The Key to decode CAA/NRC lies with reading Golwalkar

The Key to decode CAA/NRC lies with reading Golwalkar

If any innocent minds had any false illusion about what the real BJP is, they must have got a rude awakening now. The CAA has brought out the true BJP to the fore. The ravenous wolf disguised in the sheep clothing has now come out in the open. The divider in chief now lay exposed as the true heir apparent of M.S. Golwalkar.  BJP is desperately trying to make Golwalkar dream come true. They are fast-forwarding the path to his ‘Hindu Rashtra’, destroying our constitution, all its institutions and the very heart of Idea of India in the process.  In fact the key to decode the CAA/NRC lies with reading Golwalkar. To know the real intent behind the CAA, one only needs to recall the two paragraphs from Golwalkar. 

First one is where he said, “The non-Hindu people of Hindustan may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights”. And that is exactly what we are seeing now. That is exactly what the CAA is about. The CAA/NRC duo is to steal the citizen’s rights from those who Golwalkar and RSS list as the “enemies”.  CAA is the latest of the several milestones in the long destructive and regressive journey that Savarkar started in 1920s with his ‘Hindu Rashtra’ proposition along with Golwalkar who theorized it later in his writings.  

Secondly, Golwalkar went on to say, ”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… a good lesson for us to learn and profit by”. Germany is where RSS wants to learn from and Nazis is who they want to idolise. RSS wants to purge the Semitic races from India too and the CAA is the means for the same. Seeing the massive protest and awakening all over the country, the BJP is now trying desperately to quell the fire asking ‘why are you link CAA and NRC’. The answer is – “Not us, but you did it, Mr.Amit Shah”. You said you would first bring CAA to get refugees in and then the NRC to weed the infiltrators out. You asked us to specifically note the ‘Chronology’, the order. And now we do understand why the ‘Chronology’ was important, who your refugees are and who you want to brand as ‘infiltrators’. 

The message is not lost on anyone about what BJP/RSS is trying to do with this country. They are throwing our great country to the dogs. They are dividing the heart and soul of our nation into pieces. Instead of drawing strength and inspiration from the diversity of this great garden, they want to pluck out the roses and orchids and destroy the whole Garden itself. You want to erase Muslims, Christians and the Communists, the internal threats Golwalker listed? And then what?  Turn your swords against the dalits, shudras and whoever you think are ‘Neech jati’? Ultimately what RSS targets is a ‘Brahminical India’ where Manusmriti would serve as the constitution. We cannot and will not let that happen.

Someone should advice BJP to read at least Swami Vivekananda in this hour of crisis instead of Golwalkar. It was none other but Swami Vivekananda who said

“…for our motherland, a conjunction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam — Vedanta Brain and Islam Body is the only hope”

He even went onto state that “Practical Advaita, which looks upon and behaves to all mankind as one’s own soul, was never developed amongst the Hindus universally.”  And, “if any religion approached equality in any appreciable manner it was Islam and Islam alone.” The reference was to the central idea of equality.

In this time of extreme distress, when the nation is struggling to feed her people, please focus on the real need of the people. Inspire to unite them instead of inventing new ways of dividing them and making them suffer even more. Get the economy right first; we have enough time to think about citizenship later. I am sure the Finance Minister must be heaving a sigh of relief now. The worst performing minister in this cabinet was the Finance Minister till last week with an economy that is rotting in the waste bin. Now she is only second in the list. The Home Minister has stolen the top slot from her, swapping the honours between themselves.  Certainly Mr.Shah has no moral right to be in the government. In fact BJP who cannot see Indians as a whole and can see them only as races and sectors identified by their ‘clothes’, has no moral right to be ruling this country. Mr.Shah must resign and CAB must be torn apart. The present struggle will cease only then. 

- Suresh Kodoor

Election 2019: Why Left?

Election 2019:  Why Left?

- Suresh Kodoor

What is the single most important task in the coming election for those who believe in a secular, democratic, liberal India? An absolute, unambiguous and resounding answer would be ‘Oust the Modi Government’.  The poisonous BJP has become all the more venomous under Modi –Shah tyranny in the last five years, threatening to destroy our very democracy itself. India never has witnessed such a regime before which has systematically destroyed every single democratic institution, including the judiciary and constitutional bodies, and has crossed all limits of political decency by spreading hatred among Indians and trying to expand its power base by dividing people. India has never been in deep danger as she find herself in today of losing her identity as a secular democratic liberal nation. India is first time ever debating the question ‘Will there be an election if the current regime comes to power once again’. People are alarmingly afraid that the answer is in negative and that is why there is an overwhelming urge all around to throw the regressive Modi regime out at the very first opportunity that is to come their way.

What is the role of the Left in the current political scheme of things? The Left of course may not be a force to reckon with in most part of the country as far as its ability to uproot BJP from power is concerned. Regional powers along with the Congress may be entrusted with the job (except in the Left strongholds).  Where the Left would play a crucial role though would be in deciding the character and content of the alternate regime. Left assumes strength and relevance not from its numbers, but with its high-value moral capital, a scarce commodity in the political market today.  Left will be a crucial factor in deciding whether the alternate government would resemble UPA1 or UPA2.  The key difference between UPA1 and 2 was undoubtedly the Left. It is the common minimum program coupled with the vigilant supervision affected by the Left through coordination committees what steered UPA1 straight and steady. It was in fact during the disastrous days of UPA2 when the Left value-add to UPA1 became more apparent, fully recognized and nostalgically (and regretfully) remembered.   

What makes Left the most relevant corrective force in the Indian polity is its unblemished track record of sticking to its well-defined ideological positions and its political method of aligning with programs rather than with parties or personae. For instance, it is the consistency in the stand against authoritarianism and fascist ultra-right ideologies that enabled the Left to be in the forefront of the struggles to safeguard democracy whenever democracy was under threat from the fascist elements.  Over time, the perpetrators had varied, the victims had changed, and the players even had flipped their roles. Obviously, the allies in the struggle too became different; at times even to the extent that the new allies being the erstwhile villains. As far as the Left is concerned, however, the fight was consistently against the fascist elements, steadfastly standing for safeguarding the idea of India as a secular, democratic, liberal republic.

Left undoubtedly will play a constructive role in ensuring a non-BJP government at the centre post 2019 election. And none would have any doubt that Congress will have to be a key constituent of such a coalition along with other secular and regional parties. And it would not be lost on anyone that Left will have a crucial role in defining the character of such a coalition government. An alternate regime without Left would be like a concrete pillar without iron bars, a lot of concrete poured in with no reinforcement. A concrete pillar may need more concrete and only a few steel bars. But it is these bars that would give the pillar its shape and the strength. Left would be the reinforcement providing the moral strength and shape that an alternate regime would require to clean all the dirt left behind by Modi and Co and to replace the corporate governance with people governance.

Left has a critical role to play today in ‘sanitising’ the seat of Power.  That is precisely why the Left is all the more relevant today as never before.

-          Suresh Kodoor