Wish to remain communal, Worship India by being Indian…

The Jana Sangh was eventually formed and announced on October 21 1951. There was very little time left for it to prepare, organise itself before taking the plunge in the whirlpool of electoral politics in form of the first general elections. Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was convinced that an opposition to the Congress behemoth had to be organised in the country. The Congress and its increasingly intolerant Nehruvianism could not go unchallenged. Speaking sometime during this period, Deendayalji made a very pertinent observation, pertinent then and pertinent even later, since it brought to the fore the struggle for India, that would play itself out from the early years of independence.

Referring to the Jana Sangh’s “fundamental fabric” Deendayalji forthrightly argued that the party was “completely national and not at all communal” but yes, “if pride in our glorious past and in Rama and Krishna is communalism, then we are communal. If someone becomes communal by praising Shivaji, Rana Pratap…or the sacrifice of our nation’s warriors, then we wish to remain communal…” Free India that came to be dominated by the Nehruvian consensus and eventually by the Left-Liberal cabal demonstrated contempt and dubbed all those who expressed such a pride and praise. In its control of education and social science and academic research, in its public formulation and stance, in its dissemination of India’s history, it was this approach that was resorted to by this cabal. Anyone who spoke of India’s past in positive terms, anyone who displayed pride and approbation for our warriors of the past and present who protected Bharat, anyone who evoked a deep reverence for our eternal national idols such as Rama and Krishna faced discrimination and marginalisation in independent India.

In the early years after independence, it was this same disdain that mocked at the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple and Babu Rajendra Prasad’s consecration of it as President of India, in later years this same disparagement was repeatedly displayed when the masses yearned for the construction of a grand temple at Ayodhya and for Lord Rama’s return! It is the same mindset which celebrates when our soldiers and jawans are killed by terrorists; it is the same mindset which feels that India’s territory and portions of her are meant to be ceded for buying a false peace with her adversaries. For them, pride in our armed forces, gratitude for soldiers on the frontier, standing as sentinel in harsh terrain and climate, is a sign of being communal and reactionary. The masses, the subaltern in India, under that definition, have always been and will always be communal. Let us also keep reiterating, as Deendayalji had done, that we wish to remain communal, we do not wish to exist as a deracinated people, forgetful of our past, with no pride and reverence for those who nurtured, shaped, enriched and protected our civilisation for ages! Such a contemptuous attitude essentially stemmed from the fact that though, as Deendayalji starkly said, “we have become independent, the guru of our nation and endeavour lies outside our country…We follow not our great forbearers but those of others. Our inspiration and standards of intellect are not Vedas, Smritis, the Gita and the Puranas. We no longer read or study them instead we are ready to quote Mill, Hegel, Adam Smith, Marx and Engels at the drop of a hat…We are rushing to adopt their ideals and ways of life, while our own tradition of guru worship is being derided…”

Deendayalji once lyrically wrote in a piece that must be read by every right-thinking Indian, speaking of Swami Dayanand, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Dr Hedgewar, Deendayalji, observed how “those great souls did not desire their own worship, but that of India, for which they strove all their lives…” Our true worship of the guru “will be when every child of the nation enshrines the worship of the nation in its heart and tries to implement the ideal of Bharatiya butva bharatam yajet (Worship India by being Indian).”

Suggested reading:
“Leaders Never Upheld the Unity of the Country” (CWDU: 2)
“How to Worship the Guru” (CWDU:2)

(The writer is the Director, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation)