Posted by on April 08, 19102 at 12:07:32:
Outlook Magazine on the Bajrang Dal
THE TRIDENT SPEAKS
Ideology thrown to the winds, Bajrang Dal says it will go the whole hog
against missionaries
By Rajesh Joshi
Dr Surendra Jain, Bajrang Dal's all-India convenor, told Outlook it was
not possible for the Bajrang Dal to stop its "work" unless Christians
apologised and broke their links with terrorist organisations. Excerpts.
The Sangh parivar is in combat mode. Far from being cornered, the most
visible strong arm of the Sangh, the Bajrang Dal, has decided to go the
whole hog against Christian missionaries. At a two-day conclave in Delhi
last week, the organisation decided to reach out to "each and every gram
pradhan and each and every household", to expose the "designs of the
missionaries to plant churches in every Indian village by 2001".
The Sangh clearly wants to kill two birds with one stone: take on
Christians, and target Sonia as well. A task made easier, they claim,
after Sonia Gandhi "insulted the Hindu dharma" by not signing the
register at Tirupati to declare her non-Hindu origins.
The RSS, in fact, started pushing its hardline Hindutva agenda right
after the state assembly election debacle. And pressed the Bajrang Dal
into service. For the self-styled "saviours of Hindus" in the Bajrang
Dal, the integral humanism propounded by Deen Dayal Upadhyay does not
appear to mean anything; nor do they believe in the ‘sober’ talks of
rashtra jeevan often put out by RSS pracharaks. This bratpack is on the
offensive.
"We are ready to take up AK-47s if the need arises. Muslims want to turn
this country into an Islamic state but we shall not let it happen,"
declares Ashok Kapoor, north Delhi convenor of the Bajrang Dal and son
of a refugee from Jhang, Pakistan. "I don’t believe in demonstrations; I
believe that without a ‘danda’ nobody listens to you," he explains.
Prakash Sharma, co-convenor of the Bajrang Dal, is equally belligerent:
"We have decided to write letters to all the gram pradhans about this
danger and will tell the people that they (the Christians) are doing
politics over the dead bodies of their children."
For a while, top vhp and Bajrang Dal leaders were hard put to distance
themselves from the Staines murder. Not any longer. By their own
admission, the Bajrang Dal has become "synonymous with terror for the
opponents of Hindus". The knife-shaped trident-wielding young men,
indoctrinated by an overdose of anti-minorityism, wearing saffron
bandannas, throng either a park or an abandoned field in their mohallas
every morning and evening to practice martial arts.
These are the Balopasana kendras or the centres of Worship of Power.
Over 2,000 such kendras have sprung up across the country in the last
one year where the young men are told how Hindus are being persecuted in
their own land and how Muslims and Christians are pushing an
"anti-national" agenda. And that the onus of saving the nation is on
them.
It is not all empty rhetoric. The organisation has shown time and again
that when it comes to brasstacks it is always in the forefront. The
organisation takes pride in incidents where they have forced their way
or subjugated opponents. According to a publication of the vhp, the
Bajrang Dal "forcefully resisted the riots" on February 14, 1986, when
Muslims protested against the opening of the locked Ram temple at
Ayodhya. Similarly, says the publication, on October 14, 1988, the Delhi
unit of the Bajrang Dal announced that it would recite the Hanuman
Chalisa at the Jama Masjid in Delhi. Following which all state units
announced the programme of organising kirtans and Hanuman Chalisa
recitations in masjids in their respective areas.
After every such action, a pat or two from the RSS top brass is more
than enough to keep a Bajrang Dal activist going. Although the Dal is
part of the Sangh, the RSS says it cannot be held responsible for
actions of other Sangh members. This time-tested tactic was chalked out
initially when the RSS was banned for the first time in 1948, after the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
"The RSS functions through its several organisations so that it could
not be squarely blamed for anything," says an RSS-watcher. It is not
necessary for the cadre to take permission from the top leadership.
Activists, especially in remote tribal areas, launch militant
anti-minority actions on their own—like loose cannons. And if the
situation goes out of control, it is easier for the RSS to distance
itself. This holds true not only for the Bajrang Dal but other Sangh
affiliates like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram.