The political fight that we are witnessing in India is not just a political but an ideological fight.
The ideology of divisions for diversity to unity in diversity.
The ideology of divisions has ruined India, once by our own in the name of the caste system by birth and later by the Mughals and British in the name of religion.
Post-independence, unfortunately, our elected representatives too preferred to follow the same colonial way of divide and govern, thus deepened the divisions within ourselves not just based on religion but based on caste, the region in addition to the religious divide.
The rise of caste-based parties and regional parties, along with the growth of vote bank politics has to be blamed squarely on the elected democratic governments India had until 2014.
Modi is the first Prime Minister, who has talked about India first, He is the first Prime Minister who is always talking about 1.25 billion Indians and he has been exhorting every Indian to fight poverty, lack of cleanliness, corruption and nepotism to fighting in between in the name of religion, region, caste, rich and poor etc.
Still, you see all the leftist, liberal media calling him communal, fascist without even a shred of evidence, this is what we need to clearly understand, why are they doing this. Ideally, they should have hailed him for his inclusive, progressive stand but they just won’t change their opinion, because they have an agenda, which is driven into them due to lack of understanding of Indian culture or due to vested interests or they were bought over by anti-India elements, in a word we can call them anti-strong India lobby.
This is what we Indians should realise and not fall prey to an agenda that is aimed at weakening India, it has weakened India for decades and now we have an opportunity to defeat the anti-India agenda under the leadership of Modi and we should for god sake not forfeit this opportunity.
Now let us understand the major allegations/propaganda against Modi government and reality.
- Cow vigilantes and crimes attributed to them
We need to understand that there is a law in a few states in our country, which prohibits cow slaughter. These laws have been enacted by not BJP but other party governments like Congress. If such a law was enacted then there would have been a need for such a law in the respective states. This law was necessitated as a deterrent to the communal clashes that used to happen due to cow slaughter in various part of the country.
Now the implementation of the law has been so weak that few people have started taking the law into their hand and some of them have used the issue to unleash their criminal activities under the garb of cow vigilantism.
Prime Minister has condemned the violence not once but on many occasions, now it is the state governments which needs to act on various cases, how can centre interfere in the law and order situation in a state unless there is a president’s rule or state’s request.
Hence everyone attributing crimes under the garb of cow vigilantism to Modi government is doing nothing but spreading the agenda of divide and weaken India by creating fear amongst anyone and everyone who eats beef. We need to stay away from these propagandists as they are nothing but an enemy of united progressive India.
- Assassinations of few rationalist journalists
Here again, the same trick is played out, as anti-BJP lobby is pronouncing the assassinations as the state policy of Modi government, whereas it is nothing but a poor law and order situation in the particular state where not just rationalist but many RSS workers have been assassinated over the years, but then nobody sheds tears if word Hindu is attached to dead bodies.
- Demonetisation, GST implementation and failure of the economy
News is spread as if RBI has come out with a report which says Demonetisation has failed, whereas the fact is that RBI has come with no such report pronouncing the report card on demonetisation. Further, how will one deny the impact of demonetisation on fake currency, how can people with fake currency deposit it in Banks as Banks would never accept fake currencies just like that, so all those dealers of fake currency would have either buried or burnt the fake cash somewhere. Similarly, the amount of money that came to banking or formal sector is not all income tax paid white money, hence many of those depositors are now answering calls by Income Tax sleuths and paying their taxes and many new taxpayers have started paying their taxes, which otherwise was not the case until demonetisation. Still, anti strong India lobby would like to spread lies that demonetisation was a failure.
Coming to GST, don’t we need to show some patience here, as it is the first time we have a unified tax system in the country and considering our size, aren’t we supposed to have teething trouble, but for anti-strong India lobby, it’s another opportunity to defame Modi government, without looking at the benefits of GST in terms of higher growth with a simple tax regime where the scope of corruption is minimalised.
GDP numbers released for last quarter has been disappointing but is it time to write off economic growth just because you don’t like Modi. There is an expert view that in Indian corporate earnings, credit off-take, economic growth is at the rock bottom and only way is upwards, isn’t it the news that we need to spread out rather than painting a gloomy picture of our country. But anti strong India elements will always prefer a weak India, hence they will keep talking about failures and failures even if India grows at 10% going forward.
Strangely, people who are writing off the economy are silent on the strong fundamentals of economy, they don’t see a rate hike chance for India post GST, they don’t see the jump in FDIs, they don’t see the investments in infrastructure, they are so blind that they see only violence against minorities in India and nothing else.
Unemployment is another favourite subject of anti-strong India lobby, but will they speak the truth that there is no data point at this point which can tell the real position on employment in India and actually for the first time a government is working on to put up a credible employment data in our country.
We must not forget the new image of India at the international forum and we must not forget to give its due to Modi.
- Kashmir problem and failed diplomacy concerning Pakistan and China
How can one be so blind to what is happening in Kashmir, the stone pelters are shrinking in number, NIA is finally exposing the links between Pakistan based terrorist groups and separatists, it’s even reported that nobody is willing to take up commander post of local terrorist outfits, still, anti-strong India lobby wants to call it a failure.
Similarly, can’t we see the isolation of Pakistan to Terroristan at international forums, aren’t we seeing the reaction of global powers towards Pakistan, yet anti-strong-India lobby will prefer to believe it as of no relevance, rather they might even add colour to it as Hindu India’s oppression of poor Muslim Pakistan.
Comes China, look at the diplomatic level defusing of Doklam issue, did we ever stood up against China’s aggression like the way we did at Doklam, never in the past.
But still, no good news for India is good news for these anti-strong India elements, hence it is of paramount importance that we need to guard ourselves against anti-strong India lobby at all times.
Now that we discussed the hollowness of criticism against the Modi government, it is also important to understand the ideology of the Modi Government and the larger Parivar or RSS ideology.
RSS Ideology
RSS like everyone else believes India is a country which is by default secular, it has accepted everyone and everything in this world and it always prays for universal peace and prosperity.
The only difference here is that RSS believes this speciality or uniqueness of India comes from the unique culture of India which is based on Hinduism principles and others while agreeing to India’s great traditions but never acknowledges the reason behind the greatness.
RSS has openly stated in its vision and mission about protecting our cultural values and unifying every Hindu for the cause of a united India. Here word Hindu for RSS is not based on methods of worshipping but anybody and everybody who has accepted Indian way of living and settled here for peace and prosperity.
RSS believes in Hinduism as a way of life, with a belief all religions lead to God or Goodness, that is the reason, why majority Indians while opposing Mughal, British slavery, never opposed either Islam or Christianity, as our belief system considers every religion as a process to attain goodness in life.
Now after having such great ideology, which is secular, inclusive. Still why RSS is branded as communal by a section of society, predominantly the leftist, Islamic and Christian communities, is a question, I often wondered about.
To understand the anti-RSS stand, we need to go back to India’s history.
In my opinion, India has been enslaved for more than 1000 of years and not just by Mughals and British but by our Indian Kings and Queens, who advocated and supported a system of caste by birth.
The caste system was never by birth but by the job, it was nothing but an Indian version of division of labour. To prove this point we have great examples like Maharishi Valmiki, Vyasa and others, who attained, highest saint intellectual pre-fixes like Maharishi, notwithstanding their birth castes like hunter or Sudra, Kshatriya etc. But somewhere down the line caste system by job was converted into the caste system by birth and thus depriving a large number of the society of the benefits of our advanced society.
This has divided the country as well as weakened our country to a stage where even lesser developed societies like the Mughals, Britishers could enslave our country for 1000 of years.
RSS stands for unifying everyone in India, irrespective caste, religion but who wants that, all the elitist powerful lobbies in India, has always preferred caste system to ensure their superiority and they just could never digest even dream of their gardener’s son becoming their leader or minister, thus they were the first one to oppose RSS as communal. Lutyen’s Delhi’s intolerance to Modi is the classical example of this.
Muslims and Christian identity politics lobby is the other player here, whose primary objective is to play identity politics based on religion and if RSS succeeds in spreading the Indian concept that religion is nothing but a process and all religions leads to GOD or goodness, what will happen to their political business, thus they have been opposing RSS since inception to till date.
The rationalists and Communists, always equated RSS with draconian upper caste atrocities without even being honest to understand the stated mission of RSS, which is unifying Hindus notwithstanding caste and community differences.
Communists being rationalist, atheist always knew the roadblock they had in India was nothing but Hinduism. Hence, they had to paint Hinduism as the ism of caste by birth and as the ism of atrocities by so-called upper caste towards the deprived ones in the society. They too have been opposing any idea of the unity of Indians in the name of principles of Hinduism as that will ring death bells for communism in India, as such, as it is the case with communism in India, now.
Now that we have discussed, RSS ideology and why certain groups still want to paint RSS as communal, we now need to understand, on what we as Indians need to do to support the mission of unification of Hindus or Indians in the name of Indian or Hindu, irrespective of caste, religion differences.
Understand the basics of Indian culture by analysing at least 3 stands out philosophies of Indian culture.
Point No.1
Indian culture believes in doing RIGHT. All our Puranas, Vedas tells us to follow, what we believe is right and abstain from doing anything what we believe is not right.
If I believe, drinking alcohol is not right, then I should abstain from it, but if I believe it is ok to consume it then I shouldn’t have a problem if my children, wife, mother consuming alcohol.
As long as you can practice your Rights, you will be able to make the right decisions in life and your life will have peace and prosperity.
Point No.2
Our culture always believed in two types of people and they were never based on religion, caste but was based on Progressive and Regressive mindsets.
Progressive mindset always wants peace and prosperity and Regressive mindset wants enslavement of others in the name of religion, caste, community, gender, relationships etc.
Even in Purana’s we see Deva’s as progressive and Asura’s regressive, always fighting for supremacy.
Point No.3
Techniques for strengthening the mind are one of the greatest achievements of our culture. If developed nations are looking to learn Sanskrit, Yoga and Hinduism, it is to understand these great techniques.
These techniques are as simple as Bhajans, Prayers to deep meditation to complex mantras and other shlokas.
Similarly, Yoga, Martial arts to Ayur Veda, were developed by our ancestors to strengthen our body and mind. Because we believe, it’s all in our minds and the stronger our mind, better will be our ability to make decisions and better decisions will mean a better life.
What we need to understand from above is the difference in our culture from other cultures.
We never believed in identity of us based on religion, region, we believe we are just one of that creation of God, just like plants, animals, rivers, rocks, mountains in the universe. If we pray Sun and planets, if we pray River, Birds, elephant, even human beings, it’s because of our belief that God exists in everything in this universe. That’s exactly why we pray for peace and prosperity of the universe and all the beings and non-beings in the universe.
This is why India never went out to conquer other civilisations across the world, we never thought our invaders were different from us, just because of their religious practice and their place of origin, even though they considered themselves as a different species just because of their religious beliefs.
Now as Indians, we need to understand the greatness of our culture, due to which we were the most prosperous peaceful society in the world, once upon a time and we also need to understand the reason behind that glorious India along with understanding the mistakes of our ancestors in dividing the country in the name of caste by birth and then further dividing of our society by Muslim invaders, as Hindus and Muslims and then by the British as Hindus, Muslims and Christians. But what is most unfortunate is the state of affairs post-independence, our political leadership preferred to strengthen the divisive caste system by birth and religion-based identity politics by providing governance based on caste and religion.
Thankfully, finally, in India, we have a Swayamsevak as Pradhan Sevak, and now we are seeing open discussion on India first to religion and caste first ideology.
It is for this change, everyone in India, who is progressive and wants to see a better India for our future generations, needs to support our Prime Minister or we will once again lose the country to the hands of divisive politicians who destroyed India from 2004 to 2013.
Hence, it’s my humble request to each and everyone reading this article, not to fall prey to the propaganda of anti-strong India elements and ensure Modi till 2024.
Vijay Shivram Menon 