Decoding the ‘Sewa’ Dimension of RSS

(This article was first published in Organiser)

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is more than just an ideology, it is a methodology,” said RSS Sarsanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat while addressing a three-day lecture series at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi in 2018. With the BJP emerging as the biggest political party of the country and resolutely occupying power in states and the Centre, the RSS itself has come under considerable spotlight. It can be safely said that RSS today is no longer an alternative discourse, it is, in fact, the main discourse of the country. With millions of ‘swayamsevaks’ involved in voluntary work across the country and overseas, it has also become the subject of curiosity, conjecture and myth.

Going back to the early years of RSS, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru had labelled the RSS as a communal organisation as early as in 1946. Nehru later ruled the country for 17 years and left behind a legacy of Nehruvian ideology, which talked about secular nationalism, non-alignment and Socialism. This Nehruvian ideology brought greater acceptance to the idea that RSS was a communal organisation. As a result, the RSS came to be seen within an insulated secular-communal framework and no need was felt to go beyond that understanding. No critical approach was developed or empirical studies were conducted on the works of the RSS other than in the pre-fixed context of secular-communal dualities. Barring the work of rare academics like Walter Anderson and Pralay Kanungo, no serious attempts were made to develop an understanding of the work and approach of the RSS based on academic enquiry and data. The subject was always approached with narrow pre-arrived conclusions on the ideas of RSS and Hindu Rashtra. The outcome was that RSS was labelled as a radical ‘Hindu Right-Wing’ organisation with ‘Fascist’ objectives and all views were restricted to this narrow typecast setting.

Book Review: Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples by Meenakshi Jain

This article first appeared on IndiaFacts website

If stones could speak, the story of Indian temples and deities would have been one of resilience and rebirth in the face of persecution and annihilation. But as things stand, discomfiting truth has been surrendered for a more ‘suitable’ narrative. With academics driving this shift of truth-gears, the task of unravelling facts has become even more riddled. Meenakshi Jain, Senior Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research, takes this challenge head-on in her latest book ‘Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples’.

The book traces the journey of deities and pulls out historical references to outline how temples were built again and again despite being razed by Muslim invaders. With this approach, she establishes that temples were not just plundered for wealth but, more importantly, desecrated with the intention of wiping out the faith associated with them. She also traces the journey of deities to counter the argument that the practice of desecrating temples was started by Hindu rulers. 

सामाजिक विज्ञान की भारतीय दृष्टि

डॉ श्रीप्रकाश सिंह द्वारा सम्पादित पुस्तक पॉलिटिक्स फॉर अ न्यू इंडिया: अ नेशनलिस्टिक पर्सपेक्टिव ` की पाञ्चजन्य में प्रकाशित मेरी समीक्षा

मुगलों और तुर्कों ने भारतीय मंदिर और शिक्षा के केंद्र नष्ट किए लेकिन अंग्रेजों ने इन केंद्रों के प्रति अनास्था उत्पन्न की. इसीलिए उन्होंने ऐसी शिक्षा व्यवस्था बनाई जो उपनिवेशवादी मानसिकता से ग्रस्त थी. जिसमें पश्चिम से उपजा ज्ञान ही अंतिम सत्य नजर आता था. इस उपनिवेशवादी मानसिकता ने हमें उत्तर-औपनिवेशिक काल में भी कुछ नया और मौलिक के संधान से दूर किया. आज आजादी के सत्तर साल बाद भी ऐसा लगता है कि हम हजारों सालों से अभिसिंचित भारतीय चिंतन परंपरा और सभ्यतागत विमर्श से कितने दूर हैं. हालांकि कुछ कोशिशें समय समय पर जरूर होती रही हैं.

विज्ञान से लेकर सामाजिक विज्ञान तक ऐसे कई हैं जिन्होंने अपने स्तर पर काफी काम किया. वैसे तो हर क्षेत्र महत्वपूर्ण है लेकिन एक बड़ा काम जहां करने की जरूरत है वो क्षेत्र है सामाजिक विज्ञान का. ऐसे कुछ लोग हुए भी हैं जिन्होंने विश्वविद्यालय व्यवस्था के अंदर और बाहर रहकर इतिहास, समाजशास्त्र और दर्शन के क्षेत्र में भारतीय दृष्टि से काम किया. वासुदेव शरण अग्रवाल, कुबेरनाथ राय, गोविंद चंद पांडे, राम स्वरूप और सीताराम गोयल कुछ ऐसे ही नाम हैं जिन्होंने पिछले कुछ दशकों में अच्छा काम किया है.

पिछले कुछ सौ सालों में पश्चिम में पुनर्जागरण के बाद हुए औद्योगिकीकरण और विज्ञान, तर्क, संस्कृति, कला के विकास के बीच से जो विमर्श निकला उसमें सवाल, संधान और समाधान के लिए एक ऐसा वातावरण बनाया कि दुनिया के उस हिस्से में मानव सभ्यता, विकास और वैभव की नई ऊंचाइयां छूने लगी. मानव जीवन में स्वतंत्रता, समानता और बंधुत्व को उन्होंने समझा और उसके पीछे तर्क का पूरा ताना-बाना गढ़ा गया. जैफरसन, लॉक, रूसो, मिल, बेंथम, बर्क, लास्की जैसे दर्जनों चिंतकों, विचारकों ने पोथियां लिख डालीं मानवाधिकारों, मानव जीवन के महत्व और अवसर की समानता पर. ये सब ज्ञान किताबों में नहीं रहा बल्कि पिछले 250 सालों में धरातल पर भी उतरा.

लेकिन इनका सारा ज्ञान -पोथी से लेकर धरातल तक - सिर्फ अपनी दुनिया के लिए ही था. बाकी दुनिया को तो ये सभ्य बनाने में लगे थे. रुडयार्ड किपलिंग की भाषा में ‘वाइट मेन्स बर्डन’. इसलिए यहां का ज्ञान की महानता को क्यों स्वीकार करते. अब सोचने की बात यह है कि क्या भारत के पास ऐसी समझ नहीं थी. पड़ताल करने पर पता लगता है कि इन विषयों पर पश्चिम से बहुत पहले चिंतन भारत में हो चुका था. डॉ अंबेडकर ने खुद कहा था कि मैंने समानता, स्वतंत्रता और बंधुत्व फ्रांस की क्रांति से नहीं बल्कि महात्मा बुद्ध के दर्शन को पढ़कर जाना है. यानी कि एक चिंतन धारा थी जो बाहरी तत्वों द्वारा अवरुद्ध की गई. आक्रांताओं के आक्रमण, शोषण और आतंक में भारत जो विश्वगुरू था वो गुलाम हो गया. और, गुलाम लोग कभी संधानकर्ता नहीं होते, गुरू नहीं बनते.

इसलिए हमें प्रयास करने चाहिए कि भारतीय ज्ञान परंपरा फिर से विकसित हो. ऋषि और कृषि संस्कृति से निकला हमारा सभ्यतागत विमर्श फिर अपने चरमोत्कर्ष को प्राप्त करे. इसे चाहे - भारतीय पक्ष, इंडिक वे, इंडो-सेंट्रिक एजूकेशन, भारतीयकरण, सैफर्नाइजेशन, भगवाकरण, इंडियनाइजेशन जो कहें लेकिन आज इसकी आवश्कता सबसे अधिक है. ये ज्ञानधारा किसी के समानांतर और विरोध में नहीं बल्कि विश्व ज्ञान कोष के सागर में भारत का अपना योगदान है जो मौजूदा समय के सवालों के भारतीय जवाब देने की कोशिश करेगा.

दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में राजनीति शास्त्र के प्रफेसर श्रीप्रकाश सिंह की नई किताब ‘पॉलिटिक्स फॉर न्यू इंडिया : अ नेशनलिस्टिक पर्सपेक्टिव’ उसी दिशा में एक आगे लिया हुए कदम है. उनके द्वारा संपादित इस पुस्तक में भारतीय समाज और राजनीति के मौजूदा दौर के मुद्दों को भारतीय दृष्टि से समझने की कोशिश की गई है. विश्वविद्यालय व्यवस्था में रहते हुए ऐसे विषयों पर काम करना कुछ वर्षों पहले तक थोड़ा कठिन था और सामाजिक विज्ञान में भारतीय ज्ञान परंपरा भी उतनी मजबूती से खड़ी दिखाई नहीं दी थी.

Decoding A Colonial Design

I reviewed Meenakshi Jain's book Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse for Indian Historical Review (a Sage publication). You can read a version of the article below: 

It is the biggest irony of our times that while all contemporary sociopolitical discourse hinges on multiplicity of arguments, we tacitly agree to see some subjects in absolutes. The practice of sati is an example of the latter. Meenakshi Jain’s tome Sati, however, brings on record historical facts and data that build the ground for a comprehensive picture. She begins with the basics—‘Was sati a religious obligation?’—and has the academic stamina to see each thread through. In this book, Jain works with primary sources ranging from the incident witnessed by the Greeks in 326 BC to that recorded by missionaries in 1820s. This makes her work authentic and her observations pioneering. She is able to lay on the table a great expanse of research that breaks past fallacies and academic bogies.

A Framework for Discourse

Meenakshi Jain’s approach is academic and unbiased. Her key observation is that sati was used by evangelists and Christian missionaries to whet their enfeebled cause both in India and Britain. She begins by building a backdrop which shows an increase in frequency of incidents after contact with Muslim culture. Documenting and analysing the instances of sati as recorded by foreign travellers, Jain observes that by the seventeenth century, the practice of sati had turned into a ‘wonder’ that found a place in any account of India. She contends that the demand for such accounts and voyeurism compelled travellers to include these in their works even if the narratives were second-hand or fabricated. It also traces the germination of the nineteenth-century construct of heroic colonial officers saving Indian women from sati and other such ‘barbaric’ customs.

Her primary sources indicate change in the texture of practice from being voluntary to forced, honourable to disgraceful, with woman being a beatific participant to being passive victim and Brahmins transforming from preventers to promoters of the practice.

It is possible to divide foreign accounts of sati into two broad phases—a pre-and post-Baptist phase. With the advent of the Baptists, earlier sentiments of wonder and astonishment were almost entirely replaced by condemnation. Sati was labeled as murder or suicide and used as a moral justification for the British rule (p. 41).

Jain presents all facets of her research irrespective of whether it is in tune with her premise. She chooses not to whitewash sources or make them comply with the broad theme of her work. For a reader, this approach throws up some surprises, for example, the numerous descriptions of sati as being voluntary and the participating woman as intransigent.

A Political Tool

The missionary problem with the practice of sati, according to Jain, can be seen in early accounts. Unlike the Indian concept of fire, where it is viewed as positive and purifying, missionaries equated the funeral pyre to putative fires of hell. However, towards the end of eighteenth century, Englishmen—led by the likes of Warren Hastings and William Jones—had developed admiration for Hindu religion and philosophy which eventually developed into orientalism. Jain devotes a complete chapter to the ‘State of English Society at Home and in India’. At a time when Britain was witnessing ‘spiritual torpor’, the Evangelical Movement found a place in the upper classes. From this emerged the Clapham sect, which aimed to open up India to missionary enterprise, and Charles Grant, who went on to become the ‘father and founder of modern missionary effort in Great Britain’s Indian empire’.

Jain accesses the ‘Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain’ which was prepared by Charles Grant for President of East India Company’s Board of Control. ‘Grant’s Observations “gives a fair exhibition of the Evangelical mentality” (Stokes 1982: 29). It invented the reform agenda for the British and thereby provided a justification for British Rule in India. (Trautmann 2004, p. 99).’

Grant aimed to bring his influence to the renewal of East India Company’s charter. It is to Jain’s credit that she gives due space to views of other Britons who opposed overtures of the Evangelists. However, Grant continued to spearhead the evangelical cause and became the chairman of East India Company in 1805. It is important to note that soon after, in 1806, utilitarian James Mill began work on ‘History of British Empire in India’ which eventually became a textbook for candidates for the Indian Civil Services.

Mills History of British India represented the starting point for the ‘theoretical repositioning’ of India in relation to Europe following the growth of industrial capitalism. It was an attempt at the intellectual subordination of India to the ‘universalist principles’ of European social theory that accompanied European imperial expansion (p. 107).

Jain contends that together the evangelists and utilitarians converted ‘British Indomania’ to ‘Indophobia’ through their sustained campaign against sati and Hindu pilgrimages (like the Jagannath Yatra). She divides the evangelical-missionary campaign against sati into two parts: from 1803 to 1813 when the case was prepared and from 1813 to 1829 when figures were produced to validate claims. ‘Sati was the first “political” issue in which British women were directly involved to gather support for their luckless “sisters” in India (p.185).’

Facts and Fallacies

Among the greatest achievements of this work is that it exposes the erroneous figures touted to show that sati was widely practiced in India. She analyses the data collected and estimated by the missionaries under William Carey in 1803. The information was collected by ten people within 30 miles of Calcutta. Each informant was to cover an area of 800 sq. km; the presumption was that they would get to know of incidents even if they were unable to witness each by themselves. This made data collection dependent on local tales and word of mouth. The data hence collected were applied on the rest of the country and it was concluded that several thousands of widows were burnt every year. These figures were widely publicised to raise funds for missionary work and expose Hindu superstitions.

In 1815, the government began to register cases of sati. It threw up skewed figures with a majority of reports coming from Bengal, which had not been historically associated with the rite. Jain points to the essential question if the alleged high incidence of satis in Bengal was a missionary manufacture. She also unveils other inconsistencies in the data related to ‘kulin’ Brahmins and age group of victims.

Conclusion

Packed with facts, analysis and primary sources, this magnum opus by Meenakshi Jain will be an essential companion to any study on the subject. Jain’s book is well researched, cogent and admits a range of views and possibilities. She establishes how the already dying practice of sati was brought in the spotlight to serve specific ends. As she quotes Christopher Bayly,

The British obsession with sati was boundless. Thousands of pages of parliamentary papers dealt with 4,000 immolations wile the death of millions from famine and starvation was mentioned only incidentally sometimes only because it tended to increase the number of widows performing the horrid act (p. 188).

The Right Shade of Saffron!

Review of Kingshuk Nag's book Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A  Man For All Seasons first published in The Book Review. 

In the year 1996 during an election rally in Lucknow when Atal Bihari Vajpayee stepped on the stage the excited crowd chanted, ‘Hamara PM kaisa ho, Atal Bihari Jaisa ho’. Vajpayee retorted in his characteristic style, ‘Arre PM chodo, pahle MP to banao’. What followed was another round of applause and cheers. Such rallies became Vajpayee’s trademark where he used wit and humour to strike a chord with his listeners instead of empty promises. In his sixties, Vajpayee had a huge following of youngsters who had been brought up in Uttar Pradesh and other States of the Hindi heartland of 1990s and had grown up listening to his poems and anecdotes. He could play with words in poetry as well as prose. He used more than just words—body, gestures, eyes, even pauses—to express himself. A number of times his pauses were more potent than his words. This gift went a long way in his journey as a respected parliamentarian and later the Prime Minister of the country. Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Man for All Seasons is a first concerted attempt in English language to chronologically document the life and times of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The author Kingshuk Nag has been a journalist for the last 22 years with a prestigious national newspaper. Currently, in an editorial position, Nag had covered events in Gujarat and elsewhere during his role as a political reporter and written books on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the Bhartiya Janata Party.
Nag met several senior politicians, bureaucrats and journalists to bring out the little known facts about Vajpayee. Given the dearth of literature about the man who is today considered one of the key movers and shakers of post-Independent politics of India, this book becomes an important reading for the scholars and practitioners of Indian politics. Though we can find events related to Vajpayee in many books on political history of post-Independent India, few provide such comprehensive and focused coverage about him.  

While this book is more journalistic in nature, it provides a unique insight into the political and personal life of Vajpayee. Due to lack of active documentation, several facts and facets about Vajpayee and his long political journey are not known even to long serving activists of the Bharitya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). For example, not many would know that Vajpayee had supported the candidature of Jagjivan Ram as the Prime Minister in year 1980. An offer was also made to Vajpayee and others to join the Janata Dal with the leaders suggesting that he will feel more liberated in the new party which was claimed to be closer to the ideas of Jai Prakash Narayan and Gandhi as compared to the BJP.

This book also offers a chapter that reveals details of Vajpayee’s personal life that have so far stayed out of the public view. However, Nag does not allow this part to overwhelm him. It was a proof of Atal’s master statesmanship that he never hid his association with a lady named Mrs Kaul and was never questioned about it too either by media or by his fellow politicians - both friends and foes. Nag sticks to facts in this regard and takes care to not impose words on one of the most inconspicuous yet important equation in the life of Vajpayee.  

The book also takes head on the controversy about Vajpayee being a freedom fighter. Nag chronicles the events that took place when Vajpayee participated in the Satyagrah of 1942 in his native place in Bateshwar near Agra.

Various facets of Vajpayee’s life and personality – as a young student, journalist, parliamentarian, foreign minister, family man, poet, orator, statesman and prime minister - have been dealt with authenticity in this book. However, there are two aspects that could have been given more focus, one of them being Vajpayee as an RSS Pracharak. Vajpayee became RSS Pracharak in mid-1940s and always remained one. He worked in Sandila near Lucknow among other places in this capacity and reiterated ‘RSS is my soul’. However since the dominant discourse finds it hard to see the two together, the tendency is to club his being an RSS man with his refusal to be dictated by the organisation, as this book also does.

The other aspect that could have received more attention is of Vajpayee a futurist who envisioned the ambitious National Highway Development Project (NHDP) project. The coming generations will know Vajpayee as the leader who planned the Golden Quadrilateral project that entailed a highway network running through major financial and cultural centres of the country. How this project was conceived and pushed past cynics could have been an interesting and informative read.

While ‘Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Man for All Seasons’ successfully fills the gap in information about Vajpayee and emerges as among the best available books in English on the subject, it does not clearly answer the question of Vajpayee’s stand on Ram Temple. The book does, however, document Vajpayee’s statements in this regard given at different time, locations and contexts.

“Atal was able to balance the Ayodhya issue very finely….on 6th December 2000 – the anniversary of the Babri demolition – he said that the Ram Janmabhumi movement was the expression of national sentiments that was still to be realized’…….He told parliament, ‘I never asked for building a Ram temple at the site of the disputed mosque.’”

Nag credits Atal as pioneer of the politics of governance who contested the general elections of 2004 on that agenda. Though Vajpayee lost those elections but he set the tone of new politics for the 21st century India. Atal also harbingered the second generation reforms in the Indian economy and widened the gate for private companies to work in India.

The book establishes Atal as being the right shade of saffron, something that was accepted within the RSS cadres and also among non-Congress parties. It makes an interesting point for those who argue that BJP is essentially an extreme Hindu Right wing party that Vajpayee was chosen by RSS Sarsanghchalak Golwalkar over Balraj Madhok who was an extremist Right wing leader. The RSS leadership knew and understood that Vajpayee had the capability and the right mix of vision to lead the party and later the country.

Classical Political thinker Plato in his work ‘The Republic’ talks about the Philosopher King as ruler of the Ideal State.  In the contemporary scenario in India the closest version of a philosopher king would be a ‘Philosopher Democrat’ and Nag’s work establishes Vajpayee as the one. Despite not being a member of the Congress party which dominated the unipolar political set up for forty years, Vajpayee rose to greatness and became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India in the 20th century who served full term. This book is written keeping this in mind and is a good read for all those who follow, observe or analyse Indian politics.

Reclaiming the Glory of Sri Ram

I reviewed the book The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya by Meenakshi Jain for Organiser. You can read a version of the review below:

On September 30, 2010  the Allahabad High Court delivered its verdict on the five suits pending before it. The Court decreed that the area covered by the central dome of the disputed structure “being the deity of Bhagwan Ramjanmasthan and the birthplace of Lord Ram as per faith and belief of the Hindus,” belongs to the plaintiffs (Bhagwan Sri Ram Lalla Virajman and others; Suit 5).” (p. 140)

In an historic judgment, the Allahabad High Court  in 2010  had ruled for a three-way division of the 2.77 acre site. More recently, the Supreme Court, while hearing a plea for day-to-day hearing in the case, observed that the matter should be settled through mediation.  In popular academic circles, the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi is considered as the outcome of 150 years of communalisation; one that culminated in the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992 and turned into a rallying point for secularism. The truth however, is far from this.

In her latest book The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya, Meenakshi Jain puts on table certain facts that have been deliberately obfuscated in the debate. The writer looks at archaeological, literary and sculptural sources to get the facts straight. She also calls out the bluff of historians who are bent upon discrediting everything that strengthens the case for a temple at the site. Their contentions are many, desperate and shocking. To them Sri Ram worship is an eighteenth-nineteenth century phenomenon; Present day Ayodhya is not the Ayodhya of the ancient times, which they have located in Afghanistan, even Egypt. (p.82); Word mandira found on an inscription means dwelling house or palace and not a temple; Tulsidas attached no importance to Ayodhya as the birthplace of Sri Ram and many more. In her book, the writer has exposed the impunity with which these historians get away by committing the biggest academic faux pas of Independent India. The most recent of this came in response to the ASI findings. A planned campaign was carried out to misinform the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that carried out excavations at the site in August 2003 as per the high court order. In its report submitted to the court on September 22, the ASI concluded that there was evidence of “…indicative remains which are distinctive features found associated with temples of north India.” (p.121)  The ASI also took into account carbon dating results and structural remains which suggested that the structure wasn’t built on virgin land and in fact the material from the pre-existing structure was used to build the structure. This set in motion a new batch of claims. Professor Irfan Habib led a group of eight archaeologists who overnight mooted the theory that the pre-existing structure was in fact another mosque or idgah. These academics were presented as experts in the court by Sunni Waqf Board. As this was for the first time that such a claim had been made, the court expressed surprise. On cross examination, one of these archaeologists, Suraj Bhan, admitted that they had given the statement simply to offset the effect of ASI findings and had no other grounds for their claims.

The writer has also exposed the fact that  except Suraj Bhan none of the other archaeologists presented as expert witnesses had done any field work. “RC Thakran professed in court that he was just a table archaeologist… D Mandal admitted that he had acquired knowledge of archaeology and had never obtained any degree or diploma in archaeology.”  Shereen Ratnagar also accepted that he had never done any digging and excavation work.

Case of the temple

The writer has devoted   an entire chapter to examine a crucial inscription which came to light after the demolition of disputed structure in 1992. The stone inscription comprised 20 lines on slab diagonally broken into two. The inscription was in chaste Sanskrit and mentioned the name of King Govinda Chandra of 1114 AD. It also referred to “Saket mandala” and “temple stone for the God Vishnu Hari”. Left historians jumped in to discredit this evidence. Some said that the inscription belonged to later date while others tried to prove that Vishnu Hari referred to an individual and not Lord Vishnu.

Besides debunking such attempts to falsify facts, the book goes a long way to establish the historicity of the temple at Ramjanmabhoomi complex. The writer  looks at evidences ranging from foreign travellers and British administrators to Hindu sources. The book also points to some crucial evidences and aspects that have been conveniently left out of the debate. The writer has discussed Hans Bakker’s critical examination of three main parts of the Ayodhya Mahatmya, the chief work extolling the sacred sites of the city and relating them to the incidents from the life of Sri Ram.

Getting the facts right

In  the later chapter writing about the Left historians joining the debate, the writer points out how these had scholars tried to whitewash the violence by Muslim invaders against Hindu art and religion. Professor Sharma, for example “lamented that a lover of Hindu art and architecture (Babar) should be credited with the destruction of a Ram temple, which in any case, did not exist.” An attempt has been made to put history in right perspective breaking the myths of soft, art-loving invaders who just happened to stumble upon India. Another attempt to obfuscate facts was made by Professor Romila Thapar, who censured the projection of Valmiki’s Ramayana and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas as the sole authentic rendition of  Sri Ram’s story.  The writer’s greatest merit is that she sticks to facts and allows them to tell their own story.   The writer establishes how Valmiki’s work served as the basis for any further retelling. She argues that the future versions were retellings of the Valmiki’s Ramayana that everyone was familiar with. She writes, “It was around the core of Valmiki’s story that subsequently developed the view of Ram as God incarnate… No other version ever matched the repute of Valmiki’s Ramayana.” (p.80) She also puts on record the three early Buddhist and Jain texts that mentioned Ram.

The beginning of conflict

The book also busts the myth that communal flare up over the issue came only in 1991 riding the wave of political communalisation. The book documents the riots in Ayodhya in 1912, 1934. In both the years the riots broke out on the occasion of Bakr-Id over animal sacrifice. In 1913, chief secretary R Burn stated in a letter that the existence of the mosque at the traditional site of  Sri Ram’s birth was “one perpetual cause of friction”. The writer notes that the earlier evidence of conflict dates back to 1822. A note in judicial records submitted to Faizabad Court indicates this. Later, in 1855 British Resident James Outram sent a letter to Awadh Nawab Wajid Ali warning him that a Sunni troublemaker had assembled a force of Muslims near Faizabad and was bent on ruining Hanuman Garhi. A more serious conflict is recorded in 1855 over instance of some Muslims to offer prayers inside Hanuman Garhi.  The writer notes the attempts to reclaim the lost scared spaces as the geo-political realities changed over the years. Such attempts were particularly made under Maratha rulers and Amer ruler Sawai Jai Singh. The writer also documents the resurgence of Ramanadis who organised themselves into akharas and repaired and restored  some of the structures in Ayodhya. This information is critical in understanding the history of the fight for Sri Ram Temple. It also busts the notion that Sri Ram Temple cause is a creation of the nineteenth century.

 It is ironic indeed that the birth place of the most revered God Sri Ram was destroyed, questioned and debated for years. This book provides a strong academic and theoretical foundation to reclaim the glory of Sri Ram.                                      

Indianising Policy Studies

I reviewed the book National Policy Studies in the Light of Ekatma Manav Darshan, Edited by Ravindra Mahajan, for Organiser.
You can read a version of the review below:

Policy Studies is a new emerging academic field in India which helps to understand the issues of governance and public policy planning. Ravindra Mahajan and his team have come up with a compilation of its own kind through this book on policy studies in the light of Integral Humanism (Ekatma Manav Darshan). This work is a result of gigantic academic exercise which  was taken up over a long period time where such policies that affect Indian state and its society were discussed.

Many organisations and individuals of Maharashtra have worked on this for long. The Editor clearly states that this is the first document on public policy and would be followed up with a deeper study on public policy planning of India in future.

The title of the book itself explains that the book aims to undertake an understanding of public policy studies in the light of Integral Humanism (Ekatma Manav Darshan). While there have been efforts in the past to understand politics in the light of Integral Humanism, yet no one has come out with such study on policy till date.

Integral Humanism is an ideology propounded by a RSS Pracharak, great thinker and one of the founding members of Bharatiya Jan Sangh Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya, who had dwelt on the idea of Integral Humanism while giving his discourses in Mumbai. Integral Humanism was accepted as core idea by the BJS first and later by the BJP.

Integral Humanism tries to decipher different related issues with an Indo-centric approach. It is rooted in the concept that ideas for mind and values for soul are as much important as food for stomach. While the two dominating ideologies of the Western world in last 100 years —Capitalism and Communism— keep the individual and his material needs at the core of its thinking, Integral Humanism on the other hand makes welfare of every living being its core.          

Any thought process gets enriched only when it is propagated, discussed and expounded by intellectuals and academics in given space and time. Efforts to this effect have been put to prepare this document which has come out in the form of a book by Centre for Integral Studies and Research, Pune.

The Editor of the book has accepted that this is not a detailed policy document but only salient points and a comprehensive document is yet to come. However there is no doubt that this is a noble beginning. Inspite of this being a starting step, one can safely say that no documentation of such comprehensive nature has been done in the light of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s ideology in the academic field in last few years. Next step should be in the form of separate comprehensive volumes on each policy issue with proper proof reading, referencing and bibliography which would give the work more academic worth.

This book contains seventeen chapters discussing different policy issues. The Editor has tried to elaborate on two dominant ideologies—Communism and Capitalism—that influenced human race most in last 100 years and the idea of the State before going into the main part of the content. However, it is clear that the views of the writer and readers could differ on these two ideologies. In the later chapters policy issues like governance, education, economy, industry, service sector, science and technology, land acquisition, cooperatives, labour, security and foreign policy, etc are discussed in the light of Integral Humanism.

Two broad policy issues which did not find place in this document are issues of youth and social justice. Caste system and social justice discourse need to be seen as part of policy studies. It has been witnessed time and again that last man standing in the row belongs to the caste that falls lowest in the caste hierarchy i.e. Dalit. It has also been studied as a part of the public policy analysis that 70 per cent of the total population of the country is youth and can be used as a major resource. We could positively hope that these two issues would be discussed in the next detailed volumes.  

In our country, different policies were practiced and propounded by different rulers and thinkers. In this book many of those ideas have been given space and consideration viz. security policy of Shivaji Maharaj, Spying policy of Chanakya and different issues discussed in our shastras.   

This book is written with an emotional touch. It is also a matter of study that how much we should allow our emotions to guide us while working on a policy issue. However, we shall not forget that emotion is the also the best calculation.

This compilation edited by Ravindra Mahajan has been published in the light of this unique ideology. This book would not only be beneficial for academics but would also help activists engaged in the significant task of national reconstruction and people influencing policy making from outside and inside the government. This book will also help those groups and individuals which are associated with gigantic task of developing models of alternative development.  As it is said in this book that this is ‘beginning of the beginning’, we will see deeper study by the same academic group in near future till then this book is worth a read.

Ayodhya: Resurrecting the Lost World

I reviewed the book Rama and Ayodhya for Organiser 

You can read a version of the review below:

The Indian academic scenario is so gripped by leftist ideology that the people associated with it are unable to think beyond the assumed canons. Other points of view are not entertained and anything that doesn’t fit their 150-year-old Marxist framework can’t be either objective or true. Conversely, they are ready to dole out a hundred fabrications to prove what they think ‘should’ be right. In India, leftist ideology and politics have reached a stalemate. Even the senior leaders and ideologues are at a loss when class-struggle transforms into caste-struggle and when lal salam echoes like wale-qum-asslam. The ideological entanglements have not just harmed their own politics but also the progressive politics of India. Ram Janm Bhumi Movement is no exception as there have been unassailed attempts to obfuscate the issue at various levels and in different ways. The book ‘Rama and Ayodhya’ written by Meenakshi Jain is a brave effort to expose the nefarious designs of such leftist academics.

Meenakshi Jain teaches History in Delhi University and has from time to time raised several issues that have been sidelined in the academic discourse driven by JNU-type historians. Why this bunch of leftist historians is so selective in their ideation, research and analysis is subject matter for a separate article.

Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court pronounced in its verdict on September 30, 2010 that the disputed site is nothing but the temple of Ram Lala and sacred place for crores of Hindus and therefore, should be granted to the Hindus. The High Court’s decision was based on a report submitted by the ASI’s excavation team constituted by the order of the court. During the excavation at the disputed site, the ASI found the remains were of a temple that was destroyed and over which a mosque was constructed.  

The writer of this book has brilliantly chronicled the early history of Ayodhya and Ramayana which provides substantial evidences of the existence of a temple of Lord Ram in Ayodhya. While it records the puranic and literary evidences on one hand, it also compiles evidences, facts and courts proceedings on the other, to counter the arguments of the historians who pitch for legitimacy for the disputed structure.

The author makes a long journey of research and study in her quest of Ram, Ramayana and Ayodhya. Working right through folklore to historic evidences Jain gives us a great tome of academic research.  Her book also challenges the leftist historians whose selective footnotes and referencing negate the existence of Ram and declares that the issue of Ayodhya as birthplace of Ram is merely 200 years old created by some British writers. She also mentions how in 1989, 25 historians of JNU initiated the academic debate on Ramjanm Bhumi by publishing a book and laying the foundation of an ideological fraud. Even after the Court’s verdict, they did not stop and as a part of their campaign they organised several seminars and published many booklets denouncing the verdict. 

Jain’s lucid style of handling such a complicate subject, makes it a gripping read. Also, given the span and scope of the subject covered it deserves a place on the shelf of those who value quality research.  

The introductory chapter makes it clear that there is ample proof that  disputed structure was made after demolishing a temple which was worshiped as the birthplace of Lord Ram. In the second, third and fourth chapters the writer takes the help of the literary, sculptural and epigraphic evidences to prove the antiquity and popularity of Ram among common masses. While the introductory chapter makes a strong pitch for Ramjanm Bhumi in Ayodhya, the last one argues that there is no case for mosque. The writer gives evidences from revenue and waqf records of the pre-independence era and judicial pronouncements in earlier cases involving Hindu deities which undermine the Babri case.

Shedding new light on the subject, the writer says that the struggle for Ramjanm Bhumi is hundreds of years old and that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad just carried forward the ancient legacy through the Ram Janmbhumi movement of 1980-90s. Jain gives an account of the historic struggles for the holy site. 

This book unmasks the Leftist writers and historians who have, on one hand, tried to project Hindu faith as hogwash and on the other, have joined efforts to falsify the existence of Ram. It is indeed shocking to know that many of these historians gave statements in court which were later found to be false.

Jain quotes Gandhiji, “The general spirit of India was most vividly reflected in the Ramayana”. It is a great misfortune of the nation that on this land we have to prove the existence of Ram again and again. The evidences submitted by ASI again prove that the Ram Janmbhumi temple was situated on the site for hundreds of years before it was demolished by Babar to build  disputed structure. Undoubtedly, the mosque was built to show the supremacy of the victors and to crush both the faith and the spirit of the inhabitants of this sacred land. For those who still doubt, Jain’s masterpiece is sure to provide an answer. Jain’s work truly shows how a decolonised mind chronicles the history of its homeland.