualify as sedition, nothing ever will!

By inciting a fresh campaign of vandalism, death and destruction, Bhagwat is cocking a snook at the law. The nation needs to be reminded that the law on disputed religious places – The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act,1991 – prohibits the conversion of any place of worship and mandates the preservation of its religious character as it existed on August 15, 1947, with the explicit exception of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya. 

The honourable intent is to put an end to the disputes over the historical conversion of places of worship and preserve our constitutional commitment to secularism and the equality of all religions.

Bhagwat’s reckless adventurism is nothing but brute majoritarian assertion that portends a dark future of socio-religious strife. In any society that respects the rule of law, his inflammatory comments would have caused a massive uproar in the media and invited a flurry of PILs (Public Interest Litigation). But there is no outrage; on the contrary, a submissive acceptance of what seems inexorable. Even libtards and the liberal media have well-nigh accepted it as a fait accompli. 

In the last decade, our judiciary has singularly failed as gatekeeper of the constitution and thereby enabled a rogue regime to trample on citizens’ fundamental rights and the rule of law. Take the odious Ayodhya judgement of 2019, authored by D.Y. Chandrachud that vitiates every tenet of jurisprudence. 

While acknowledging that the destruction of the Babri Masjid was “a violation of the law”, the Supreme Court had no compunctions about giving that site to the community that brought down the mosque, the specious justification being that Hindus considered it as the birthplace of Lord Ram. Shockingly, Aastha or faith of the majority community trumped justice and the law. Last year, Chandrachud acknowledged that he had sought divine guidance before writing the judgement. So, do we blame God for the iniquitous verdict?

The only saving grace in that judgement was the caveat upholding the validity of the Places of Worship Act (POWA), freezing the status of all religious sites as they existed on August 15, 1947. Here again, the saffron-tainted Chandrachud queered the pitch in 2022, when his bench observed that the POWA “did not prevent investigations into the status of a place of worship” and allowed a lower court-ordered survey of the Gyanvapi mosque to proceed, creating the opening that the bigots desperately wanted.

Bhagwat turned 75 years old on September 11. Keen to bridge differences with the RSS, the prime minister went to town exalting Bhagwat’s devotion to ‘Maa Bharthi’, terming his tenure as the RSS sarsanghchalak as the ‘most transformative’ period in the 100-year journey of the RSS. There was the usual cliched fakery regarding Bhagwat’s intellectual depth, empathetic leadership and contribution to nation-building.

However, what stood out like a sore thumb was the PM’s effusive praise of Bhagwat for strengthening the ‘spirit of fraternity’, ‘social harmony’ and for being a ‘firm believer of India’s diversity of cultures and traditions’, despite knowing full well that this is a veneer that masks Bhagwat’s total commitment to the Hindutva credo of homogeneity through Muslim exclusion.

As birds of a feather who use the ‘Sabka Saath’ blather to deceive, Modi’s hypocrisy is understandable. Inexcusable though is the burnishing of Bhagwat’s image as a beacon of tolerance and hope for Hindu-Muslim relations by a group of “eminent Muslim intellectuals”, including a former election commissioner and a lieutenant governor. 

Despite knowing better, they have showered Bhagwat with encomiums for leading an ideological transformation and trying to change the Sangh’s attitude towards Muslims – referred to by one of them as veritable “perestroika”. Now that Bhagwat has thrown down the gauntlet to the Muslim community, why are these wise men silent? 

Beware! The wolf pack is primed to attack and dismantle the idea of an inclusive, secular India and substitute a society of overarching Hinduness. 

The country needs to wake up and nip the sinister designs of Bhagwat and gang in the bud or else face Armageddon!

Mathew John is a former civil servant. The views are personal.

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