© Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images All for one.
This month, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India's powerful, male-only Hindu nationalist outfit, finally played a card it has long held in its hand. It announced an intensive
conversion program to recover its "lost property" in India, feeding the dream of its cadre and allied organizations of an India that is nothing less than
"100 per cent Hindu."The RSS has visibly grown in power and ambition in the seven months since the arrival of a new government -- unsurprisingly, as it counts among its past members
the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, as well as many old and new chief ministers in the states. With this carefully calculated provocation under a regime sympathetic to its ideology, the nongovernmental organization is seeking victories in many arenas.
In the realm of law, the RSS wants the passage of a stringent nationwide
bill that would ban religious conversions. In the public sphere,
it has arrogated the right to pronounce not just on the future of minorities in India but that of India's Hindu majority as well. In the war of the religions, it seeks to spread the news that there is now a Hindu fundamentalism eager to goad and trump well-established Christian and Islamic fundamentals in India and around the world. And among its own vast cadre, it has generated the sense that it, much more than the government of the day or the diverse institutions of civil society and business, holds the keys to India's future.
Comment: RSS is fundamentalist organization that was created to represent the non-secular Hindus to counter the overwhelmingly secular independence-movement leadership during British colonial days. India's secular foundations go back 2300 years, from the Mauryan empire to the British empire, which ruled for 89 years and found it easy to keep it that way, though they converted few with economic and administrative incentives.
Modi, who meticulously eliminated the influential patriarchs of his political party from power is in a "pickle". If he openly opposes the Hindutva, he will give more power to rebellious Hindu fundamentalists and other disgruntled BJP leaders. If he supports it openly, the country will face communal flames. This will be Modi's toughest challenge with no easy solutions.
For most Indians, it is politics as usual with religious connotations.Can Modi soften the RSS stance? Only time will tell.
Sensational headings like "
A new vision of India, 100 percent Hindu" from Western media will give more credit to RSS than it deserves and it serves their agenda well.
Comment: It will be interesting to see what the CIA will deliver to its citizens from its 'menu'.