COMMENTARY

Confronting the Sangh Parivar

Passive and Active Resistance
Sumanta Banerjee

The Bihar post-election scenario

provides both the secular
political parties and leaders
of civil society movement an
opportunity for coming together
to plan alternative strategies
and tactics to preserve the
secular and democratic basis of
our Constitution and pluralistic
culture of our society, and protect
citizens from the depredations of
the Sangh Parivar.

Sumanta Banerjee (suman5ban@yahoo.com),

a journalist and commentator, has written over
many decades for the EPW.

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he defeat of the Bharatiya Janata

Party (BJP) in the Bihar polls certainly reassures the Indian people
in general that the Sangh Parivar is not
all that omnipotent and invincible, and
reinvigorates the spirit of the secular
political parties in particular to mount a
united national offensive against the
Narendra Modi government. But this
should not make us underestimate the
capacity of the parivar to continue with
its malicious designs through its various
networks which range from the administrative agencies and academic institutions that it still controls through the
ruling BJP at the centre, to the hoodlums
of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), Bajrang Dal and other similar outfits whom it employs to terrorise the
minorities and stifle any dissent.
Besides, the euphoria over the Bihar
poll results should not blind us to the
fact that the Modi government at the
centre continues to enjoy the mandate
for ruling for another four yearsunless
there is some unpredictable development
that may lead to a mid-term poll. This
period can provide the Sangh Parivar
enough opportunities to put its house in
order (by organisational reshuffling),
recover its lost ground (by a few cosmetic
changes in its public image to woo back
the disenchanted middle classes, as well
as the hesitant industrial investors), and
yet continue to pursue its primary agenda
of setting up a Hindu Rashtra through
both covert and overt means of encouraging and exploiting public grievances
along religious lines. The secular political
leaders who are envisaging a national
united alternative to the BJP should deny
the parivar the opportunity of such exploitation of public sentiments, by taking care
of their constituencies. Much will depend
on how the new government in Bihar
under the Janata Dal (United)Rashtriya
NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Janata DalCongress coalition operates

during the next four years. If it can set
up a model of governance that is free of
allegations of corruption and nepotism
(with which unfortunately some of their
leaders are tainted), ensures safety for
religious minorities, Dalits and other underprivileged classes, and delivers the
goods that it promised to the poor, that
model can be propagated as an alternative to the BJP in the national election
campaign in 2019.
Sangh Parivars
Long-term Strategy
But while envisaging that alternative, we
have to investigate also the strategy and
tactics of those whom we are confronting. The members of the Sangh Parivar
who are running the present government at the centre are ideologically committed to the creation of a theocratic
state. It is intended to be a Hindu counterpart of Zionist Israel, the Sunni
Sheikh dynasty-ruled Saudi Arabia, and
the Shia Khomeini regime of Iran
where society will be ruled by orthodox
religious diktats imposed by an oligarchy
of politicians and clergy; majoritarian
religion-based customs and rituals that
divide communities living in a common
space will be reinforced; religious minorities will be reduced to second class citizens; and liberal democratic voices of
dissent will be suppressed.
The Sangh Parivar is already on the
path of creating such a society in India
today by the twin tactics of (i) invading
the sociocultural sphere through moral
policing (for example, imposing styles of
dressing, banning eating habits and
inter-religious marriages, attacking dissenters and rationalists) in the name
of defending its moral ideal which is
described variously as Swadeshi and
Hindu (interchangeable terms in its
political vocabulary); and (ii) terrorising
the religious minorities (particularly the
Muslims) and Dalits and tribals into a
position of total subjugation, as evident
from the rising incidents of attacks on
them during the current Modi regime in
different parts of the country, for which
the local Sangh Parivar Hindu upper
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caste leaders and gangsters have been

accused but remain unpunished. While
carrying out these twin tasks, the parivars muscle men are assured of covert
and overt support by the BJP government,
and granted immunity from any punishment by an obsequious police force.
The Bihar election results will not
make any difference to these basic
objectives of the RSS-led BJP (euphemised as the National Democratic Alliance or NDA) government. Contrary to
the advice and expectations of the liberal
bourgeoise commentators in the media
(who are desperately trying to reform
the BJP into a respectable looking rightist
party, and shed its Hindu baggage of superstitions and communal fanaticism),
the umbilical cord that ties the BJP to the
RSS cannot be easily torn asunder.
In such circumstances, we expect
those political parties of the opposition
which are committed to secular values,
to launch a nationwide resistance against
the Sangh Parivars long-term strategy
of creating a Hindu rashtra. Unfortunately, however, these parties are in a
state of total paralysis. Even in the states
that they are rulingthe Congress in
Karnataka and the Samajvadi Party in
Uttar Pradeshthey remain mute witnesses to daily depredations by the Hindu
fascist gangs in their respective states.
In the one-time left citadel of West Bengal, the CPI(M) today is unsure of its role
as an Opposition. It is cowering before
the threats of the Sangh Parivar, as evident from its recent decision to reprimand, and distance itself from one of its
own leaders, Bikash Bhattacharya (who
was at one time the Mayor of the Kolkata
Corporation)because he joined a feast
of beef dishes organised by a local Kolkata
voluntary organisation as a gesture of
protest against the Sangh Parivars ban
on beef (Anandabazar Patrika, 5 November 2015)! One hopes that emboldened
by the Bihar election results, these
demoralised opposition parties overcome their passivity and assert themselves against the Sangh Parivar.
BJPs Post-Bihar Strategy
Meanwhile, the BJP central leadership is
harping on the arithmetic of a casteist
combination of its opponents as the
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NOVEMBER 21, 2015

main cause for its defeat in Bihar. It

is significant that the leadership has
made it a point to exonerate its RSS guru
Mohan Bhagwat and other Sangh Parivar
leaders like Amit Shah, whose provocative statements during the Bihar election
campaign often went to the extreme
point of violating the electoral code. As
for the rest of the country, the BJP with
Narendra Modi as the prime minister
(who lacks the honesty to acknowledge
his own failure to bring back his party to
power in Bihar, after all his braggadocio
and macho gesticulations in public
rallies) will continue to play the role of a
double-dealercheating the masses
with false promises, dividing them on
religious lines, and trying to seduce the
corporate sector with tempting offers of
investment. True to its traditional role as
professional hypocrites, the BJP central
leadership, on the one hand, will officially distance itself (due to pressures
from the Western nations, to whom it
has to genuflect to get investments) from
incidents like the killing of rationalist
intellectuals, and lynching of Muslims.
But, on the other hand, it will allow its
foot soldiers (including legislators and
ministers) to carry out such operations
with impunity.
The BJPs exoneration of its RSS gurus
even after its defeat in Bihar, once
again, exposes its religiously obsessive
dream of a Hindu rashtra. But it is yet to
be seen how it can manage to reconcile
this ideological dream with its economic
goal of creating a neo-liberal capitalist
system in India in conformity with the
secular values of a Western-dominated
global order.
Passive and Active Resistance
The Bihar post-election scenario provides both the secular political parties
and leaders of civil society movement an
opportunity for coming together to plan
alternative strategies and tactics to preserve the secular and democratic basis of
our Constitution and pluralistic culture
of our society and protect citizens from
the depredations of the Sangh Parivar.
They can surely go back to the tactics of
passive resistance which were adopted
during our national movement, when
mass satyagraha, non-cooperation with
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the ruling administration, boycott of

government institutions, and civil disobedience of unjust laws brought to the
fore and world attention the immensity
of Indian public discontent against
British rule.
Public disaffection with the Modi
regime today has reached a stage when
sections of civil society are already
resorting to passive resistance (redolent
of our anti-colonial movement) against
its policies and practices. Their voices
range from non-violent demonstrations
against acquisition of land by the BJP
government for industrial projects in the
rural sector, to the boycott of classes by
students at the prestigious Film and
Television Institute of India (FTII) in
Pune in protest against the appointment
of a third-rate actor called Gajendra
Chauhan as their head, just because he
enjoys Sangh Parivar support. There have
been protests by rationalist writers against
obscurantist superstitious beliefs and
customs propagated by the Sangh Parivar,
and eminent writers and intellectuals
have returned their Sahitya Akademi
awards. Other similar official awards
have been returned by film-makers in
protest against killings of minorities and
rationalists by the BJPs storm troopers.
The passive resistance against the
Modi regime is thus represented by a
large spectrum of Indias intellectual and
professional world, ranging from writers,
artists, film-makers to retired members
of the defence forces (who are following
the example of the writers by returning
their bravery awardsin protest against
the governments dilly-dallying over their
demands), and to Indian scientists who
are publicly questioning the Modi governments policy of encouraging superstitious beliefs and intolerance of scientific
inquiry, some among them expressing
concerns over the increasing acts of violence (for example, Jayant Narlikars letter
to the President of India, reported in the
Hindu on 5 November 2015).
Responses to Passive Resistance
But do these expressions of passive resistance have any impact on the Modi government? It is not only unwilling to listen
to these voices of protest, but is using its
minions in the police and goons of the
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COMMENTARY

Sangh Parivar to unleash a reign of terror

on the protestors. In a midnight raid, the
police arrested the protesting students
of Pune FTII, despite the fact that their
demand for the removal of the Sangh
Parivar nominee as their head was
endorsed by some of the leading personalities of the Indian film world (who felt
that the appointee was professionally
unfit for the job). Till today, despite a
series of talks between the students and
the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the latter stands recalcitrant, refusing
to remove Gajendra Chauhan.
In a similar arrogant and dismissive
manner, Arun Jaitley (who significantly
enough plays the dual role of a minister
in charge of both the Finance and the
Information and Broadcasting portfolios,
which allows him to intervene in cultural
policies) has the impudence to describe
the return of Sahitya Akademi Awards
by eminent writers as manufactured revolt, and suspect their moral integrity by
questioning how many among them
protested against the 197576 Emergency
imposed by Indira Gandhi, implying
that they remained silent because they
were beneficiaries of the Indira Gandhi
regime. Jaitleys impertinence stems
from the twin proclivities embedded in
the Sangh Parivar (that reared him up as
a functionary of its student wing, the
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in
the 1970s: (i) cultivation of a myopic
mindset that ignores, and is indifferent
to facts that are uncomfortable to the
parivar; and (ii) partisanship in selecting facts that suit their purpose. To start
with, while condemning the dissenters
among the Sahitya Akademi awardees,
Jaitley chose to ignore the courageous
record set by one of themNayantara
Sahgalwho came out in the open opposing the Emergency imposed by her
own cousin Indira Gandhi. Let me remind Jaitley, that this was the time
when his own leader from the RSS,
Balasaheb Deoras was writing a letter
from Yerwada Jail to Indira Gandhi (22
August 1975), cringing before her for
pardon, and offering her the support of
his RSS cadres. Soon after that, his
partys mouthpiece, the Hindi weekly
Panchajanya (21 December 1975), greeted the emergence of Sanjay Gandhi in
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politics! Can Jaitley deny these facts

which he can check from official records?
As for Jaitleys other false complaint
about the silence of these intellectuals
during the Congress-sponsored antiSikh genocide in 1984, he, true to his
RSS-trained mindset, has chosen to
ignore the role of independent liberalminded intellectuals like the late Rajni
Kothari and Gobinda Mukhoty, who
during that genocide, presided over the
compilation of a fact-finding report,
jointly produced by the Peoples Union of
Democratic Rights and the Peoples
Union of Civil Liberties entitled Who
Are the Guilty? (which was released to
the press soon after the genocide, indicting several Congress leaders for complicity in the genocide).
As an instance of the other earlier
mentioned myopic proclivity of RSS training, Arun Jaitley, when talking about
the anti-Sikh genocide and blaming the
Congress, conveniently ignores the statement made by his own leader Nanaji
Deshmukh at the same time, who condoned the genocide. In a statement
called Moments of Soul-Searching
(written on 8 November 1984 and reproduced in the Hindi journal Pratipaksh
on 25 November the same year), Nanaji
Deshmukh praised Indira Gandhi and
damned the entire Sikh community by
identifying them with her assassins, saying that Sikhs were cut off from their
Hindu roots thus inviting attacks from
nationalist Indians
Instead of engaging in a soul-searching that should lead him to question his
own discipleship under weak-kneed
temporisers like Balasaheb Deoras and
Nanaji Deshmukh, Jaitley is insulting the
widespread spontaneous manifestation
of passive resistance by Indias leading
writers and intellectuals (who have
shown more courage than his gurus)
by decribing them as manufactured.
Search for Modes
of Active Resistance
The long acknowledged and universally
recognised tradition of passive resistance (sanctified by memories of the Irish
freedom fighters, Gandhi in India, earlier his followers in South Africa and the
civil rights movement in the US in the
NOVEMBER 21, 2015

1960s) is being crushed by the present

Indian rulers. We are today suffering a
government run by religious bigots of
the Sangh Parivar, who with the help of
their foot soldiers are not only suppressing every expression of non-violent political passive resistance against their
oppressive policies, but also imposing on
common citizens their diktats in the
name of a Hindutva-oriented nationalism. These diktats are increasingly taking on violent forms, most gruesomely
demonstrated recently in Dadri and the
stopping of the Pakistani singer Ghulam
Alis function in Maharashtra.
Since the police force is a mute witness
to such events it is up to civil society to
protect victims from the assaults of the
Sangh Parivar. There is a need for active
resistance that can supplement the traditional passive resistance in order to
prevent the religious fascist forces from
taking over our society. How can members of our civil society carry out the task
of active resistance against these forces?
They can resort to the provisions in the
Indian Penal Code (IPC) which empower
the citizen to resist in self-defence. Under
Article 96Nothing is an offence which
is done in the exercise of the right of private defence. In fact, in a case, an honourable judge explaining the implications of the Article, said:
The law does not require a law-abiding
citizen to behave like a coward when confronted with an imminent unlawful aggression. There is nothing more degrading to
the human spirit than to run away in face of
danger. The right of defence is thus designed
to serve a social service(Mohammad Khan
vs State of MP, 1972 SCC (Cri) 24; (1971) 3 SCC
683).

Another provision in the IPCArticle

97ensures every person the right to
defend his own body, and the body of
any other person, against any offence affecting the human body, as well as defend property, whether movable or immovable against any act which is an
offence falling under the definition of
criminal trespass. Thus, going by the
law, if the Sangh Parivar gangsters attack innocent citizens (for following
different religious or social customs that
do not conform to the parivar diktats),
or violently prevent a person from wearing a particular dress or a tatoo, or
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vandalise exhibitions of paintings, or invade cultural shows (acts which amount

to criminal trespass), citizens have the
legal right to get together and resist them,
without the need for approaching the police (which, in any case, acquiesces with
the ruling party).
It is about time that civil society
groups (engaged in social movements,
like the National Alliance of Peoples
Movements and the various human
rights organisations) get together to
draw up a common programme of action
to counter the violent and divisive machinations of the Sangh Parivar. To preempt the parivar offensive in communally sensitive areas, they can set up
peace committees in mohallas with

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representatives from every community

(Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Dalit) who can
intervene in local disputes and scotch
rumours that threaten to spark communal riots. Along with this, squads of
young people can be organised to resist
instigations and assaults by the Sangh
Parivar goons. They can guard premises
where exhibitions are held, or theatre
shows are put upwhen they are threatened by members of the Sangh Parivar.
An act of active resistance against
sangh depredations was demonstrated
in Gurgaon on 24 October 2015. A gang
of Shiv Sena mobsters came to disrupt a
play by a group of Pakistani actors. The
Indian hosts who organised the play and
the audience, however, stood up in

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unison and chased them from the auditorium (Hindu, 25 October 2015). Such
forms of resistance against the Sangh
Parivar on the streets, marketplaces and
the villages are needed to supplement
the passive resistance by the intellectuals.
It is a combination of these two forms
of resistance than can create a new space
for public protest against the imposition
of a fascist Hindu hegemonic order. It
can reassure our people (disenchanted
with Modis tub-thumping, disillusioned
with the paralysis of the national Opposition parties, and reinvigorated by the
victory of the Grand Alliance in Bihar)
that there are still alternative means of
organised resistance against the offensive of the Sangh Parivar.

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