A “utilitarian” pogrom

Arshid Malik

Hindu India is on a mobile rampage, lynching poor people to death every other day. Zahid, the truck driver from Islamabad district of Kashmir, was no exception. The rampaging campaign did not start with Zahid and will not end therewith. I figure it is where the Sangh Parivar’s long-planned pogrom kicks full-throttle into the mainstream. And while the rest of “reasonable” India assembles to “attack” the undemocratic and utopian dreams of the Sangh, they are merely playing into the hands of the Sangh by acquiring media attention for it which is a precursor to gaining more base and adding people as fodder to its ever-growing war-machine which it calls the “Parivar”. So what is the agenda of the Sangh Parivar, the RSS and its electoral and political wing, the BJP, for India and how does it approach Kashmir in its books? Let us take a look.

According to the “Vision and Mission Statement” of the RSS “The Hindu culture is the life-breath of Hindusthan (India). It is therefore clear that if Hindusthan is to be protected, we should first nourish the Hindu culture… The present fate of the country cannot be changed unless lakhs of young men dedicate their entire lifetime for that cause. To mould the minds of our youth towards that end is the supreme aim of the Sangh.” So the Sangh Parivar is focused on a peculiar Hindu society with all its baggage and by all means owes no allegiance to a secular and non-partisan India. The Sangh believes that “it has alone been the voice of genuine patriotic concern amidst the cacophonous, politically inspired shibboleths of undefined secularism, etc.”

Sangh on Kashmir: The Sangh Parivar has maintained a special focus on Kashmir for decades now. For the Sangh as per its Mission Statement four and a half decades after the nation’s attaining freedom, Kashmir remains a thorn in the flesh (and this document was not perhaps updated to suit chronology). The Statement goes on to claim that the Sangh was in the forefront of the ‘Save Kashmir’ movement in 1952.

The Mission Statement after winding up some “character” and “self-effacing charisma” continues to hammer Kashmir while stating, “The State of Jammu & Kashmir, with its oppressive Muslim-majority character, has been a headache for our country ever since Independence… The problem of Kashmir, in fact, is one of our own making, since, keeping in mind its unique demographic character, unlike other States, it has been conferred a special status under Article 370 of the Constitution, even after its total accession with Bharat.” Article 370 inimically meant that the Sangh had to keep out of Kashmir till recently through its political and electoral wing, the BJP, it sowed its seeds in Kashmir and is now ready – or perhaps has already begun to – reap the harvest. It goes on to state, “The endless appeasement of the Muslim population, especially in Kashmir, practiced by the successive governments at Delhi, has been the bane of our government’s Kashmir policy. Just as too much mollycoddling and lack of discipline spoil the child, so has been Kashmir, a problem created out of our own folly.” This statement is indicative of the fact that the Sangh Parivar has been aching to get its hands on Kashmir but couldn’t because the successive governments at the Center which had to follow the secular constitution of India never let it which the Sangh calls sparing the rod.

With the rod in its hand now, via media the BJP, the Sangh Parivar is perhaps out to straighten out the “spoilt rot” that the Sangh believes Kashmiri people to be. The onslaught has just begun and if secular and rational forces in the country do not attain in manner of limiting the Parivar to its dangerous designs, not only Kashmir but the while country will be up in flames soon.

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