Since February of 2009 when we first studied India, Voice of the Martyrs Canada has documented 80 articles on the persecution of Christians in India. These stories include everything from burning orphanages and bombing churches to attacking and killing pastors and their families. These attacks occur all throughout the country, but the one recurring factor is Hindu "extremists" and their philosophy of Hindutva. To understand the persecution that is happening in India, one has to understand Hindutva and how it is changing the very fabric of India. As we pray for India, let us remember to pray that the truth would shine brightly in the darkness, and that men would search for that truth, instead of blindly following the passions of their heart.
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Hindutva
literally translates to mean Hinduness or Hinduhood. It is an ideology that advocates Hindu
nationalism. It seeks to establish India as a Hindu Nation, and rejects the
idea of a Hindu identity that is a composite of different cultures and faiths.
It has often been called an ideology of Hindu pride, Hindu patriotism, Hindu
fundamentalism, Hindu revivalism, Hindu chauvinism, Hindu fascism or Hindutva,
depending on who is referring to it. What is clear is that it is exclusionary
and discriminatory. It also has tried to
rewrite history in favor of Hindus.
Hindutva has claimed that the Taj Mahal was a Hindu temple and that
Hindus used flying machines 7000 years ago in an effort to feel pride in their
old civilization and to create a Hindu state to restore this “old glory”. These
claims have had such an affect that communal riots where thousands of people
clashed and died have happened between Hindus and other religious minorities in
India, most notably the Muslims, because the false sense of history has stirred
up hatred for the religious minorities whom they perceive as having had
destroyed the Indian civilizations of old.
Hindutva is the ideology of a group known as
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or the ‘Sangh,’). The group was started in 1925 for
‘propagating Hindu culture.’ As an organization, the RSS is elusive and
shadowy, probably due to the fact that in 1948 it was banned after one of its
members assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, who had emphasized Hindu-Muslim
unity. It is only open to Hindu males
(primarily upper caste); it maintains no membership records; it has resisted
being registered with the Government of India as a public/charitable trust; it
has no bank accounts and pays no income tax. The RSS claims to be inclusive of
all those who are racially and culturally Hindu and places on the outside all
those who adhere to and identify with a different faith or ethos, thus
establishing the idea of a Hindu state as an exclusive one where minorities
are, at best, second class citizens.
The
RSS is an umbrella organization that has many arms. The RSS has created and
propagated organizations in every facet of socio-political life in India—from
political parties to children’s centers, trade unions and militias. These
groups are together known as the Sangh Parivar or the Sangh Family of
organizations. In recent years, the Sangh Parivar has also expanded its
operations outside India and made significant efforts to reach the ‘Hindu’
diaspora, especially in the US, the UK and the Caribbean.
The
spread of the Hindutva ideology in India is carried out at the grassroots level
through an army of volunteers deployed by the Sangh Parivar. The recruitment
and ideological orientation' towards Hindutva is done on many levels and
fronts: at the grade school level, or earlier, with Hinduised education,
including such 'educational' activities as the holding of Ramayan and
Mahabharat competitions for school children in tribal areas—largely with the
goal of supplanting tribal culture and traditions; with the 'celebration' of
Hindu festivals on a grand scale in areas with large non-Hindu populations; and
simultaneously, with the distribution of anti-minority pamphlets and literature
and the sporadic creation of anti-minority programs such as the grabbing of
minority land or buildings or the promotion of riots and murder. For these
purposes, the Sangh has set up hundreds of smaller organizations all over the
country, all supervised by volunteers and centrally coordinated, even though
each claims to be independent of the Sangh.
While
the RSS itself cannot currently accept monetary contributions for its
activities from abroad, each of the Sangh-affiliated organizations has been
designated a 'charity' and the Sangh actively solicits foreign funding for
these organizations. In other words, given that the RSS has no corporate form
and ensures an ambiguity around its specific location and form, it would be
quite correct to argue that this myriad of smaller organizations together is
what precisely constitutes the RSS. The most visible and active organizations
of the Sangh Parivar are: its parliamentary wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP, Indian Peoples Party),its cultural/political mobilization wing, the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP – World Hindu Council),its paramilitary wing, the Bajrang
Dal, and its service wing, the Seva Vibhag.
Violence
is a central strategy in the Sangh’s rise to political power. Often the Sangh
presents its use of violence as “self-defense” against armed minority gangs.
While large numbers of Hindus living all across India would shun violence just
as many others of different faiths do, Hindutva has, from its inception, been
very clear on the necessity of violence.
Some of the earliest proponents of Hindutva said: Golwalkar, the second
Supreme Leader of the RSS, celebrated Nazi Germany and “her purging the country
of the Semitic races — the Jews.” For Golwalkar, the “purging” of an entire
people was entirely justifiable as it was an expression of “national pride at
its highest…”. Just as Golwalkar celebrated Nazi Germany, so
did B. S. Moonje, one of the earliest proponents of Hindutva and the mentor of
Hegdewar (the founder of the RSS). Moonje traveled to Italy to meet with
Mussolini and study the methods of Italian fascism. Reflecting on what he saw
in Italy and seeking a reproduction of Italian fascist organization in India he
wrote: “This training is meant for qualifying and fitting our boys for the game
of killing masses of men with the ambition of winning victory... “.
There
is plenty of evidence that shows violence and Hindutva are inexplicably
linked. Numerous government reports have
clearly shown that Sangh has incited and organized communal violence with the
goal of obtaining greater power. Each riot
that occurs further polarizes the majority Hindu community from minority
communities and strives to further separate each religious community into its
own ghetto. More recently with the
ascension of the BJP to State power, and the growth of the VHP and the Bajrang
Dal, communal riots have now transformed into an organized method, where
minority populations, residences, businesses and institutions are targeted with
precision.
Two examples can be seen in persecution against Christians and Muslims. When the BJP party came into power in 1998, violence against Christian minorities in India significantly escalated. Between January 1998 and February 1999 alone, there were 116 attacks against the Christian community in India, specifically targeting Christian missionaries, priests, nuns, schools and churches as observed by the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center.
The Gujarat Genocide of 2002 included the massacre of more than 2000 Muslims, the rape, mutilation and murder of Muslim women, the specific targeting of Muslim businesses for burning and arson, and the destruction of Muslim homes leaving in excess of 150,000 Muslims homeless
The
Sangh also have The Black List posted online where they put “to trial” certain
people for “crimes” ranging from secularism to expressing free speech, they
hand out sentences ranging from a thousand lashes, criminal vandalism to the
death penalty, it says that all actions possible should be taken to deal with
them.
While
the Sangh is popular among upper caste groups, the party continues to be looked
upon with suspicion by lower caste Indians, India’s 140 million Muslims, and
non-Hindi-speaking Hindus in southern India, who together comprise a majority
of India’s voters. The BJP’s minimizing of “Hindutva” as a campaign slogan
angered the RSS, which clung to the concept to unify the Sangh Parivar. There
is a sharp distinction between Hinduism the religion and Hindutva the political
philosophy of the Sangh parivar. The founder of modern India and its first
Prime Minster, Jawaharlal Nehru, identified the Sangh Parivar as communalist
and fascist. The national government,
led by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), continued to implement an
inclusive and secular platform that included respect for the right to religious
freedom. Despite the national government's rejection of Hindutva (Hindu
nationalism), a few state and local governments continued to be influenced by
Hindutva. The law generally provided remedy for violations of religious
freedom, however, due to a lack of sufficient trained police and corruption,
the law was not always enforced rigorously or effectively in some cases
pertaining to religiously oriented violence. However,
"Hindutva"-based policies could not be implemented without passing
court review to determine whether they were consistent with the principles
enshrined in the country's secular constitution.
Info compiled from www.outlookindia.com, hinduextremism.wordpress.com
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