By BIJO FRANCIS
Column: Incredible India

HONG KONG, China,  The head of a Hindu fundamentalist organization in India has come out with a statement in support of the Tibetans who have clashed with Chinese police in recent weeks, leaving dozens dead. K.S. Sudershan, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said his organization "is fully supporting the Tibetan cause of protecting their self-identity and urges the people the world over to exert such pressure over the government of China that it is forced to come to the negotiating table to find a peaceful solution to the Tibetan crisis."

Self-identity, negotiation, peace -- it is a miracle that Sudershan could find these terms in his vocabulary. The Hindu fundamentalist organization he leads, the RSS, is part of the Baharatiya Janata Party that masterminded the communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002. It is estimated that this violence resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Muslims that year.

The Gujarat massacre is not the only violence attributed to the RSS in India. The group is accused of masterminding similar incidents, but with fewer casualties, across the country. In the southernmost state of Kerala, for example, the RSS and factions of the Communist Party kill each other every month. In the state of Uttar Pradesh the RSS and its allies, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the BJP, were responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque, in 1992 in the name of religion.

If messages sent around the world through the Internet, allegedly by Muslim fundamentalists, calling for violence and vengeance are categorized as terrorist propaganda, the Web site of the RSS is nothing better, if not worse. The site is full of hate speech against Muslims throughout the world. While other political and fundamentalist groups in India are prohibited from carrying arms and organizing weapons training for their cadres, the RSS, in the name of social security and law and order, has thus far been successful in lobbying the Indian government to continue its "turn-a-blind-eye" attitude, so that every village in India can have an RSS training facility.

Even if all these activities could be discounted, blamed on political corruption and the ineptitude of various governments at controlling Hindu fundamentalism, there are still more serious concerns about the RSS. One such example is the caste system of the country, for caste -- the practice by Hindu fundamentalists of degrading a person as untouchable or inferior -- is preserved and its practice advocated in India by the RSS.

One of the strongest opponents of the caste system in India was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution. For this, Ambedkar was declared a traitor by the RSS leaders of the 1940s, and Sudershan is no different. Sudershan accused Ambedkar in a speech delivered on Oct. 16, 2005, of being a Western slave for drafting a secular Constitution -- while at the same time claiming that Ambedkar was a supporter of the RSS. These statements are only synonymous with a fundamentalist group like the RSS which, on one hand, advocates the practice of the Vedas -- the so-called ancient Indian scripts that justify caste prejudices and prescribe punishments for breaching caste practices -- and on the other, promotes the creation of a modern India.

If there is one factor that hinders India in becoming a modern nation, it is the notion of caste and its centuries-old influence upon the Indian mind. The root cause of several key problems in India, ranging from corruption to violence and intolerance to poverty, is caste and the caste-affected mind. In a community that propagates caste, there is no place for negotiation or self-identity. How many upper-caste Hindus, including the RSS leaders, for example, would be willing to trade their caste identity for a progressive India? Do any of the lower-caste communities in rural India have a self-identity other than that of bonded laborers, trapped in poverty and starvation?

The same RSS that speaks about peace is suspected of being behind the destruction of the Ambedkar statues across India, acts of violence that were meant to intimidate the Dalit movements in rural India that have begun protesting against upper-caste domination. This "peace concept" was not found anywhere when the RSS cadres smashed Ambedkar statues into pieces.

The difference between China and India is that China is better off, having no caste system to address.

These double standards are what India and Indians are all about. We Indians are more concerned about the garbage can in our neighbor's compound, while our entire compound is turning into a dump. We speak about peace, negotiation and self-identity for the rest of the world when we deny the same lofty concepts to our own countrymen. We speak about world opinion influencing decisions, as long as it is not ours. As Indians, we try to poke others' eyes while we remain blind.

--

(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)

25 March 2008
Link: http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Human_Rights/2008/03/25/can_Militant_Indian_Hindus_Condemn_China/2190/