Even a casual observer of the Indian scene would have noticed a diminution of the ardour of the Hindutva camp in recent weeks over spreading their ideological message. There have been no ghar wapsi campaigns to bring the ‘bhuley-bhatkey’ or misguided Muslims, in the words of the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, back to their original Hindu faith. Nor any warnings against the ploy of “love jihad” practised by Muslim youths to trick Hindu girls into marriage and conversion.
A possible reason why the saffron camp is lying low, perhaps temporarily, is that it has been told to do so by the Narendra Modi Government. The advice may not have been the result of US President Barack Obama’s angst over the deteriorating communal relations in India. Instead, it is probably born of the realisation that an accentuation of the anti-minority sentiments will take the sheen off the prime minister’s development programme.
But, it isn’t only the overt posturing of Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and other hardliners which posed this danger. The same threat can be presented by the behind-the-scene activities of some of the saffron ideologues. These include not so much the weirdos who claimed that ancient India was not unfamiliar with aeroplanes, as those who are working diligently to rewrite Indian history.
Extricating history from the longstanding Left-liberal bias of what Arun Shourie mockingly called “eminent historians” has been a longstanding objective of the RSS. Murli Manohar Joshi undertook this task as the human resource development minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cabinet. Now, the job has apparently been entrusted to the non-eminent – in fact, virtually unknown – “historian”, Y. Sudarshan Rao, of the saffron camp.
His appointment as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) caused something of a shock in academic circles because he is not known to have made any significant contribution to prestigious publications.
Considering, however, that the talent pool of the RSS camp is not known to be overflowing with people of calibre – the appointment of another nonentity in the film world as chief of the film censor board underlines the paucity – Rao’s choice was understandable.
But, it has since become clear that he was selected with a specific purpose in mind, which is to prepare a fresh set of publications interpreting Indian history in accordance with saffron beliefs.
The cornerstone of this outlook is a rejection of the Left-liberal thesis of India’s composite culture based on a fusion of Hindu and Muslim ways of life through the centuries after the arrival of the Arabs in Sindh in the 8th century. Instead, the Hindutva historians intend to show that syncretism is a myth and that Hindus and Muslims were always at loggerheads.
Since all fundamentalists think alike, it is not surprising that this is also the view of the Muslim bigots in Pakistan. There, too, history is being moulded in accordance with the political exigencies of the ruling establishment. As Ayesha Jalal writes in her book, ‘The Struggle for Pakistan’, “Pakistanis receive schooling in (an) ideology that … exaggerate Muslim differences with Hindu India to justify the existence Pakistan and, more problematically, to deny the welter of heterogeneity within the country (Pakistan) itself.”
As is known, irreconcilable Hindu-Muslim differences is the centrepiece of the two-nation theory and the communalists on both sides of the border use the myth of antagonism to bolster their respective political and ideological positions. However, when the non-eminent Hindutva historians peddle this line, their assertions will be no less disruptive for communal relations than the ghar wapsi and ‘love jihad’ movements.
It isn’t only the acrimony between them and the Left-liberals which will vitiate atmosphere, the blaming of Muslims by RSS followers for all the ills of the country from how the “Hindus suffered at the hands of their Islamic conquerors”, as one of the “historians” entrusted with the saffronisation of textbooks has said, to the responsibility of the Muslims for Partition and the continuing jihadi threats will make a mockery of Modi’s promise of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ or development for all.
Instead, the saffron ‘historians’ will ensure that communal tensions continue to simmer as the Left-liberal claim of a close intermingling of the communities, leading to the assimilation of the various cultural practices from each other’s traditions, is trashed.
Yet, even if the highlighting of the mutual differences serves the purpose of the RSS and its other affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which are driven by their anti-Muslim worldview, there is little doubt that Modi’s idea of enforcing a moratorium on sectarianism, as he said in his Independence Day speech, will tend to fall by the wayside. Clearly, it is not enough for the government to rein in only the proponents of ‘ghar wapsi’ and ‘love jihad’, but also the likes of the ICHR chief with their mindsets formulated in the RSS shakhas, which regard the minorities as enemies.
