HVK Archives: Sangh fancy v. Secular facts
Sangh fancy v. Secular facts - Organiser
Satiricus
()
14 September 1997
Title: Sangh fancy v. Secular facts
Author: Satiricus
Publication: Organiser
Date: September 14, 1997
Some people never learn. Especially if they are RSS people. These people,
it seems, simply cannot get rid of their obsession with history. They
continue to cling to the silly belief that history and itihasa are one and
the same thing-that history means itihasa, and itihasa means Iti-ha-asa "it
happened thus". Consequently they are intellectually incapable of
distinguishing between what happened and what should have happened, between
truth and apparent truth, reality and virtual reality-in short between
history and virtual history. What is worse, these abominable knickerwallahs
not only insist on their virtual history being the real history but are now
intent on spreading it worldwide. Take this big, bold, headline, "RSS'
virtual Indian history now on website", in a recent issue of The Indian
Express. According to this report: "The Sangh Parivar has literally invaded
the cyberspace, propagating their version of history." How sinister of the
Sangh! And what is still more sinister, the RSS version of history has a
history. Satiricus recalls that it was the Sangh Parivar people who fiat
set out to prove that the Aryan invasion of India is a myth, an Angrezi
myth meekly accepted by our brown intellectuals. That these
intellectuals-cum-secularists tried their desperate best to uphold the
invasion and yet reputed historians both here and abroad have come round to
the Sangh view is neither here nor there. But perhaps the ancient fogies of
the Sangh may be excused for having their own ancient history. What is
inexcusable is their communally playing around with modem events. Take, for
instance, the opening paragraph of the Express report - "Has any historian
ever told you that Sardar Patel had sought help of RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar
to prevail upon Maharaja of Kashmir to sign accession treaty with India?
Did you know that RSS shakhas had 'flourished' in Kashmir Valley by
mid-1940? Or how about this one-the Indian Army had asked swayamsevaks to
rescue boxes of ammunition from within Pakistan's firing range on the
Indo-pak border?" The RSS says all these things, but of course they must
all be falsehoods, because no "authoritative" book on Kashmir's accession
to India in The Indian Express library says so. Well, now, does that not
nail the RSS lie? And if there are people-eminent, reliable people-who
could be considered more authoritative than the Indian Express library
certainly it cannot mean the Express re porter could be bothered to check
with them. For instance, Satiricus knows Prof Balraj Madhok, former
president of the Jana Sangh, quite well and has listened to his
first-person accounts of Sangh swayamsevaks' bravery during the Pakistani
invasion of Kashmir. Prof. Madhok was a professor of history and so could
have contributed his knowledge of history to the Express story. But then a
story is a story and cannot be mixed with history. As for Sangh shakhas
flourishing in the Kashmir Valley it is certainly an affront to say that
such a communal activity could have at any time flourished in a place now
recognised as the secular heaven on Indian earth. But alas, communal fact
can at times be stranger than secular fictions. For instance, Satiricus
personally knew a Sangh pracharak who was stationed in the Punjab and used
to go right up to Peshawar in those ancient pre-Partition days. And if one
RSS pracharak could go to Peshawar why can't another go to Kashmir? If, as
per the immutable tenets of secularism, the RSS just cannot flourish in
Kashmir because Kashmir is Islamic, how could it be present in Peshawar,
which is now so Islamic, that even within Pakistan the people there want a
separate Islamistan? But then, journalism has been defined as literature
in a hurry, so how could this reporter in a hurry be expected to spare the
time to check up on old facts? And finally this RSS fancy about Shri
Golwalkar's persuading Maharaja Hari Singh to accede to India. The RSS says
so, so it must be false. But Satiricus knows a man-now a senior
correspondent of a national daily-who was personally present during such a
meeting. Not long back this man personally described to Satiricus how this
meeting went and how wonderfully persuasively Shri Golwalkar talked to the
Maharaja. But then, a man in the company of Shri Golwalkar has to be a
rabid communalist and so his account of any such meeting must be a figment
of the imagination. In fact this whole business of virtual history versus
real history is a confrontation between Sangh fancy and secular fact, RSS
imagination and secular authoritativeness. For two hundred years Western
'historians' have wrote books upon books about the Aryan invasion of India,
and for us they were "authoritative" books. But what "authority" does the
RSS have? Of course none in secular India. As for "authoritative" books on
history Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is considered the
world's most authoritative history of Rome. But, it is said, Gibbon
himself doubted its authenticity when he heard two friends give different
accounts of the same event they had seen for themselves. This brings to
Satiricus' mind the wonderful Japanese film Roshomon he had seen long years
ago. It showed two different eye-witness accounts of the same event. Which
was the authoritative truth? The director left that to the viewers,
including Satiricus, and Satiricus would leave it to The Indian Express.
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