Soul spokesman

No amount of criticism of the kind of secularism practiced by the Congress and the Lohiate and Marxist parties can explain, let alone justify, the ‘‘cultural nationalism’’ hawked by the RSS. The give-away, in the first instance, is its claim that it keeps aloof from politics. For, from its very inception, its cadres have intervened in political debates, engaged in the electoral process and even held public office times without number.
So it was no surprise that at its recent conclave in Jaipur it decided that its swayamsevaks would be campaigning for the BJP.What is surprising though is the rhetoric heard during the meeting. It is at variance with the line that Messrs Vajpayee and Advani have been toeing. They have been going out of their way to make it clear that their focus is on issues of good governance and that their pet ideological concerns would be held in abeyance if not abandoned altogether.
This won’t do for the RSS. Its chief, K C Sudershan, has yet again set the cat among the pigeons with his statements at the launch of a book on ‘‘cultural nationalism’’. The RSS, he argued in substance, does not believe in the western concepts for minority and majority for the simple reason that 99 per cent of the ‘‘minorities’’ have their ancestors belonging to India. To rub in the point, Sudershan went on to add that only Jews and Parsis could be given the status of a minority. However, they themselves had jettisoned that status.
In a purely factual sense, the RSS chief is on a sound wicket. The ancestors of almost all Muslims and Christians were indeed Hindu. But Sudershan goes a step further when he urges them not to snap their ties with their past. His intent is not quite clear. His references to the ‘‘soul’’ of India and to the bhav (intrinsic feeling), presumably of Hinduness, confuses the issue further.
Muslims and Christians, as well as an overwhelming number of Hindu Indians will be skeptical of any attempt to put them in any ideological straightjacket of Hinduness or Indianness. These matters are best left undefined. Each citizen of this country has the right to improvise his or her identity. She or he is indeed a bearer of multiple identities. Some — like gender, community and caste, and language — come with birth. But many others — education and upbringing, professional choices, cultural exposure, friendships, marital ties and so forth — are acquired. Indian identity is thus open-ended, seamless, constantly invented or contrived.
When Sudershan speaks of the ‘‘soul’’ of India does he mean that Muslims should be asked to subscribe to idol worship? Does he want Christians to place Christ on par with a Hindu divinity? And does he expect not just the minorities but also enlightened Hindus to look the other way at what passes muster as Hinduness — superstition, the practice of sati, the continuing discrimination against Dalits, the gender prejudices, and so forth?
This is not all. Does Sudershan acknowledge the scintillating contributions of Muslims to Indian culture? Would he also accept that ‘Christian’ rule over India has left some positive imprint on it? We would also like to know what he thinks of the intermingling of faiths and beliefs and cultural practices that are to be found in every nook and corner of this country. Do all these factors not belong to our past as well?
Unless Sudershan answers these questions, his relentless harping on the ‘‘soul’’ of India will erode the very foundations of our Republic. Let him leave the business of elaborating ‘Indianness’ to the intellect and conscience of every Indian citizen. We do not need the RSS to be our ‘soul’ spokesman.