The Sinister RSS Narrative of India's 'True Independence'

Mohan Bhagwat's statement describing the state-sponsored consecration of a Ram temple in the place of the demolished Babri Masjid as the defining moment of India's 'true independence' once again reminds us that the RSS view of nationalism and independence remains absolutely antithetical to the actual history and aspiration of India's freedom movement. Given the history and ideology of the RSS, such a statement by the chief of the organisation is perhaps only to be expected. But now that the RSS enjoys an unprecedented grip on political power through the Modi government, the routine ideological stance of the RSS on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the constitutional proclamation of the foundation of the Republic of India amounts to a veritable declaration of war on the legacy of the freedom movement and the secular democratic character of the Constitution of India.

The RSS was founded in 1925 at a time when India was witnessing spirited national awakening and assertion for complete freedom from colonial subjugation. There were of course debates and differences among diverse streams of the freedom movement over forms of struggle and mobilisation and the character of the post-colonial social and political order. Bhagat Singh and his comrades, the founding generation of Indian communists, had the vision of a socialist India; the communist-led peasant movement unfurled the banner of complete abolition of landlordism; Ambedkar gave a clarion call for annihilation of caste, while Subhas Bose and Nehru advocated a planned economy. But the only ideological trend that collaborated with British colonialism and facilitated its 'divide and rule' strategy by preaching and practising communal politics was the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS combine, with the Muslim League subsequently following suit. Patriotic democratic Indians drew inspiration from anti-colonial revolts and revolutions in different parts of the world, but the ideological impetus and organisational model of the RSS came from Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany.

A real national awakening in colonial India demanded not just a firm anti-colonial urge for national liberation, it also demanded a strong humanist bond of social solidarity transcending the boundaries of religion and rejecting the anti-national obstacles bred by Brahmanism - the caste-based hierarchical system of graded inequality that excluded and marginalised the bahujan majority and the fetters of patriarchy that treated women as inferior beings to be kept away from education and public life and confined to the domestic domain as child-producing machines and household labour. The RSS not only failed the anti-colonial test of nationalism, it was also deeply wedded to this Brahmanical order. No wonder while Ambedkar's journey towards a constitutional code for modern India began with a bold and emphatic denunciation of Manusmriti, the Brahmanical-patriarchal code of social slavery, the RSS embraced the Manusmriti and rejected the Constitution drafted under the stewardship of Ambedkar as a foreign-inspired document with nothing 'Bharatiya about it'.

In spite of the trauma of Partition and its massive toll of death, destruction and displacement, the RSS-Mahasabha combine could not dampen the secular democratic egalitarian ethos of the freedom movement. Instead, the RSS got isolated and hugely discredited after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and it had to declare its allegiance to the Constitution and the Tricolour national flag to negotiate an exit from the ban imposed by Sardar Patel in the wake of Gandhi's assassination. The first general election held in 1952 became a veritable referendum on the political-economic direction of independent India and the RSS-backed Jan Sangh and two other Hindutva-based organisations, the Hindu Mahasabha and Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad could win only ten seats in all in a house of 489 elected members of parliament.

Seven decades later, the 2024 Lok Sabha elections once again showed that the Indian people have started sensing the growing danger to the Constitution. Rattled by the signs of popular resistance to the Sangh-BJP project of transforming secular democratic India into a communal fascist order, the Sangh-BJP establishment therefore seeks to devalue and discredit the freedom movement itself and create a counter narrative to redefine Indian nationalism on a Hindu supremacist basis. Amit Shah's disparaging remarks on Ambedkar and Mohan Bhagwat's discovery of India's so-called true independence should be seen as a package, a simultaneous two-pronged attack on the history of the freedom movement and the constitutional vision and foundation that emerged from it. The Supreme Court’s decision in favour of construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was intended as a conciliatory mechanism to resolve the Ayodhya dispute, while disallowing any similar claims made against other mosques once and for all. But the Sangh-BJP brigade now seeks to capitalise on the concession granted by the Supreme Court to reverse the 1991 Protection of Places of Religious Worship Act and redefine the very history and meaning of India's independence.

Bhagwat is aware of the growing economic crisis engulfing the lives of the common people. He therefore presents the Ram Mandir not just as a marker of India's 'true independence' but also as the solution to India's economic woes, claiming that the road to improved livelihood passes through the temple. And he seeks to buttress his thesis of economic development on the basis of spiritual revival and cultural nationalism by invoking Israel as a role model! In sheer geographical terms, there can be no comparison between a country like Israel with a population size of less than ten million and India which is now the world's most populous country with an estimated population of more than 1.4 billion. But the real absurdity lies in history - Israel's so-called prosperity is driven by its settler colonial control over Palestine and the unhindered backing of the US. Can there be a bigger mockery of India's own historical plight as a colony and the protracted anti-colonial struggle for national liberation and the continuing current reality of imperialist domination than this shocking comparison with the world's biggest contemporary perpetrator of colonial plunder and genocidal violence?

After seventy-seven years of independence won through decades of heroic struggles and supreme sacrifices by countless freedom-fighters, glorious Adivasi revolts, militant peasant struggles, working class battles and popular upsurges, the RSS now tells us that real independence has only been established with the construction of another Ram temple in Ayodhya. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the adoption of India's Constitution we are told by the Home Minister that invoking the name and ideals of the chief architect of the Constitution has become a ‘fashion’. Even as the Supreme Court rejects the plea to drop the words secular and socialist from the Preamble of the Constitution and reiterates the welfare state objective, the government is bent upon imposing corporate takeover of agriculture, and subjugating the working class with punitive labour codes amidst a growing corporate clamour for 90-hour work weeks. Our predecessors had won freedom and given us our Constitution by rejecting the fascist ideology of the RSS. Today when the RSS has entrenched itself in state power to wage a war on the history of that freedom movement and reverse all the gains made in the course of that glorious national awakening, we the people of India must summon all our strength to foil this conspiracy.