Hitler, Hindutava And Its Allies
By Balram
Punjab Pro
01 December, 2003
The
world is burning. The violent dance of death is being played all around
us. India is part of this whole scenery. The death tolls in places as
far as J&K to Gujarat add inglorious colours to this grotesque picture.
In different places this violence presents itself in different garbs.
At some places its form is imperialist while it grows in the name of
Islamic jihad elsewhere.
It's clothed in
saffron these days in India. This Hindutva terrorism in saffron robes
which Gujarat has suffered and which is being sought to be spread in
rest of India, is borne out of the same psycho-space where Jihadi terrorism
takes roots. The political and historical reasons being proffered are
nothing but auxiliary reasons. Basically both are the same. In the center
of both is shallow egotism. On psychological plane both are in the same
class. Both in their own ways give an organised and ideological form
to separatism, fear, violence and animosity, which are all characteristics
of the narrow egotism.
But then this is a just a pseudo-veil in which the torchbearers of these
ideologies hide their peculiar psycho types. Actually this whole process
of hiding takes place at sub conscious level. Most of the time even
people are not aware about this. Normally their recognition is based
on their surfacial activities. This is what leads to BJP and the organisations
allied to it being called 'Hindu organisations'. As Dr Bipan Chander,
the renowned historian says,
"Communalism
is not a set of specific policies such as the building of a temple at
Ayodhya or the enactment of a uniform civil code. Communalism is basically
an ideology, a belief system, a way of looking at society and polity."
(Dr. Bipan Chandra: The BJP's Ideology)Hitler termed this, 'Weltanschauung.'
Unfortunately this
theory, though a profound one, is incomplete. An ideology in itself
is a conscious system in which is incorporated super ego. But if we
try to understand the saffron terrorism or its prototypes through this,
then the elements of subconscious mind are left aside. According to
Dr Bipan Chandra, "communalism is also not to be confused with
communal violence, which is an indirect product of the spread of communal
belief system away from people."
No one can deny
that the communal violence is a by-product of communalism but the fact
is that communalism can't enter forth into human consciousness if violent
energy, fear and animosity are not already there. What is meant is that
communal violence in all its forms is just an ideologisation of our
egos. This shallow ego only encourages the spirit of bigotry, which
gives birth to fear, which in turn is the progenitor of violence. The
use of this fear in Gujarat by Narender Modi is an apt example of this.
Narender Modi is
not the only one in this matter, nor is he the first one. His class
is spread from Osama Bin Laden and Hitler to the mythological characters.
From the beginning the people of this class have been exploiting this
psychological fear and the resultant feeling of insecurity. While 'Miyan
Musharaf' comes in handy for Modi, American ambitions are a fertile
ground for Laden to grow. At the origin of all this is our narrow ego
and its illusory fantasies.
All the religions
of the world came into being to break free from this imagined imprisonment
of ego. The sages of yore, who gave us the message of 'the whole world
is a family,' have termed it as Moksha. But the aim of BJP, VHP, RSS
and their affiliates is not only different from this, it is diametrically
opposite. Their whole programme is based on glorification of separateness
of ego. The roots of this process of glorification, which they call
'nationalism' is not in Vedas, Upanishads or Shrimadbhagwat Geeta but
in the racial theories of Hitler.
Nearly seven decades
earlier, the then Sarsanghchalak of RSS, M S Golwalkar, had declared
'Weltanschauung' of Hitler as his source of inspiration. His utterances
in this regard are as relevant today:
"To keep the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked
up the world by her purging the country, of Semitic races - the Jews.
Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also
shown how well -nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having
differences going to root to be assimilated to one united whole, a good
lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." (MS Golwalkar:
'We or Our Nation Defined' P.35/43)
Sixty years later, Hitler's 'Mien Kempf' continues to be the source
of inspiration of followers of Golwalkar.
Few excerpts from
the autobiography of the Nazi would illustrate the parallels being played
out by them: "First condition that has to be fulfilled in every
kind of propaganda, namely, a systemically, a one sided attitude towards
every problem that has to be dealt with
propaganda must not investigate
the truth objectively, in so far as it is favourable to its side
as soon as our own propaganda made the slightest suggestion that the
enemy had a certain amount of justice on his side, then we laid down
the basic on which the justice of our own cause could be questioned."
(Mein Kempf P.158/159)
The propaganda of
Sangh Parivar, since it inception revolves around these guiding points.
That's why Advani began his Rath Yatra from Somnath. Modi's assembly
elections campaign in Gujrat is the most glaring and recent example
of this. The unfortunate and dangerous aspect of all this is that they
seek to bring down the level of education also to mere propaganda. Whether
it is history or science, they use all to glorify their ego, which they
try to project as glorification of Hindu culture and race. This is not
all. To force others to do so is an incontrovertible evidence of their
Hitlerian philosophy. "
the foreign races in Hindusthan must
either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and
hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of
the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation
and must lose their separate existence to merge into the Hindu race,
or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation,
claiming nothing
.not even citizen's rights." (MS Golwalkar
-ibid- P.47-48, 55-56)
Very clearly this ideology represents not the Indian philosophy but
Fascist mindset. Not even the shadow of the cosmic consciousness of
Buddha, Nanak and Upanishads has touched this. But these 'gloriful'
words do not hold attraction for those who attach their identities with
the word 'Hindu' in its narrow meaning. They are swayed by the rhetoric
and are not able to fathom the hate, the violence and sectarianism behind
all these. They are also driven by the split psycho-energy and their
address is also to the same scattered psycho-space. The whole programme
of these forces is to impose this internal battle on to the outer reality
consciously and in an organised way. It is this that can be termed as
ideologisation of the ego.
Here the problem
does not remain political or ideological but becomes psychological.
So it becomes clear that the solution to this problem is not in some
political consciousness but in mutation of human consciousness. Before
proceeding further it would be relevant to discuss some other general
aspects related to this. As discussed earlier, this ideology is wholly
antagonistic to all the saints like Buddha and Nanak.
In such a situation
it might seem incongruous that some organisations deriving sustenance
from the name of Gurus are hand in gloves with them. The situation becomes
all the more unsavoury when these organisations claim to be the guides
of the way. This self-claimed honorific of the 'guide' is not only untenable
but also misleading.
The Akalis may do well to read what Golwalkar had to say about what
he called 'Minorities Problem':
"The non-Hindu people in Hindusthan.., so long, however, as they
maintain their racial, religious and cultural differences, they can
not but be only foreigners......... there are only two courses open
to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national
race, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow
them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national
race. That is the only logical and correct solution." (We or Our
Nationhood Defined : P433-44)
This holds true,
literally, for the Akali Dal led by Badal. Though their friendship with
Sangh Parivar is decades old but their silence on the issue of inhuman
incidents in Gujarat is a betrayal of Sikh values and the panth of Nanak.
Just as the ancient sages can't be blamed for the ideology of the Sangh
Parivar, the actions of these so-called leaders cannot be traced to
the Sikh values. Their betrayal of the values of 'nirbhai' and 'nirvair'are
akin to the crime of Judas.
Other regional parties
can take refuge in the fact that they are with the NDA, not the BJP,
but this is untenable for the Akalis. Anyway it is more than apparent
now that the NDA government is nothing but a pseudo mask for the Sangh
Parivar. The assertion of Dr Bipan Chander that the allies of the BJP
have not been able to see the real character of BJP, has been proved
baseless. To think that the issues of common civil code , Ram Mandir
and Section 370 have been left in cold storage is like living in the
fool's paradise. They are the victims of Adlerian complex. The inner
void of inferiority complex can only be filled by power.
The relation of Akalis with BJP is qualitatively different from other
allies. When other parties seem to be questioning their secular politics,
the complicity of Akali Dalbecomes all the more blatantly sever. The
question arises in natural course is whether the same Akali Dal which
burnt the copies of sec 25 has come around to accept itself as the 'sword
arm' of the Sangh Parivar. Do they still consider themselves as the
representatives of minorities ?
The policy of the
Sangh Parivar is clear in this respect. The militarisation of the Hindu
society and its mindset is their declared aim. They assert that Sikh
community is part of the Hindu nation According to them half the task
of militarisation of Hindu society has been accomplished with formation
of Khalsa panth. Afflicted with war neurosis, their 'love' for the 'Sikh
community' is not for their own sake but "for the sake and the
advantage of the army and the state" (Alfred Adler : 'The Practice
and theory of Individual Psychology').
The so called anti Muslim history of Sikh panth is also a source of
their inspiration which lends a qualitative difference to their relation
with Akalis. It is a moot question that how far is the Akali Dal's claim
of being representative of Sikh community true. But their traditional
distance from secularism is another attraction for the Sangh Parivar.
Another question arises as to what could be the reasons for the Akalis
to have these ties. On surface level there are many. The history of
anti Congressism is one reason. But this does not address the issue
of minority mindset. Perhaps Akalis think that only Christians and Muslims
have to bear the brunt of Hindutva. It is possible that they are not
conversant with the character of fire and the negative psycho energy.
Or may be their minds are in the grip of pigeon complex. The aim of
the torchbearers of Hindutva is very clear, which poses a very complex
question before them. "In this country Hindus alone are the nation
and the Muslims and others, if not actually anti-national are at least
outside the body of nation." (quoted from Bipan Chandra, ibid)
Now the poser is where does one find common ground between these and
the Anandpur Sahib resolution. Or one may conclude that for the Akalis,
this does not hold the same charm. They have entered into a new era,
which they like to call 'Hindu-Sikh unity.' (One should not forget that
this is a big achievement in the direction of Hindu nation or Hindu
race for the Sangh Parivar)
Here is a psychological question before us that does love and creativityhave
any place in the mindsets of the organisations based on the ego. In
other words whether they are capable of doing anything creative for
the interests of the community they profess to be serving? or if there
is any place for doing anything creative in the interest of any community
in a sectarian and destructive mindsets .
If the answer to
any of these questions could be in affirmative then 'a-mani,' the beyond
mind state of Kabeer, Shivoham Chetna (blissful consciousness) of Shankracharya
and Guru Nanak's 'akal chetna' (a-temporal consciousness) would all
be meaningless and irrelevant. These are requisites for creativity,
which is not possible in mind's fragmented state and dualistic consciousness.
If this were possible then Bulleshah would not have sung "mai beqaid,
mai beqaid" .
From psychological
point of view, the love of these forces for their people is merely a
reaction. This doesn't exist on its own but is only a side effect of
hate for their self-created enemies. Their love and hate are two sides
of the same coin, which are interchangeable, and this change is mechanical.
The quality of this love can be understood better by the example of
a man who lovingly caresses his child after killing dozens of children.
What would his touch feel like? It is possible that he might have forgotten
his own violent state of mind but does that violent energy spends itself
fully or is it present in the moment of love too, surreptitiously, and
is polluting it. Whether our psycho state and their outward _expression
are two separate entities? According to Carl Gustav Jung: "We would
probably do best to regard the psychic process simply as a life process
.to
life energy which includes psychic energy as specific parts." ('On
the Nature of Psyche' P.19)
This is also clear
that all real and possible movements in our psycho energy are inter
connected. Jung goes so far as to say that it is possible to measure
these. "As different forms of psychic work and psychic potentiality
they can be transferred into one another. These energies posses quality
and mass just like physical energy." (ibid, P.9)
All this discussion
leads to but one conclusion that the issue of terrorism whether it is
saffron based or of some other colour is not merely political but psychological
one. If the Man wants to safe guard his existence he would have to undergo
a psychological mutation. While not belittling the scope of political
struggle against these destructive forces, it is imperative to delineate
its limits here. The simple truth is that these organisations can manipulate
us only as long as we are all embroiled in the web of our fragmented
psycho energies. In the battle field of mind, to live consciously is
not only improbable but also unbelievable. That is why every body is
indulged in migrating from that unconsciously. A dream, personal or
collective, is a way to this migration only. This era is no longer ideal
for socialistic dreams and is being replaced by this so-called nationalistic
and cultural renaissance.
But like always,
these dreams are merely migratory and carry within them destructive
energies. People lost in saffron dreams will have to wake up to this
fact sooner or later that they are spinning a web, which is going to
be their own nemesis. History has repeated often. What is to be seen
is whether this dream ends before bursting.
'Haume dirag rog
hai daru bhi is mahi,' said Nanak. The medication to this illness is
in itself but it requires this dream to end before that. Without this
realisation neither followers of Nanak will able to muster courage to
compare their self-appointed leaders to Judas nor the Hindus would comprehend
that what is being destroyed by this saffron Hindutva is the anhad bani
of Vedas and Upanishads.
(Balram is a playwright,
poet and freelance writer)
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