1

We swear in the name of Ram!

I’m speaking of the days when the Ramjanmabhoomi–Babri Masjid

dispute was at fever pitch, the air ringing with slogans like
Baccha baccha Ram ka/ janmabhoomi ke kaam ka.
Every child must prove his worth/ Work for the place of Ram’s
birth.

Janmabhoomi ke kaam na aaye, vo bekaar jawaani hai!

If it does not serve His place of birth, one’s youth has no worth!

Jis Hindu ka khoon na khaule/ khoon nahin vo paani hai.

Hindu blood that does not seethe with anger/ is not blood, it’s just
water.

It was October 1990. I was about fifteen years old, studying in class
ten. We were conducting a campaign for the Ram temple at
Ayodhya in my village Sirdiyas in Maandal tehsil and in my home
town Bhilwara. Bricks to build the temple had already been
sanctified with prayer. I was desperate to join karseva, the actual
work of building the temple at the birthplace of Ram, and to prove
my credentials as a true swayamsevak, an activist of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh. The opportunity finally arrived when I was
included in a contingent ready to give its life for the temple. Without
letting my family know, I ran away to join the karseva. Before we
set out for Ayodhya, we organised processions in different places in
Maandal. I was exhilarated. I remember people wearing garlands, a
saffron band tied around their heads, a blood red tika on the
forehead, fists raised to chants of Jai Shri Ram, Jai jai Shri Ram ,
their voices rending the sky. On our lips were the words:
Ram-ji ke naam par jo mar jaayenge, duniya mein naam apna amar
kar jaayenge.
To die for Ram-ji is such an honour, your name will ring in every
corner.

I was certain we would be confronted by the anti-Hindu police of

‘Mulla’-yam Singh, and that we would readily give our lives to
liberate the birthplace of Maryada Purushottam Ram, the peerless
among men. We set out for Ajmer by train in October 1990. There,
in a choultry, we met up with thousands of others, all in saffron
headbands. All of us hoped to reach the sacred birthplace and
destroy that symbol of slavery, the Babri Masjid. Leaders of the
RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were also present, and after our
meal, they gathered us together and exhorted us to reach Ayodhya at
all costs. In case the Mulayam Singh government took steps to
suppress or stop us, whether by arrests or any other measures, they
taught us how to evade the police, fool them and keep moving
ahead. The senior leaders who spoke were clear in their instructions,
that even at the cost of our lives, we must meet our objective of
wiping out that stain of slavery, the Babri Masjid.
My heart longed to soar instantly to the Lord’s city of Ayodhya
and free the Infant Ram from the clutches of the outcaste infidels.
How much longer were we to tolerate the presence of that structure
of slavery in our own land, the land of Hindus, and at the very
birthplace of our revered deity? We had already received directions
to proceed on our mission whatever the cost. We were told that
implements to destroy the structure—hoes, spades, crowbars—
would be provided by the locals at Ayodhya.
In the evening, we caught the train to Lucknow. In the contingent
from Bhilwara were many well-known faces of the RSS, VHP and
the Bharatiya Janata Party, and their presence encouraged our
fervour. I thanked Lord Ram in my heart for giving me this amazing
opportunity, to be chosen with such famous people for His work. It
felt as if every person there was eager to be martyred for Ram. All
differences among people had been erased—young and old, rich and
poor, ordinary and privileged, we had become as one. There were
those who had given up everything— status, great wealth, factories,
big houses, high posts—to do Lord Ram’s work. Oh Ram-ji, the
world is but your divine illusion!
It was like a second battle for independence. We were freedom
fighters. How heroic we felt. In joyous agitation we boarded the
train. Each had his ticket, so that if we got separated, we could still
carry on. The station was packed with people, well-wishers here to
see others off outnumbered the actual travellers. Raised fists,
inflamed faces, roars of Jai jai Shri Ram, vande mataram, jaykaare
Bajrangi, har har Mahadev…. I had never before encountered such
uproar, such excitement. The whistle blew. One more time we raised
our fists and shouted We swear upon Ram, we will build the temple
there. Our journey to Ayodhya had begun.
As the train started to slide out of the station, all the important
functionaries slid out of the train. What was happening? Why were
they getting off? Will the pracharaks of the RSS stay back too?
Won’t they go with us? I saw how one by one, the big folk, the
industrialists, the sangh pracharaks, the leaders of the VHP and BJP,
all excused themselves. Having wished us well, they went back to
their homes. Only people like me remained—impassioned Dalits,
Adivasis, other young people from the lower castes, and a few
sadhus and sants, sages and ascetics. To take charge of us, some
lower-order functionaries tried to put us at ease: Don’t worry, these
people have other contingents to see off and then they’ll follow us
directly to Ayodhya. They were never to come, they were sensible
people and went back to their homes. I understood that sensible
people always use us, we who are driven by passion; they push us
into battle and return to their safe little coops. In this lies their
greatness; maybe greatness is just another word for cunning.
 2

Hatred towards travellers of other

faiths

The exit of the big guns left us somewhat uncomfortable, a little

sad, disappointed. But as the train picked up speed, our
disappointment faded. At the next station, local people were waiting
to welcome us; we were given fruit, tea, beedis, chewing tobacco.
Everyone was elated. The train was mostly karsevaks, and the few
regular passengers sat quiet, intimidated. There were also a few
Muslims in our compartment. Seeing them, we started shouting: If
it’s in India that you want to stay/ Vande Mataram is what you must
say. We glared at them menacingly. We wanted to throw them off
the train, these infidels because of whom our Lord Ram was
imprisoned in a derelict monument. Our land, our Ram, and these
people prevent us from building a temple in His birthplace! We
Hindus, second-class citizens in our own country; and these
outcastes, living it up. Each one marries four women, and how they
keep multiplying, breeding armies of their kind. Because of them
Partition, but at least it rid us of half of them. This lot remains—left
behind to sit astride our chests and torment us! Such thoughts stoked
my hatred of the Muslim passengers, my rage was so great that if I
had a weapon, even before liberating Ramjanmabhoomi, I would
have taken care of these Yavana, Mughal, Pathan infidels, liberated
them from their lives. At least some of the burden on Ma Bharati,
Mother India, would be eased. The Muslim passengers must have
been terrorised by our hate-filled stares, and seeing them like that—
frightened, cowering—thrilled us. For once, we felt we had shown
them their place.
It was a good thing they stayed silent, or who knows what may
have happened. Slowly, the night deepened and sleep weighed down
our eyelids. The commotion of slogans, bhajans and keertans, our
collective hymn-singing, began to subside as the karsevaks fell
asleep. Karsevak was the name given by our leaders to those who
were going to perform their religious duty voluntarily, with their
own hands. The duty of building the Ram temple at Ayodhya.
I was still half-awake, and saw that the other passengers were
looking relieved, or less tense now, at this respite from the attention
of Ram’s devotees. Then I too fell asleep, a sweet deep sleep, in
which I dreamt of entering Lord Ram’s city Saket by the banks of
the Sarayu, a dream that was on the verge of coming true.
 3

First trip to jail

I slept soundly till dawn, when a commotion at a station called

Tundla woke me up. There was great agitation among the karsevaks.
The police had stopped the train. It looked like we wouldn’t be
allowed to go ahead. The police started an inspection. Each of us
had to hand over our ticket and get off at the station, which had
become a sea of roaring, maddened karsevaks, shouting: The whole
world may try and stop us/ But Infant Ram, we will reach you!
Our oath was in vain. This Mulla-yam’s government had indeed
stopped us. We were all arrested. The night was fading, and in the
light of the approaching day we found ourselves packed like sheep
into police trucks. First we were taken to the Mathura Inter College,
but that was already full, so we were moved to Agra’s multipurpose
stadium, where a provisional jail camp had been set up. But here,
too, were more people than could be accommodated. About eighty
of us were left out in the end. Before they could move us again, we
began shouting to be placed here. We yelled our slogans and refused
to be moved. Eventually we were packed anyhow into the
temporary jail.
As we entered, we saw that the jail was a huge ground with tents,
the walls so low that anybody could jump over them. But where
could we have gone, with Agra under curfew, the police sure to
come after us, the place unknown? All our great, respected big
brothers (bhaisahabs) who had inspired us to martyr ourselves for
the temple had left us at Ajmer and gone back. We here were the
passionate youth, the sadhu–sants who had given up the world, the
opium addicts, the marijuana smokers. Many of them had in fact
already started smoking ganja and were soon lost in its fumes.
So, it was just us and the makeshift jail. The tent above our
heads, durries under us, watery dal mixed with grit, burnt rotis, foul-
tasting water, taunts and insults from the police. Somehow we got
through our first ten days of jail life. We had set out for the
birthplace of Ram, but ended up in the birthplace of Krishna—a
prison! Still, we felt immense pride that we had been jailed for Shri
Ram. We were karsevaks, the real goods.
 4

Insults, stones, attacks, fear and

stench

In the end, we were released after our names and addresses had been
noted, and a stamp put on our hands. That jail was really no jail at
all. Daily meetings of the Sangh, called shakhas, were held
regularly, along with lots of discussion, hymns and religious
discourses from the sadhu–sant crew. It didn’t feel like a jail. When
we were released, there were no trucks to transport us, we were just
set loose. The town was still under curfew. We decided to walk
along the railway tracks to the station, and headed towards Agra
Cantonment. The would-be martyred were a bit tired. The karseva
had not succeeded. We heard that Mulla-yam Singh had ordered
police firing on karsevaks at the bridge over the Sarayu in Ayodhya.
Many had died, many were injured, and others had thrown
themselves into the swift-flowing Sarayu to escape bullets, but lost
their lives in the process. Given the powerful police presence, not a
soul could have passed undetected; our project of swarming over the
Babri Masjid was a non-starter. Mulayam Singh indeed proved to be
a ‘Mulla’–‘Yama’ for the karsevaks.
Defeated, deeply disappointed and depressed, we were creeping
along the tracks when suddenly in front of us appeared about a
dozen people shouting Jai Shri Ram . We thrilled back to life again.
Imagine, despite the curfew, devotees of Ram had come out to
welcome us! A spring returned to our steps, our enthusiasm was
renewed.
 But what was this…? They were Muslims, with stones in their
hands. And it was no more Jai Shri Ram on their lips, but abuse—
mother……, sister……, did you come here to grab your ….? Kill the
mother……s! We were stunned. Darkness was upon us. We looked
around for help, but everywhere we saw hostility. The settlements
along the tracks were Muslim areas. We got into a scuffle with the
young men in front of us. Some of us were hurt, our bags fell to the
ground, and they beat one of us mercilessly. He was heavy-built,
couldn’t run. The rest ran after us, throwing stones. We managed to
stay just ahead, with them in hot pursuit.
We made it to the railway police station. The inspector in charge
emerged, another Yadav, of the lineage of Mulla-yam, and from his
divine lips too issued choice abuse. In front of us, holding lathis,
stood the police to whom we had turned for help, and behind us
were stone-throwing Muslims! Oh god, oh Ram, what do we do
now? Save us! It felt as if death was inevitable. But where the Ram
votive failed, we were saved by the locomotive. We slipped into the
wagons of a stationary goods train, shut the doors and thus saved
our lives. Finally the angry Muslim youth left, as did the police.
Heaving sighs of relief, we got out on to the station, and a while
later, caught a train headed for Jaipur. It was packed. We could only
find space to stand near the toilet. And of course, we had no tickets.
Between the pressure of the crowd, our fear, and the hideous stench
from the toilets—we felt overwhelmed. The desire to martyr
ourselves for karseva was the real martyr of the day. We just wanted
to get back home now. Meanwhile, our folks at home were in a bad
way, having heard the news from Ayodhya. My brother Badrilal and
I had both embarked upon karseva, and my parents were certain we
had fallen to police bullets, leaving them childless. Well, neither did
we die for Ram-ji, nor did they become childless. In fifteen days we
were back home, alive and perfectly well.
 5

In the RSS shakha

I didn’t really learn any lesson from this experience, because while
the intoxication of karseva may have worn off, the madness of
nationalism was still upon me. It was a madness that gripped me as
early as the age of thirteen, while I was still a student of class six. I
had enrolled in the RSS then. It happened this way. The geography
teacher of my government school in Nimbahera, Banshilal Sen,
started organising sports for us in the village grounds. He sang very
well too, and made us do physical exercises. We loved it all. First
some games, then exercise. A couple of songs, followed by some
edifying words. There were bits in the advice I did not fully
understand, some of it even disturbed me. For instance, as a
geography teacher in class, he taught us that the sun is a ball of fire,
nobody can go close to it, they would burn up in its heat. But during
sports, while teaching us the surya namaskar, the sun salutation, he
made us chant prayers to the sun—Om suryaya namah, ravaye
namah, om savitr surya narayanaya namah —telling us the story of
how Hanuman had swallowed the sun whole. He would proudly say,
see how powerful was our Bajrangbali Hanuman, who could
swallow up the sun god and plunge the entire universe into
darkness. This puzzled and disturbed me, and one day I plucked up
the courage to ask, ‘Gurudev, is the sun a god or a ball of fire?’ His
reply was, ‘My boy, in the shakha the sun is a god, in school he is a
ball of fire.’ I was even more confused. I asked, ‘But then how did
Hanuman-ji swallow the sun?’ He replied, ‘Bajrangbali is
extraordinarily powerful, the sun was just a ball of fire. Such was
Bajrangbali’s might that not only did he take the sun into his mouth,
he was about to chew it up when, alarmed by the darkness that
descended upon all the worlds, the other gods intervened and
begged Hanuman to let the sun go. Only then did he relent.’
After this my belief in Hanuman-ji became unshakeable. I started
finding geography ridiculous. During the geography class, I would
mentally recite the “Hanuman Chalisa”, a hymn of forty verses to
Hanuman. I knew this subject was pointless, the reality was
Hanuman’s strength. In any case, Guru-ji had already told us in the
shakha that those who doubt will perish: sanshayaatma vinashyati. I
gave up all doubt, and entered an era of faith while still very young.
Guru-ji also turned me away from science, and my belief in
religious rites grew. Guru-ji taught us that our religion was the best,
that these sessions of sports and exercise and teachings were part of
a shakha of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He told us this was
a new branch of the RSS that had opened in our village of Sirdiyas,
and we young boys were its twigs. There were about fifty of us. We
came from all castes, even those who considered people of my kind
to be beneath them and wouldn’t even talk to us properly. But here
we all addressed one another as ‘ji’. From plain Bhanwar I too
became Bhanwar-ji, well on my way to becoming Bhanwar-ji
bhaisahab.
Of the fifty or so children who attended the shakha in my village,
most were OBCs—Kumhar, Jat, Gurjar, Mali and so on. From
among Dalits, there were Bunkars and Dholis, and also a couple of
Bhil Adivasis. The entire village was of course organised around
caste. My school too. It was less evident in the shakha but I
gradually noticed that the chief activists were all from the so-called
upper castes, people like us made rank-and-file swayamsevaks.
I started to internalise the RSS ideology very quickly. I read its
literature, especially the mouthpiece Panchjanya , and picked up the
terminology and language quite easily. I attended RSS functions not
only in my village but participated actively even at tehsil and district
level events. Perhaps this is why I started rapidly moving up in the
hierarchy. While the other children did not even reach the tehsil (or
taluka) level, I became quite popular with the RSS people and
engaged the leaders in discussions. I realise now that they
recognised my potential to become an ideologically sound RSS
activist, and were systematically preparing me for it.
My progress was unexpectedly rapid. From gananayak (a
ground-level ‘leader of the people’) I became the chief teacher, and
soon reached the district headquarters where I was given the
responsibility of being district office chief of the RSS.
 6

An RSS shakha

A shakha, which in Hindi means ‘branch’, is the daily gathering of

RSS swayamsevaks held for an hour or so in some clean public
space. This takes place in the early morning, evening or at night,
depending on the convenience of the swayamsevaks. For instance,
traders would prefer an early morning shakha, students an evening
one, for others, it could be at night, or even weekly shakhas instead
of daily ones. For that matter, there are now WhatsApp shakhas—
the point is that people should be active in the work of the Sangh
and take out time for it. Of course, morning or evening shakhas are
considered ideal and these are very popular. Recently we’ve been
hearing of shakhas in IIMs even.
The hour is divided in the following way.

Opening and run – 5 minutes

Physical exercises – 10 minutes
Games – 20 minutes
Yoga – 10 minutes
Intellectual input – 10 minutes
Prayer – 5 minutes

The shakha begins with a whistle blown by the instructor, the

shakha pramukh, at which the participants stop talking and, turning
towards the saffron RSS flag, stand in the ‘at ease’ position.
After this, the pramukh calls out ‘All alert!’ (sangh daksh) and
then ‘At Ease!’ (aaram). He next approaches each line, one by one.
Standing before the leader of each, he shouts out the commands to
maintain two steps distance from the next person by following the
lead of the person in front of you (agresar samyak), then to stand at
ease (aaram), and be ready to spring to attention when the order is
given.
The order of agresar ardhvrit comes next, at which the leader
turns around 180 degress towards the back, followed by everyone
else; then the order to stand at ease, and then once again at attention.
The saffron flag is hoisted and the order ‘dhwaj pranam ek-do-teen’
given which prompts our salute: Hands are placed on hearts, heads
bowed. After this, the participants are counted, with the last person
in each row going up to the leader of his line with the number.
The number is passed on to the pramukh while the participants
stand at ease. This is the way daily attendance at the shakha is
monitored. The command of attention follows, and then everyone
takes their place at the order of svasthan.
The remaining activities of the day take place one by one, and
finally the pracharak’s whistle blows again, for the dispersal of the
shakha . The prayer to the motherland is recited— Namaste sada
vatsale matrubhoomi , there’s another salute to the flag, which is
then lowered, and finally, the order of dispersal is given. At this
order, sangh vikir, the swayamsewaks turn to their right, bow and
then disperse.
Every day the surya namaskar must be performed, beginning
with the chant of mitraya namah and ending with shri savitr surya
narayanaya namah. Other yogasanas we performed were tadasana
(mountain pose), vrikshasana (tree), trikonasana (triangle),
veerbhadrasana (warrior), vajrasana (thunderbolt), ushtrasana
(camel), and shavasana (corpse pose).
The order to sit is upvish and the order to stand utthishth.
Organising daily games is mandatory. There were several—Frog,
Salutations, Tiger!, Namaskar, Kabaddi, The Demon of the Ashes,
Bear Fight, The Dance of Death, Ram–Ravan, Crossing the River,
Protecting a Friend, Fire Pit, The Leaping War God, Delhi is
Ours….
Some games were played seated, such as—We shall Eat,
Recognise the Leader, Post Office, Ramkrishna.
 The Sangh celebrated six main festivals—among these Diwali,
Holi, Republic Day and Independence Day were not included. What
we did celebrate was Varsha Pratipad (Hindu New Year, and the
RSS founder Hedgewar’s birth anniversary, 1 April),
Vijayadashami, Makar Sankranti (the day after the winter solstice
that marks the harvest season in the subcontinent), Hindu Empire
Day (the coronation day of Chattrapati Shivaji Bhonsle in 1774 as
emperor, anointed by a Brahmin), Rakshabandhan (when among the
Hindus of North India, sisters tie a protective amulet on the wrists of
brothers) and Guru Poornima (at which a gift was always given to
the teacher, and in this case donations were collected under the RSS
saffron flag in the name of the guru).
To participate in the shakha it was compulsory to wear a white
shirt, black cap, belt, brown shoes and khaki shorts, this was our
uniform. Each member of the shakha, or swayamsevak, had to buy
the uniform, which was called ganvesh, the dress of the people, with
his own money.
During the intellectual segment of the shakha, we had a short
address in Sanskrit called subhashit; readings from the work of great
people, called Amrit Vachan (Immortal Utterances) ; and sometimes
a short lecture . We were taught to recite the ekatmata stotra and
ekatmata mantra about the unity of Bharatvarsh. We sang songs like
May the conch announcing Hindu Rashtra blow
May the challenge rise from every pore
May darkness be dispelled by the blaze of valour
May Hindu and Hindusthan ascend forever.

We also learnt to shout slogans hailing Shivaji, Rana Pratap, the god
Shiva as Mahadev, and the RSS leaders Madhav (Sadashiv
Golwalkar) and Keshav (Baliram Hedgewar).
From the time I was in the village, to the time I reached
Bhilwara, attending the shakha was an integral part of my day. My
favourite shakhas were in Azad Nagar, Mukherjee Udyan and the
garden of Mahatma Gandhi Hospital. We used to turn up at the
morning shakhas, in full uniform, with our bamboo sticks, feeling
like soldiers. The smallest unit of the shakha is the individual
swayamsevak, above him the gatanayak , the group leader, then the
chief teacher, who was at the head and gave all the orders. The
structure and conduct of the shakha was very martial, and to tell the
truth, I loved it. Also the way each of us had to call one another ‘ji’,
old or young we had to show respect to each other, it felt spiritual
and uplifting.
Even today, many of the shlokas we used to recite, and the songs
we used to sing, remain in my memory, the way we used to recite
the prayer before the saffron flag, standing at attention with our
hands on our hearts— Namaste sada vatsale matrubhoomi… ‘We
bow to thee O ever-loving mother’.
There was a lot of emphasis on nationalism in the shakha , and
anyway, my heart was filled with love for my country. I so loved the
songs sung in the shakha that I knew them by heart:
Stride forth, build the organisation
Stride forth upon that noble track
Of the work that builds the nation
Let there never be a lack.

There were hymns to Bharat Mata:

May your glory shine forever, Mother, long outlive our petty lives.

Then there was the shloka which I felt blessed to recite:

Mother and motherland are greater than heaven itself.

And a poem by Ramavtar Tyagi:

This body is yours, this mind is yours, yours every pore
And still I wish, oh motherland, I could give you more.

These songs and poems were gloriously inspiring. Every day was
like Holi or Diwali.
It seemed obvious to me that we who attended the shakha were
the true patriots, the rest were clearly traitors.
 7

Offering to the teacher, sharing

meals

The expenses of the various functionaries and pracharaks of the

Sangh, for accommodation, food, travel and so on are met by the
offerings made to the flag on Guru Poornima, dedicated to
honouring the guru or teacher. The amounts collected from the
various shakhas reach the district headquearters, where the total
collection is kept secure by some wealthy individual swayamsevak,
from whom various sums are drawn from time to time.
A pracharak is a full-time Sangh activist who remains celibate,
and a vistarak a part-time activist who enters family life
(grihasthashram) and works in society to expand the network of the
Sangh.
In Bhilwara, the Sangh’s money was placed with a trader who
lived on Sabun Road. The money was not used for personal
expenses. The pracharak received no salary, his personal expenses
were minimal. The money was used only for social welfare. The
pracharak was expected to live an extremely simple life. With one
set of clothes on his body and the RSS ganvesh or uniform in a bag,
he was expected by the Sangh leadership to be totally focused on his
official duties. Most pracharaks did in fact lead such lives. There
were also those who had become corrupt, who accepted personal
wealth, who carried out business or political activities in their
capacity as pracharak, but these people were not respected and were
whispered about behind their backs.
 In my time the district pracharak was an extremely principled
man, Shiv-ji bhaisahab, who maintained strict discipline and lived a
life of simplicity and frugality. He possessed only two sets of kurta–
pyjama, and a small cloth bag. He slept on the ground, ate modestly,
and was extremely punctual. He had no personal life, and spent
most of his time touring the region. Always dressed in white, he
lived austerely. Unlike the pracharaks of today, he did not get
involved in politics, business and other such crooked schemes. Most
pracharaks of the town were like Shiv-ji bhaisahab. Of course, at the
time I had boundless respect for RSS pracharaks. I revered the
bhaisahabs—these elder-brotherly mentor figures—and was not
likely to notice anything wrong in whatever they did. Indeed, I
remember now that there was a tehsil pracharak , Bhagwan-ji
bhaisahab, who was involved in activities apart from the Sangh’s
work, and he went on to become a big businessman and political
leader.
The district pracharak had a motorcycle on which he travelled
across the district, and the money for petrol and daily expenses had
to be picked up from Shyam-ji Daad, businessman and BJP leader,
the one with the shop on Sabun Road. The district pracharak would
write an amount on a piece of paper and sign it, and money would
be given against his note. I was sent on this mission from time to
time, but I never liked it. These traders and businessmen have a very
high opinion of themselves; very well behaved towards those in a
position to help them, and to those who need them, very harsh. At
best, distant and formal, but too often uncouth. On receiving the
pracharak’s letter, they always released the money, but as if they
were handing out alms. I hated the way they behaved as if they were
doing us a big favour, when the money had come from
swayamsevaks’ contributions and they were merely its custodians.
Once I asked the pracharak why the amount collected from guru
dakshina was not simply deposited in a bank, why depend on these
Baniyas, who seem reluctant to part with any of it. In response he
said, ‘Friend, the money is safe with wealthy swayamsevaks, others
might end up spending it out of need. This community has proved to
be best at maintaining and accounting for money and that’s why all
over the country the guru dakshina collection is placed in their
safekeeping. Nor has there been any complaint so far.’
I was convinced by his response and never again doubted the
wisdom of this practice. I understood that this community was best
equipped to manage the funds of the swayamsevaks . Every caste
has been allotted a particular kind of work, and they are good at it,
perhaps this is why our ancestors allotted occupations by caste.
So this is how expenses were dealt with by the Sangh, but food
involved no expenses. All functionaries of the Sangh were expected
to eat at different people’s homes. Those of us who lived in the
Sangh office prepared our own food, but sometimes we went with
the pracharak when he was invited to a meal. Big businessmen and
professionals considered it an honour to have the pracharak, whom
we all called pujya bhaisahab (revered elder brother) , over for a
meal. The food was simple and tasty, and vegetarian.
We heard that pracharaks who were Kshatriya were permitted to
eat meat, but never in the Sangh office or in public spaces such as
the homes of Sangh supporters. At a personal level, everyone from
the individual swayamsevak to the most honoured chief pracharak,
or sarsanghchalak, was permitted to eat meat. In fact, certain
enthusiasts believed that Hindus had become weak and cowardly
because of their vegetarianism, and that meat was a must to build up
physical strength and defeat the cruel enemy. But in the teachings of
the Sangh and its activities this opinion did not hold sway, because
the strongest supporters of the Sangh were Brahmins and Baniyas,
who are vegetarian. Although there were some even among these
who secretly enjoyed non-vegetarian food, in public they were
vociferous in their support of vegetarianism, silencing opponents. I
was born and raised a vegetarian and a vocal critic of meat-eating.
My father never touched alcohol or meat, and never allowed these
things into our home. So my birth made me a votary of
vegetarianism, and this view was strengthened on my becoming the
pujari of a temple; it was only much later that my opinion on this
matter changed.
Since I lived in the Sangh office, I often visited homes of our
supporters with the pracharak to share meals . But I was hesitant as
well, because I always feared that someone would ask my caste and
then his behaviour towards me would change. The fear was not
without foundation, because this had indeed happened at a couple of
homes, but I was expected to accompany the pracharak, and so I
did. In addition I felt that urban hospitality lacked the spirit and
warmth of villages; the interactions were formal and superficial, and
the lack of spices and seasoning in the food also bored me. Sensing
my state of mind, pracharak-ji one day explained to me why we
went from home to home to share meals with different people.
He said that this practice of eating at homes was very special, it
took the reach of the Sangh deep into society, and encouraged the
family of the swayamsevak to get involved in the Sangh’s work.
Positive feelings towards the Sangh were generated by these
encounters. The shakha linked individual swayamsevaks, while the
home visits drew in families. This explanation, however, did not
remove my hesitation and doubts about the practice.
Pracharak-ji once said to me that the Sangh functioned not in a
proselytising or agitative manner, but rather its attempt was to reach
out to individuals through friendship and warmth. To touch people
individual by individual, to bring them to the shakha, go to their
homes, eat with them, prepare them for our ideology—this is the
style of the Sangh. This is why the Sangh calls itself a factory for
the construction of individuals. By eating at homes, we meet and
talk to every member of the family, and build a spiritual bond with
them that is lifelong.
In this way the Sangh entered each family, brought our teaching
to the hearts and minds of each person, and despite all setbacks and
adverse circumstances, our work went on quietly. No outward
drama, nothing visible to the world at large; just the quiet everyday
infiltration of homes and minds, the collection of funds through
guru dakshina. It was a difficult path to follow, requiring much
patience with few immediate results, but this was our way. This was
what we taught every day in the shakha.
 8

Organisation of the Sangh

The Sangh has organised the country into eleven regions (kshetras)
and forty-one districts (zilas) for its work. The regions are South,
South–Central, West, Central, North–West, North, West–North–
Central, East–North–Central, North–East, East and Assam.
The forty-one states are—Kerala, South and North Tamil Nadu,
South and North Karnataka, West and East Andhra, Konkan,
Western Maharashtra, Devgiri, Vidarbha, Gujarat, Malwa, Central
India, Mahakaushal, Chhattisgarh, Chittor, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Delhi,
Haryana, Punjab, Jammu–Kashmir, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Meerut,
Braj, Kanpur, Avadh, Kashi, Gorakhpur, North and South Bihar,
Jharkhand, Utkal, South and North Bengal, South and North Assam,
Arunachal and Manipur.
Each administrative district has been further divided into two or
three Sangh districts, and Sangh activists at various levels are
appointed to each of these units. In addition, the different regions,
that are now called ‘Sangh Thought Family’, have official post
holders at every level. They are coordinated by pracharaks and
headed by a liaison official, and all of them come together for
regular monthly meetings at the Sangh office. The Sangh office in
every district has a pracharak and a vistarak, and a store with the
ganvesh, lathis, books and other material that can be purchased.
In this way, the Sangh has a smooth-functioning organisational
machinery with three tiers. At the grassroot level, the individual
swayamsevak is the fundamental unit of the Sangh upon whom the
organisation rests, many of whom come together to form daily
shakhas.
 Above the swayamsevak, the gatanayak, gananayak, chief
teacher, shakha manager (karyavah), and mandal official.
At the top, the organisation is like the confluence of the three
holy rivers—pracharaks, karyavahs, and sanghchalaks in
descending order . Thus city pracharak, city karyavah, city
sanghchalak; zila pracharak, zila karyavah, zila sanghchalak and so
on up to the level of the region. Then, in ascending order, the
sarkaryavah (chief manager) and sarsanghchalak at the very top.
The structures which obtain at the city and district level extend
upwards through the departmental (vibhaagiya), provincial
(praantiya) and regional (kshetriya) levels. The sarsanghchalak, or
helmsman of the Sangh, is the supremo, and he is selected from
among pracharaks alone. The other two categories, of the karyavah
and sanghchalak, are not considered for this post. So far six
pracharaks have become sarsanghchalak, of whom five are Brahmin
(Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, ‘Guru-ji’ M.S. Golwalkar, Madhukar
Dattatraya ‘Balasaheb’ Deoras, K.S. Sudarshan, Mohan Bhagwat)
and one Kshatriya (Rajendra Singh, known as Rajju Bhaiyya). In
the Sangh, posts are filled by nomination, not election, as the Sangh
is thought to work like a family, where the choice made in
consultation among elders is more acceptable than elections. The
post of sarsanghchalak used to be for life, but this has changed.
Questions have been raised—never from within the Sangh, only
from outside—about the fact that the sarsanghchalak has mostly
been Brahmin. Only those who have no clue about the organisation
and functioning of the RSS could even raise this question. Only a
pracharak who has reached the top of the hierarchy would be
considered for sarsanghchalak, and at the top Dalits, Adivasis and
Backward Castes are negligible in number. Under the
circumstances, there is no chance of any of them becoming
sarsanghchalak for the next fifty years.
Forget about becoming sarsanghchalak, there is very little
participation by Dalits and Adivasis even in the top national level
organisational units such as the All India Representatives Assembly
(Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha) or the All India Working
Committee (Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal). Over the last two
decades, ever since this question has arisen, the RSS has been very
aware that marginalised communities should be given organisational
responsibilities in the different outfits of the Sangh parivar or
family. However, the actual presence of such groups at the national
levels of the organisation is still barely noticeable.
Dalits and backward groups had participated enthusiastically in
the 1990 and 1992 karseva campaigns, and the Sangh leadership too
had paid special attention to young men of these groups. There had
been special attempts to bring them into shakhas and to give them
responsibilities in various fronts of the Sangh, but despite such
conscious efforts, very few Dalits have become pracharaks, and they
remain at the low to middling levels of the district and department.
That no Dalit or Adivasi heads even one of the subsidiary
organisations of the Sangh is a matter of grave concern for the
leadership.
If one studies the All India Working Committee even after 2000,
most post-holders are Brahmin, some Bania or Kshatriya and a
couple of people from Backward Castes; there’s not a single Dalit or
Adivasi. The reason for this is clear—no Dalit or Adivasi has
managed to reach the national level of the organisation. How then
will Dalits and Adivasis be part of a Hindu Rashtra? This is the
challenging question.
The example of Ramnath Kovind, president of India, is
revealing. He belongs to an ‘untouchable’ caste, rose high in the
BJP, and has now reached the highest constitutional post in the
country, but never made the cut to be considered for the highest post
in the unconstitutional RSS.
 9

The Sangh is everywhere

The daily shakha is meant to build the individual, but the Sangh’s
larger agenda is to reach every limb of the social body and to
control it. To this end, there are multiple organisations it has
established. First, a women’s organisation was founded in 1936 and
Lakshmibai Kelkar appointed as its leader. She was universally
known as mausi-ji, Aunty. She then set up the Rashtriya Sevika
Samiti, for women, since they could not be part of the mainline
RSS. When I first heard of this organisation, I wondered why the
word swayam (self) was missing from its name, thus making its
members ‘servants’ of others rather than of the self. Swayamsevak
denotes volunteering, an autonomous volition, while sevika evokes
a menial position of waiting on others. I asked several senior people
but received no satisfactory reply, until I realised on my own that
men can decide what to do with their ‘self’ but women must serve
others. In any case the seniors of the Sangh believed that Doctor
Sahab (Hedgewar, the founder) did right by not permitting women
into the Sangh, that it was a good strategic move, because women in
the Sangh would have by now ensured its destruction.
Not only was there a separate organisation for women, but for
workers, Dalits, Adivasis, farmers, writers, intellectuals, journalists,
film-makers. The idea was that the basic philosophy and form of the
Sangh should not be diluted by these energies, they should be kept
separate so that the Sangh’s factory for shaping individuals could
carry on its production unimpeded.
In 1948, the students’ organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad was formed at every level from schools to colleges and
universities, in order to bring students together and intervene in
student politics. In time this organisation became the stormtroopers
of a political party, but its primary responsibility is to the Sangh.
In 1952, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Forest-dwellers’ Welfare
Body) was founded by Balasahab Deshpande, purportedly for the
uplift of marginalised forest dwellers, but primarily in order to
challenge the Christian missionaries who were working to convert
innocent Adivasis. The forest dwellers were given the name of
girijan or forest folk, but in time the use of terms like harijan and
girijan became contested so the Sangh stopped using the term.
After Gandhi’s assassination and the role in it imputed to the
Sangh, many kinds of legal hurdles were placed in its functioning.
Socially too, the Sangh felt the need for political support as it had
become ‘untouchable’ for all political parties. It was under these
circumstances that the second sarsanghchalak, Guru-ji Golwalkar,
began to envisage a political party affiliated directly to the Sangh.
Around this time, Syama Prasad Mookerjee resigned from the
Nehru cabinet and directly asked for the Sangh’s help in setting up a
political party. This proposal was enthusiastically received by Guru-
ji and others in the Sangh who believed that the time had come for a
political intervention. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay and Syama
Prasad Mookerjee were deputed to this task. In 1951, a political
party called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh came into formal existence.
The founding president was Mookerjee and Deendayal Upadhyay
the general secretary. After 1953, when Mookerjee passed away, the
party came under the direct control of the Sangh. In 1967, the Jana
Sangh participated in coalition governments with other parties in
several states. In 1975, in opposition to the Emergency, the it joined
the JP movement (a movement for ‘total revolution’ launched by the
socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan), and eventually merged with
the Janata Party, becoming part of a short-lived government. In
1980, the Bharatiya Janata Party was formed under the leadership of
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. From two seats in the
Lok Sabha at that time, the BJP is in full majority today with
swayamsevak Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi as prime minister.
This is the fruit of the Sangh’s long-term strategy, although the RSS
claims again and again to be only a social and cultural organisation
and not a political one. From the Jana Sangh to the BJP, the RSS has
concentrated its energies on nurturing a political party born of its
beliefs, and the political control the Sangh now has at the Centre is a
direct result of these efforts.
After its intervention in electoral politics, a trade union, the
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, was set up in 1955 under the senior
pracharak and economist Dattopant Thengadi, in order to counter
the Left’s influence on workers. A large part of Sangh supporters
were traders and businessmen, and they felt it necessary to bind the
workers in their businesses to their own interests. The slogan of the
BMS was: We labour for the nation/ and demand full remuneration .
A similar organisation was started for farmers, the Bharatiya Kisan
Sangh.
Meanwhile, Saraswati Shishu Mandirs had been established to
educate children in Sangh ideology. In 1977, the Gorakhpur
Saraswati Shishu Mandir transformed into Vidya Bharati, and the
Vidya Bharati network of schools spread rapidly all over the
country. It is difficult to find a taluka today without a Sangh-run
school. There are 13,067 schools, 1,50,190 teachers and 34,75,757
students in its network, according to the Vidya Bharati website.
Second only to the daily shakhas, the Adarsh Vidya Mandirs and
Saraswati Shishu Mandirs are among the greatest strengths of the
Sangh family.
For wealthy supporters who cannot come to the shakhas but want
to contribute to the Sangh financially, the Bharat Vikas Parishad was
founded in 1963, and for the more religiously inclined, the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad in 1964.
The programme of setting up new organisations carries on till
today. There are about a hundred such organisations: devoted to
cultural and general research, some to the rewriting of history and
science, to Sanskrit, one to foster social harmony (Samrasata
Manch) where Dalits find a place, for Sikh welfare, for religious
awakening, for indigenous economics, platforms for lawyers,
traders, doctors and ex-servicemen, for small businesses, several
medical and health missions, a handful of outfits dedicated to cow
protection, as well as the better-known Bajrang Dal for young men
to rouse rabble and the Durga Vahini for women.
 In order to reach larger numbers of people, the Sangh has also set
up several publishing houses. These include Bharat Prakashan,
Suruchi Prakashan, Lokhit Prakashan, Gyan Ganga Prakashan,
Archana Prakashan, Bharatiya Vichar Sadhana, Kalpataru, Shri
Bharati Prakashan, Apna Sahitya, Sadhna Pustak Prakashan, Sahitya
Niketan, Jagaran Prakashan, Rashtrotthan Sahitya; and publications
like Hindustan Samachar , Swadesh , Motherland , Organiser ,
Panchjanya and Rashtra Dharma .
In addition to this, at local levels, the Sangh runs social
organisations under different names. It is now an indisputable fact
that without being formally registered, the Sangh is the world’s
largest NGO. Organisations run on Sangh ideology receive the
lion’s share of their funding from all over the world. Although the
Sangh does not accept the identity of an NGO, nor does it take
funding directly, organisations linked to the Sangh have been
fundraising on a massive scale, but they never come under question.
The nationalism label is a powerful charm.
 10

I wanted to become a black cat

The RSS believes that it shapes the character of people in its

shakhas. A person trained by them is like a black cat, which,
however it is flung about and wherever life throws it, will always
land on its feet. I wanted to be the black cat of the RSS. I put all my
heart into the activities of the shakha.
It was in the shakha that I first beheld the portrait of Bharat
Mata, Mother India, with the saffron flag in her hand. I wondered
how it was that Bharat Mata held not the national tricolour but the
Sangh’s saffron flag. I received the answer, ‘The tricolour was
accepted as the national flag only after independence in 1947, but
the saffron flag is from ancient times. That’s why the lotus hands of
Ma Bharati are resplendent with our proud saffron.’
Discipline was taken very seriously in the shakha . It was said
that only by being strictly disciplined like soldiers could we build
the nation. Our aim was the militarisation of Hinduism and the
Hinduisation of the military. Thus, every instruction given in the
shakha, termed ‘commandment’, was given in military style. But the
orders were in Sanskrit, rather than the recognisable commands
used all over the country. For example, it was daksh (alert) for
saavdhan (attention) and aaram for vishram (at ease). In school my
Sanskrit teacher had impressed upon us that Sanskrit was no
ordinary language, it was the language of the gods. All the divine
Indian texts were composed in Sanskrit— Vedas , Upanishads ,
Ramayana , Mahabharata . This understanding had such an
influence on me that when I heard orders given in Sanskrit , they
seemed to me like orders directly from the gods.
 Along with games and sports in the shakha , there was an
intellectual component. When the physical activity had exhausted
us, we would sit in a half circle and there would be a discussion.
This was termed bauddhik, intellection. The discussion was
conducted in a highbrow Sanskritised Hindi that spoke to my head
and heart. It took the form of questions and answers, in which
questions were asked like ‘Who are we, whose is this country, who
considers this their motherland?’ Then the answers would be given,
‘We, of pure Aryan blood, are Hindus, of Sanatana dharma, the
eternal, most ancient religion, this country is ours, only we Hindus
consider this our motherland, the land in which we are fulfilled
through work. This country is our sacred pilgrimage. Since ancient
times our land was a bird of gold. Rivers of milk ran here, and of
curd and ghee . We were the gurus of the universe. We were invaded
by the Shakas, Huns, Kushanas, Yavanas, Mughals, Pathans and
Britishers. They looted our wealth and made us slaves. Other than
Hindus, no community considers Bharat as their mother, or as their
sacred pilgrimage. For some their sacred place is Jerusalem, for
others it is Mecca–Medina. Only for us Hindus is everything here in
Bharat. Only we are the true sons of Mother India.’
Hearing this, I would feel anger towards other communities,
these people who ate the fruit of our land, but sang of Jerusalem and
Mecca–Medina. I began to have serious doubts about their devotion
to our nation.
Our shakha met between six and seven in the evening every day.
At first only the geography teacher used to be there, but gradually
other teachers started coming too. Sometimes big leaders would join
us from the district and regional headquarters, we called them
bhaisahab. My understanding was also enhanced by the literature
available at the shakha. I gradually became more and more of a
nationalist. I was filled with pride about being Hindu and of pure
Aryan blood, and I began to look down on people following other
faiths.
 11

Khaki shorts, military shoes,

some shlokas

It was compulsory for the chief teacher of the shakha to come in

ganvesh, the full Sangh uniform. I too asked for money from my
family and got myself the complete outfit—loose khaki shorts,
black cap, leather belt, brown socks, black shoes and a bamboo
staff, called dand, that came up to my ears. I already had a white
shirt, so didn’t need to buy that. Now that I was the chief teacher, I
wore the ganvesh to the shakha every day. My family had never
been of the ideology of the RSS or its electoral offshoot, the Jana
Sangh. In fact, my grandfather and father had been opponents of this
ideology. I was the stark contradiction of this. They had not really
questioned me when I began to go to play in the shakha, but now
that I was going daily in full Sangh uniform, my father started to
challenge me. He told me these people have never been true to us,
and nor will they ever be, I should stop going there. But I was so
intoxicated by nationalism that even a mild questioning of the
Sangh made me doubt a person’s loyalty to the nation. My older
brother and cousins mocked me mercilessly about the loose khaki
shorts, but I put up with it.
My big brother Badri-ji has a very different relationship with
Hindutva politics. We are two brothers, with no sisters, and Badri-ji
is the older by three years. As a six-month-old, he was adopted by
my father’s older brother Gokul-ji, and he grew up within that
family. He never had any direct connection with the RSS, and joined
karseva at my urging, motivated also by our agricultural supervisor,
Rameshwar Lal Totla. Later he joined the BJP, but could never get
on with the RSS, so he never rose in the party, remaining at the level
of the Tehsil Working Committee. Eventually he became a
contractor and went into the transport business, and is now the
Bhilwara District Chairperson of the Dalit Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry.
Those days I made every effort to learn Sanskrit. I knew many
shlokas by heart, which I could recite flawlessly in one continuous
stream. I began to consult the panchang , the Hindu calendar of
special dates and festivals, while the Bhagawad Gita , the “Sundar
Kand” of Tulsidas’ Ramcharit Manas and the “Hanuman Chalisa”
had all become a part of my daily schedule. In the shakha we used
to recite the prayer ‘We bow to thee O ever-loving mother’ . We had
not yet been assigned a saffron flag at our shakha, so we used to
recite the prayer in a circle around a dot on the ground, imagining a
saffron flag fluttering there. Under its imagined shade we sang
praises of Bharat Mata. We were told that human minds were
unpredictable in their emotions, but the saffron flag was the symbol
of steadiness, purity and asceticism, and it should never be
dishonoured in any way. This is why the Sangh considered the flag
our guru. We were taught that this flag, bearing the colour of the
holy flame, was the very image of sacrifice. The Sangh believed it
was not individuals who had priority, but principles, so the place of
the guru was occupied, not by any individual, but by the symbol of
purity and principles, the saffron flag itself.
It had been six months since the shakha had been set up in the
village. When the festival of Vijayadashami arrived, the district
pracharak announced that our shakha would be granted the saffron
flag. We were ecstatic. We would no longer be nigura, an abandoned
guru-less mob.
Soon enough a tall iron rod, a stand and a flag in saffron cotton
were presented to us. We made our first payment of guru dakshina,
or gift to the guru, that day. The Sangh is an independent nationalist
organisation, and its expenses are met by annual collections made
from its volunteers on Guru Poornima, when everybody places an
amount in an envelope and presents it to the flag. This is called guru
dakshina . Our pracharak told us that the Sangh does not accept
money from any other source.
My questioning mind would not be silent even on this occasion,
and I couldn’t help asking how a lifeless object like the flag could
guide us the way a guru should. Banshilal Sen, my geography
teacher, who was also the tehsil service chief, laughingly replied
with the story of a Vedic sage who accepted as his guru twenty-four
objects and animals—plants, trees, rivers, dogs, cats. So sublime is
our Hindu culture, so generous, so expansive. Why then should we
not accept the saffron flag as our guru? My doubts were stilled.
Sangh activists always had instances from ancient times and ready
answers to all questions. From that day forward, I accepted the
saffron flag as my guru and the bamboo staff as my companion. The
rest of my journey as a swayamsevak carried on in this way, with all
my questions receiving answers, my arguments facing counter-
arguments. The RSS prizes faith over doubt. This I had come to
understand.
In informal conversations and gossip, an occasional reference to
differences of opinion among the leaders did crop up, but the
discipline of the organisation was so strong we never learned what
the differences were about, and they were certainly never aired in
public.
Once I turned to ask a pracharak: After all, Hindus are the
majority in India, how can we be insecure? My confusion arose
because in my village there was not a single Muslim or a person of
any religion other than Hinduism. We had never heard the call of
azan, or seen namaz being offered. It was difficult for me to imagine
people of this community as my enemy. I asked my question, and
pat came the answer, ‘Even the Father of the Nation Mahatma
Gandhi had said that Hindus are peace-loving cowards, and
Muslims aggressive goons. One can never trust them not to betray
us, and that’s why despite being in the majority, we Hindus are not
safe even in our own country.’ I was convinced by this answer and
understood that people of other faiths are the enemies of Hindus.
Other swayamsevaks may have had such doubts, but if so, did
not raise them publicly. Many also came from families where
Islamophobia was commonplace, but this was not so in my family
and I found these views hard to swallow initially.
 12

Panchjanya made a fanatic of me

Some literature came free to the shakha. The Sangh publication

Pathey Kan , published fortnightly from Jaipur, cost thirty rupees
annually. Other small booklets published by the RSS also arrived off
and on, and were sold for prices between two and five rupees. I read
Sita Ram Goel’s pamphlet, Hindu Samaj Khatre Mein (Hindu
Society in Danger), which disturbed me greatly. It revealed in detail
the conspiracy that Muslims, Christians and communists were
plotting against Hindus. The poor Hindu community was encircled
by these forces.
My hunger for knowledge was growing. I became a regular
subscriber to the weekly Panchjanya and read it eagerly, poring
over every issue as if it was a religious text. If an issue did not
arrive, the week seemed empty and meaningless. The fact is, my
recognition and understanding of the Sangh’s Hindu Nation grew
out of the pages of the Panchjanya . Today I can admit that it was
the Panchjanya that made me an ideological and intellectual fanatic
in the cause of this Hindu Rashtra. Of course, my fanaticism was
also fostered by the regular activities of the Sangh, as well as by
participating in its training camps of five days (Initial Training
Camps or ITCs) and twenty days (Officer Training Camps or
OTCs). The discipline in these camps was intense. Exhausting
physical exercise and training in wielding knives, lathis, swords,
supposedly for self-defence. For the duration of the camp,
participants were not permitted to leave the premises and meet
anyone outside. There was an air of secrecy, to keep our activities
away from the eyes of the media. It was said that the quality of a
true swayamsevak was selfless service to the nation, away from the
limelight, and without any expectations. A combination of theory
and practice had convinced me fully about the Sangh’s vision. I was
eternally ready to argue for it and fight with people, especially with
the secular-type Congressis who were around me. After all there
were no Muslims to be seen, one had to go far to seek them out.
One day, suddenly, with no effort on my part, my enemy landed
up at home. It happened like this. A Class IV employee was
transferred to the government-run primary ayurvedic health centre
in Sirdiyas. He wore a netted cap, had a beard and wore salwar-
kurta. His name was Amir Khan. One look at him and I knew that
this person was from the anti-national community I had been
hearing and reading about. Such good fortune to have the enemy fall
into my lap, just like that. Without ever interacting with him, I
began to apply to Amir Khan the things I had learnt from the shakha
and the senior bhaisahabs, and sure enough, quickly convinced
myself that the infidel matched up to every single idea I had of the
enemy.
I had heard countless times that it was because of these mlechha
infidels that our Mother India had been split into two. These people
don’t see Bharat Mata as their mother but as a witch. They celebrate
the victory of Pakistan in cricket. They each have four wives and
each produces forty children, trying to increase their population and
take over what’s left of India. They practise no birth control, refuse
vasectomies. They even have protection from the law. They don’t
obey the Supreme Court. In the case of an old woman called Shah
Bano, the government changed the law to please them. They get
subsidy to go on Haj, when we have to pay taxes on our pilgrimage
to Kailash Mansarovar. Their young men pound iron in foundries
through the day, and then emerge all dressed up in the evening to
seduce our women, our daughters and daughters-in-law. In schools
and colleges they trap our Hindu girls into falling in love with them
and trick them into eloping. After exploiting them sexually, they sell
them into brothels. In their madarsas, they learn not ‘a for alif’ but
‘a for algaav-vad’, or separatism. At the root of all extremism you
will find these people. They have arms buried under their masjids.
Whenever Pakistan attacks us, these people will be ready to turn on
us. They eat beef. They are habitually cruel and heartless. They spy
for Pakistan. They are not ours, not of our religion nor of our nation.
Hundreds of such beliefs learnt in the shakha had made
themselves at home in my mind, so that when I saw a person like
Amir Khan I could not but think of him as a terrorist and an anti-
national element. I used to wonder why such dreadful people are
allowed to remain in the country. Why doesn’t the government use
the armed forces to drive them away to Pakistan. But I knew also
that the ruling Congress was an appeaser of Muslims. How could
we expect any better from these Muslim-loving parties? My own
home was full of Congressis. Did I come from a family of anti-
national traitors, then? Such questions would often arise in my
mind, and as they became more insistent, I redoubled my efforts to
consolidate Hindu society through my work in the Sangh. I was
convinced that only a strong Hindu society could build a strong
India. I had but one objective now—come what may, I would build
the Hindu Rashtra in India.
 13

Towards the Hindu Rashtra

I was promoted in the hierarchy quite soon. In December 1988 I was

promoted from chief teacher to karyavah, the highest post in the
shakha. These orders were oral, there was nothing in writing. When
swayamsevaks themselves got no receipts or identity cards, why
should office bearers? I did ask about this though, and was told that
the Sangh did not waste time on such bureaucratic niceties.
I showed a lot of interest in learning and understanding more
about the Sangh’s ideology, and was particular about attending the
shakha regularly, perhaps this was why I was chosen for the greater
responsibility. Of course, there were no Brahmin swayamsevaks in
my village, and the other non-Brahmin swayamsevaks were not as
regular as I was. This must also have been a reason behind my
promotion.
I was expected to convene the shakha every day on time, to take
the flag and bamboo staff with me, hoist the flag, bring it down at
the end of the shakha and keep these safely. There was no provision
for expenses incurred, and every day for one hour these
responsibilities had to be fulfilled. To go from home to the shakha
every day, to be there for the duration of one hour without water or
any refreshments provided, to conduct all the activities—the
manager was expected to do all of this voluntarily at the level of his
village or neighbourhood.
As manager, I was also expected to participate in block-level
meetings. When I first went to attend the two-day meeting at the
tehsil headquarters, I had to carry with me my bedding, ganvesh,
lathi and a plate and bowl to eat from. I had to pay my own fare and
also the fee for participating in the meeting. I also carried my food
for the first night from home. The first day, the whistle rang at
dawn, around 5 am. After ablutions, we would recite in melodious
concert the dawn prayer in Sanskrit. Then the shakha began in
earnest. All day progress reports of the activities of the Sangh were
presented. Food, followed by intellectual sessions. We would sit in
different smaller groups and seriously discuss the state of the
country.
At the block level meetings, we discussed how to expand
membership of the shakhas and to increase the number of shakhas,
how to rouse Hindu society, how to make shakhas more valuable in
content, and also learnt by heart the chants of the Ekatmata mantra,
a mantra of unity that cleverly folds together the sects of the
Shaivites, Vaishnavites, Buddhists and Sikhs, under one Brahma,
one code of devotion to teachers and parents; and the Bhojan
mantra, in praise of food. Much emphasis was placed on physical
activity, for the swayamsevak had to be physically strong to fight
the enemies of the nation. We were trained in the art of delivering
lectures, and given information about the injustices meted out to
Hindus. We were given tips on running the ideal shakha, and on
how to be the ideal swayamsevak. These two days of collective
activity convinced me that the nation-building mission of the Sangh
was not human but divine. The opportunity to work with the Sangh
came infrequently and only to very fortunate people. It was not a
mere organisation, it was a factory that built individuals like me into
cultured and patriotic young men.
The pracharak who had come from the district headquarters and
the sanghchalak were very inspiring in their speeches. Every
sentence they uttered seemed to me like it had come straight from
the Vedas . Such noble and sage-like people who had dedicated their
lives to the nation. I took a mental oath that I too would spend my
life trying to achieve the pure goals of the Sangh, that I would be a
life-long pracharak.
 14

‘We want pracharaks, not

vicharaks’

Some time after returning from karseva, around May or June 1990, I
expressed to the district pracharak, Shiv-ji bhaisahab from Jodhpur,
my desire to become a full-time pracharak, giving up family and
home, leading the life of an ascetic dedicated to the nation. He gave
me a very long reply, of which two things he said are engraved in
my memory.
ME : Bhaisahab, I want to become a pracharak.
DISTRICT PRACHARAK : Brother, your ideals are indeed very high-
minded. But you have to see the broader picture. It’s all very well
that you’re excited about becoming a pracharak, but our society is
very complicated. Tomorrow, someone asks you your name, your
village, your samaj [he said community, but meant my caste], and
the moment he realises that pracharak-ji is from a marginalised
community, his attitude to you might change. You would have to
swallow the insult. I can see this and it’s why I’m telling you. You
will be upset, want to retaliate. Arguments will follow. All this will
weaken the work of the Sangh, not strengthen it. My advice is to
remain a vistarak for a while and serve the nation in that capacity.

I was devastated by his reply. I felt intense pain at having been born
in a lower caste community. But how was this my fault? What a
predicament for me—here I was, ready to sacrifice my life for the
sacred work of the Sangh, but my caste over which I had no control
was proving an obstacle. I gradually came around to accepting it,
consoling myself that while Hindu society was not yet ready to
accept me, the Sangh was relentless in its attempts to bring about
the transformation that would end all hierarchy. Soon the time
would come when even one such as I, from a lower caste, would be
able to work full-time for the nation as a pracharak.
Meanwhile, even before this conversation, I had begun to write.
At first there were fiercely nationalist poems. I also brought out an
issue of the handwritten magazine Hindu Kesari , titled “Annihilate
Pakistan”. I then began to write columns on nationalist thought in
local newspapers. I would go to shakhas in my ganvesh and conduct
the intellectual sessions. I lost no opportunity to build myself up as a
Hinduvaadi, champion of the Hindu cause. But somehow I felt I was
not being accepted the way I wanted to be, as was my right, given
all my work.
In the conversation about becoming a pracharak, another thing
was said that really showed me my place. Mocking my intellectual
work, pracharak-ji indicated my head and said, ‘You people who
think too much, you’re just strong above the neck, not physically. In
any case, what the Sangh needs is a pracharak who can convey the
message from Nagpur exactly as it was intended, to Hindu society.
We don’t really want people like you, vicharaks who are constantly
questioning and thinking.’ And thus my thinking (vichar) made me
unfit for the job of propagating the thought of the Sangh (prachar).
You have to understand that the system of pracharaks is the very
spine of the Sangh, these are men who have sacrificed everything,
all family life, for the cause. One RSS leaflet I consulted states that
there are 2,559 pracharaks, of whom 1,646 are for shakha work, 147
for organisational work, 437 for work in Sangh-related bodies, and
335 vistaraks for starting work in new areas. Such figures are
released from time to time by the RSS, but they keep changing,
because new pracharaks join, others pass away; vistaraks are
appointed for limited periods, some of them return home, and so on.
The RSS does not make public any consolidated figures about its
pracharaks and vistaraks, although scattered information reaches the
media on and off.
 15

Ideology will be corrupted in

Ambedkar hostels

My journey with the Sangh that began in the village, went up the
tehsil headquarters, then to the district level at Bhilwara. In
Bhilwara town, I stayed in the Ambedkar Hostel run by the social
welfare department for students. It was 1991, the centenary of
Ambedkar’s birth. I was then 16 years old, studying in class eleven.
There too I used to sing the praises of the RSS. Since I was seen
stepping out in my shorts every evening for the shakha meeting,
some seniors used to tease me calling me ‘Chadda sahab’, punning
on chaddi which meant underwear, while Chadda is of course an
actual Punjabi surname. But I was so sure of my superiority by now
that everyone else appeared far inferior. I used to think, these fools
don’t know what significant, sacred work I am doing. The day they
understand it, they will fall at my feet. I was in a sort of trance of
my own. To the other Dalit and Adivasi boys in the hostel, I would
talk about Hindutva ideology. Some of my friends in the hostel were
Suresh Nakwal, Gopal Nayak, Pyarelal Khoiwal, Bhajjaram Salvi,
Ashok Meena, Dayaram Balai, Shyamlal Nayak, Gopal Regar and
Ramesh Meena. I even managed to take some of them to the shakha,
but they soon dropped off. They didn’t like the dress of the Sangh,
nor its ways of functioning. I think Ramesh Meena did become a
BJP leader, but I don’t hear of his being very active these days.
The Ambedkar Hostels were in terrible shape. I stayed in the
hostel at Azad Nagar, but the daily routine involved a lot of running
around. The toilets were at a distance, and we had to carry our lotas
with us; our classes were in another neighbourhood, at the
Government Senior Secondary School in Pratapnagar, and for meals
we had to go two kilometres away twice a day, to a hostel at Gandhi
Nagar. It was exhausting. The Gandhi Nagar hostel was another
dilapidated, filthy building like a chicken coop, constructed for
students of Scheduled Castes and Tribes. We met at meals at which
we were given a limited number of burnt rotis, for which we had to
fight like dogs. Dal was basically just water with some spices. Had
we taken a dive into it we would not have found even one grain of
dal! To this day I loathe dal. There was no attempt at maintaining
rules or discipline. Many students chewed tobacco. They got into
abusive brawls daily. The hostel warden hardly ever made an
appearance. There was nobody to maintain order, no atmosphere for
studies. The hostels have now improved somewhat, but those days
they were a mess.
The one good thing about our hostel was that everybody was
from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and so unlike everywhere
else, there was no sense of being inferior to anyone. We felt at ease
among one another in a way that we never felt anywhere else.
Around this time, the pracharak of Bhilwara town visited our
hostel. I could hardly believe it, but he did come. Having made his
own assessment of the students there, he took me aside and said,
‘You shouldn’t be staying here. This Ambedkar Hostel will corrupt
your ideology.’
To protect my ideology, I left the Ambedkar Hostel and reached
the district office of the Sangh, where I lived till May–June 1990
along with some other workers. I was given the responsibility of
being the pramukh or chief of the district office. I became even
more convinced of my capabilities and excellence. I was extremely
proud of being a Hindu, and considered myself blessed. Why ever
not, when I knew from the core of my being that we Hindus had
taught the world what civilisation is. We developed numerals, the
decimal. The divinity of our Vedas dwarfs the other religious texts
of the world. In our land all creatures are considered sacred and
women worshipped. The sublime experience of being part of such a
civilisation! Slogans such as Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan, maang raha
hai sakal jahan , Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan, rightfully demands the
entire world—the very idea filled me with joy.
So saturated was I with the beliefs of the Sangh that there was no
room for other thoughts. I was proud of the Manusmriti but that
there was such a thing as the Constitution, I had no idea at all. I sang
the praises of Maharana Pratap but had never heard of Bhilu Rana
Punja. I knew the songs of Mira but was not acquainted with Sant
Ravidas. I thrilled to the courage and valour of Rani Lakshmibai of
Jhansi, but Jhalkari Bai, a Dalit warrior who played a key role in the
Rani of Jhansi’s women’s army in the 1857 rebellion, was unknown
to me. All of the latter were lower castes and Adivasis. If I knew
anything about communities like mine, it was about those who had
loyally served upper caste idols—Shabari who fed Shri Ram with
berries she innocently first tasted herself; of Ekalavya who gave up
his thumb as offering to his guru Dronacharya; Hanuman who tore
open his chest to reveal Shri Ram enshrined in his heart. The dhobis
made themselves useful by washing clothes, leather workers made
shoes, others cleaned up after the higher orders; that is, the same
ancient caste system and traditional, inherited menial work.
My idols in those days were not Ambedkar, Phule, Kabir,
Buddha. I hadn’t even heard of them. I knew only Savarkar,
Moonje, Tilak, Gokhale, Hedgewar and Guru-ji Golwalkar. They
were my inspiration. Pracharak-ji was right. Had I stayed on in the
Ambedkar Hostel, my thoughts would have indeed become
corrupted.
 22

Thoughts of ending my life

I received no reply to the letter I wrote to the sarsanghchalak. I kept

up my questioning, I kept arguing at every level, but at every level
there was a strange silence. I was to meet with disappointment
everywhere. Not a single person was willing to see the seriousness
of the incident, to them it seemed trivial. After all, these things
happen in our society, what’s the big deal, why was I getting so
worked up about it. Meanwhile, I was going through pain the likes
of which I had never experienced before. Utterly confused about
what to do. Unable to think, unable to act. Sinking into
despondency. Nobody gave a thought to the agony eating away at
me. The world went its way, uncaring, and I started to think, why
should I continue living? I started to think about suicide, of the
many ways I could carry it out. Hang myself, jump into a well, take
poison and free myself forever. I came to the conclusion that poison
was the best way. There was rat poison at home.
One night I ate the poison along with my food. I went to bed
thinking there would never be another morning in my life. I think I
fell asleep soon after, but a half-awake kind of sleep. I was alive, but
also dying. A powerful wave of pain arose in my stomach. Nausea
overwhelmed me. The pain was unbearable, I ran outside to vomit.
As I vomited violently, it was as if my liver had reached my mouth,
my insides were pouring out, my head spun, my consciousness
started to fade away.
By now my panicking family had realised I was very ill, and my
elder brother Badri-ji was informed. He rushed to me, reaching just
as my eyes were closing. He asked me what had happened, and I
was able to say before passing out—I took rat poison. Later I was
told that my brother ran to get the doctor, and Dr Suresh Chandra
Sharma reached very quickly. He gave me several injections of
glucose, and started treating me. So that the police should not come
to know, everything was done in secret. Bhaisahab was so caring, he
did not speak about this at all to anyone. I was saved because of his
immediate action and that of Dr Sharma. Badri bhaisahab was very
angry with the RSS when he came to know the reason for my
attempt at suicide, but in time he cared less about it, and in fact
eventually forgot the incident altogether.
At the time, although Badri bhaisahab was careful, Dr Sharma
was indiscreet, and the news spread like fire through the village. I
recovered my health, but was filled with shame and sadness. It
seemed I could succeed at nothing, not even at taking my life. Life
won, and death lost. I felt as if every person in Sirdiyas knew about
my idiocy, and out of a sense of humiliation, I did not meet anyone
for months. In order to escape it all, I went to Bhilwara.
Once I reached the town, I started to question myself. Why was I
ready to die, and for whom? For what? Would anybody care if I
died? When I contemplated my own foolishness, I wanted to hit
myself on the head in frustration. I was ready to die in Ayodhya out
of love for them; and I was ready to die again because of their
hateful behaviour. In either case, it was I who was to die. Sometimes
in joy, sometimes in sorrow—were they the masters of my life? Was
the Sangh’s love or hatred something to live or die for? Why should
I die? Why do I need their certificate, who the hell are they to
decide the course of my thinking, my life? Why am I still with
them? Why am I working with such petty, mean-minded,
hypocritical people? Why am I working towards a Hindu Rashtra
that will discriminate against me? Hundreds of such sharp and bitter
questions overwhelmed me. After much inner churning and deep
thought that brought me almost to the point of exhaustion, I decided
not only to make a clean break with the Sangh, but that I would
widely publicise their casteist behaviour towards me. It would be
my life’s work now to expose the reality of this dishonest Hindutva
and its dreams of a Hindu Rashtra. I resolved to tear the veil of fake
harmony from the face of the Sangh and its family of institutions
and expose their real face in public. Knowing full well how limited
my resources were, I was determined to apply all my strength, and
set out by myself to fight the massive organisation of the Sangh.
This struggle would be life-long, until my last breath.
 23

And when Babri was brought

down

May 1991 marked the beginning of my days of struggle. It was an

endless battle, fought on many fronts, with myself and with the
world at large. I continued to rest my hopes in the RSS, believed
that I would somehow get justice. I met anyone who would listen,
poured out my woes, but nothing came of it. During this time, I met
other swayamsevaks, office-bearers and pracharaks, and presented
my case. Their only counsel to me was to keep up a positive
outlook. Not one of them thought the matter of caste discrimination
and untouchability to be an issue at all, for them it was all very
commonplace and not worth discussing.
The period between May 1991 and December 1992 was one of
utter despair. Living in the village didn’t give me peace, and in
Bhilwara I had no place to stay. I roamed aimlessly, sometimes with
nowhere to spend the night. Like the homeless I slept in parks, the
very parks where I once stalked around proudly in my Sanghi garb.
Food was hard to come by. With no money, I spent entire days
without a bite of a roti. I’d land up at the homes of relatives and
acquaintances at meal times. Or, I showed up at the Ambedkar
Hostel where I found both food and a place to sleep.
The mass fervour for karseva and the demolition of Babri Masjid
came back with a vengeance in 1992. But this time my destination
was not Ayodhya. The battle now was for my self-respect. In the
relentless pursuit of equality and justice that I was now engaged in,
Babri was no longer an issue. Those headed to Ayodhya, I felt, were
utterly misguided. This time, no one from my family or village
joined the karseva. I made it a point to speak to many people,
especially those who belonged to Scheduled Castes, telling them
about my experience with the RSS to try and stop them from
throwing their lot with these hypocrites.
But I was alone, so my efforts were not that successful. Those
who wished to go, went anyway. Not me though. I was not
intoxicated by devotion to Ram this time, I felt lost, indifferent to
everything, distant from all that was unfolding, like it had nothing to
do with me.
Around then, I also began work with some friends to establish a
students’ outfit (that eventually became Vidyarthi Adhikar Rakshak
Sangh or VARS). For some time, I settled into a temple off the
Krishi Upaj Mandi (a state-run farmers’ market) in Bhilwara, only
to move out soon enough. My belongings were scattered across the
different places I haunted—in the RSS district office, the temple, the
Ambedkar hostel, and Sitaram Dharamshala, a choultry. At every
place that I was forced to leave, I left something behind. With the
exception of Ambedkar Hostel, I never returned to any of these
places.
On the evening of 5 December, I went to meet students at the
Ambedkar Hostel. By 1991, the hostel had shifted from its rented
premises in Azad Nagar to a permanent building in Bapu Nagar. I
was at the hostel on 6 December when we heard the news of the
demolition of Babri Masjid on the radio. We did not respond to it in
any way, or discuss it among ourselves. I just left, took an auto and
headed to the Bhilwara market where I saw jubilant Hindus bursting
crackers and distributing sweets. By contrast, there was visible
police bandobast at the mosque near the railway station. The
Muslim majority areas were marked by such massive police
presence that it was as if curfew had been clamped, an eerie silence
reigned. Worried that the situation could get out of hand, and that I
may be trapped in the town, I left that night around 10 pm for my
home in Sirdiyas. There, I slept through the night.
In a few days I learnt that restrictions had been placed on the
RSS for its role in bringing down the Babri Masjid. There had been
a raid at the RSS office in Bhilwara, located above the Bajrang Daal
Baati Bhojanalaya (Bajrang Lunch Home), and documents had been
seized. The key office bearers of the RSS, fearing arrest, went
underground. When I came to know from the Maandal police that
my name also figured in the documents, I too went into hiding as a
precaution. But the truth is that the police were never serious about
apprehending anyone. They could have easily arrested me if they
wanted to. The raids had all been a big charade.
At home of course, the demolition of Babri Masjid did come up
for discussion. While my mother was just relieved that her sons had
not been involved this time, my father felt that what these people
had done was not right. A house of god had been destroyed. He
would say again and again, these Janata Party people (as he called
them; these days he says BJP) are only making us fight with each
other for votes.
The Ramjanmabhoomi for which I took part in the 1990 karseva,
for which I suffered police brutality, went to jail, was ready to die
for; the mosque I was so eager to bring down and the Ram temple
for which I was willing to take lives—when all these impulses
finally reached their conclusion, I felt no joy. There was neither a
sense of victory nor defeat. The Ram temple simply did not figure in
my priorities any longer. Perhaps I had realised that it was all just an
excuse to humiliate the Muslims, something I too had been
enthusiastic about earlier. But this time, even before Babri fell, I had
fallen quite low myself.
 26

Attempts at religious conversion

I started to think seriously about religious conversion, but to which

religion? My experience in the Sangh had taught me that Sikhism,
Jainism and Buddhism were part of Hindu society. Islam was out of
the question, because I had been fed so much disinformation about
its cruelty and violence that I had enormous distrust of it and did not
consider it as a possibility. That left Christianity. I thought, why not
become a Christian, the Sangh hates them as much as they hate
Muslims. But here was the problem—where were Christians to be
found? I had never met a Christian, let alone had Christian
acquaintances, although I had read a lot about them while in the
Sangh. I had also heard that if one became a Christian, one was
given a girl and a job, and I didn’t want either. I just wanted
revenge. I wanted to infuriate those who had insulted and rejected
me.
I started searching for Christians. In early 1994, I met the owner
of a printing press in Azad Nagar in Bhilwara, whose name was
Bethuel Gaekwad. What happened was that my cousin Mangi
Devi’s husband Chhaganlal, who was a compositor, had recently got
a job at this press, and when I landed there to meet him, both my
objectives were met. This gentleman, Bethuel, also owned a church
and a school. I had a chat with him and, disclosing my agenda,
asked, can I become a Christian? He asked me why I wanted to
become a Christian, and I told him about my struggle against the
RSS and my desire for revenge. But Pastor Gaekwad insisted,
‘Christianity believes not in revenge but in forgiveness. So forgive
them, come to Church regularly, believe in Jesus. He is our liberator
and the answer to all our questions.’
I responded sharply that I was not seeking liberation, nor god.
Nor did I have any questions. I wanted no answers. I had one
objective and one alone—to expose the hypocrisy of the Sangh and
its unethical politics. He listened to me in all seriousness, and
invited me to prayer the following Sunday. But before I could
participate in the prayer meeting, he sent word to my family through
my brother-in-law that I should be counselled as I was trying to
become a Christian.
Later I tried other churches—Baptist, Church of North India,
Methodist, Syrian, Catholic and countless others. To each I told my
story and said make me a Christian, but all of them stepped back,
scared when they heard the name RSS. They thought I was a spy for
the RSS trying to entrap them, and would hastily send me on my
way. I did not succeed in my plan anywhere.
 28

What makes them such

Brahmins?

Thanks to the Sangh’s concern that the Ambedkar Hostel would

wreck my ideology, I had left it in December 1990, and by May
1991 my roof at the Sangh office was also gone. I needed a new
place to stay. A priest I knew, Sant Chaitanya Sharan Shastri, who
claimed to be the personal assistant of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had
taken over a Shiv Hanuman temple in the Krishi Mandi area in
Bhilwara. I started living with him. Although he too was a hard-core
Hindutvavaadi, he happened to be in a sulk with the Sangh. His
status had not been acknowledged adequately during some yatra, a
junior priest had been shown more respect, something like that. So
the pair of us, disgruntled Hindutvavaadis both, made common
cause and started living together.
I kept busy with student politics during the day and reached
Shastri-ji’s place only at night to rest. Those were very difficult
times, often I had not a single paisa and went hungry. There had
been days, before I moved in with Shastri-ji, when I spent the whole
night out in the park, famished and thirsty. And then there was the
pressure of my Angry Young Man persona—whenever I got the
opportunity I would speak and write against the RSS. Those days
nobody took much notice of me or my ranting, but I kept up my
campaign. People saw me as an eternal contrarian and bellyacher.
The Sangh, though, ignored me totally. Zero response to anything I
said or wrote. Just cold silence. Which riled me further. Shastri-ji
would advise me on and off: Don’t keep taking on the Sangh like
this, you don’t know these people yet. They’re capable of stuffing
you into a sack, pounding you to a pulp, and you wouldn’t be able to
hear your own crying, forget about the world. I ignored his words.
Chaitanya Sharan Shastri-ji was a good person, but casteist to the
bone. One time, we had gone to take our evening meal at a Bihari
industrialist’s home near a Ganesh temple in Gandhi Nagar.
Possibly on account of some religious ritual, his invitation was to
Brahmins. And Shastri-ji took me along. I had no idea of the
context, I only knew that we were to dine at a rich Bihari Baniya’s
house. Since spending time with people at their homes and eating
with them was a common practice with the Sangh, it did not seem
strange to me. As part of the senior Sangh structure myself, I had
often gone with pracharaks to dine at swayamsevaks’ homes, many
of them so-called upper castes. Without any hesitation, I went along
with Shastri-ji.
During the meal, the host asked my name, and I answered,
Bhanwar Meghwanshi. As they were from Bihar, he and his family
were not familiar with the caste system of Rajasthan, and he asked,
‘What sort of Brahmins are they?’ I opened my mouth to say ‘I am
from a Scheduled…’ but before I could go further, Shastri-ji hastily
broke in, ‘They are Kshatriya Brahmins’.
The matter ended there, but the indignity of having my caste
concealed made the food go bitter in my mouth. Meanwhile Shastri-
ji was angry with me for trying to declare my Scheduled Caste
status. We argued fiercely later. I accused him of being underhanded
in his treatment of people’s religious beliefs, and he ended up saying
straight out, that I was living proof people of lower castes have
lower intelligence. Here I am, trying to make you a Brahmin, he
went, and you prefer to crawl about in that dirty gutter.
I was trembling with rage, and wanted to thrash this hypocrite. I
didn’t, of course, but I matched him abuse for abuse. I yelled, you
are no better, a beggar by caste. When have you ever eaten a
mouthful earned through your own hard work?
And so Shastri-ji declared me to be a low-caste insect of the
gutter and I certified him as a beggar. We could not live together
after this. I left the temple. My staying on might have cast a shadow
over his Brahmin-ness, maybe even affected his income from
conducting rituals.
Besides, staying put implied a submission to Brahminical values,
which would weaken my stand against the Sangh. And so we parted
ways. I could not become a Brahmin and he was not willing to
become human. We never met again.
I was out of the temple and didn’t feel like returning home to my
parents. Ever since the Sangh had thrown out the food cooked at our
place, I had not found the courage to go back. I wandered about in
Bhilwara, sleeping here and there, eating when I could. No fixed
residence, filled with indecision, not in my right mind. Naturally,
my studies were affected.
I had taken admission for an Arts degree at the Manikya Lal
Verma Government College, and for a year did student politics
there, but could not write the exam. When my father came to know
of this, he was very angry and ticked me off severely. I was
fortunate he did not beat me.
Anyway, all this affected my education and I was to complete all
further studies through correspondence courses and self-learning.
In those difficult days, I was given shelter by Daulat Raj Nagoda
in his small room in Gandhi Nagar, Bhilwara. He had also been an
RSS swayamsevak, and had received officers’ training. He had
worked in the Sangh office, and would teach in the Sangh’s Adarsh
Vidya Mandir school in Badnaur. He was acknowledged to be a
very active swayamsevak. His lectures were clear and accessible.
He spoke like a teacher, so that anyone could understand. He knew
all the Sangh songs by heart and often sang them. These qualities
gave him great success in mobilising people.
Despite his undoubted commitment to the Sangh, he too had
come through some bitter experiences of discrimination and
untouchability.
Once at an RSS Officers’ Training Camp held at Maharaja Ajmid
Adarsh Vidya Mandir, he insistently raised questions about the steps
taken by the Sangh for the abolition of caste, but the Sangh
functionaries present refused to engage with him. Finally the senior
pracharak said something insulting to Daulat-ji, and the atmosphere
turned so heated that they came to blows. Daulat-ji is solidly rustic
in his ways, militant and unafraid. There was no question of his
retreating. In the presence of hundreds of Sangh activists he tore at
pracharak-ji’s hair and gave as good as he got. After this he stayed
away from the RSS. He formed the Ambedkar Savings Society, a
micro-credit and small savings group, that also sought to bring
Dalits together, set up legal literacy classes for Dalit and Adivasi
youth, and worked relentlessly to draw them into the mission
launched by Phule, Kabir and Ambedkar. He is still involved in this
campaign.
After leaving the Sangh, Daulat-ji took a room on rent in Gandhi
Nagar and joined an electrician’s training course at the Industrial
Training Institute. These institutes are state run, but even here the
Sanghis had a strong presence, and he had to deal with constant
harassment. In these tough circumstances he eventually got his
degree. He set up a a little kiosk and sold paan to finance his law
studies. He then started legal practice, largely assisting the poor and
taking on their cases, and till today this is what he does. It was with
such a committed comrade that I shared a small room for many
days, and that’s where I got obsessed with the idea of starting a
newspaper. I was searching for some medium of expression through
which I could expose the Sangh and its hypocritical ideology. This
seed eventually grew to become the fortnightly, Dahakte Angaarey.
Daulat Raj Nagoda has been my steadfast companion since then.
Many a time, fatwas were issued against us by the hateful forces of
the Sangh, we were sharply criticised, countless attempts were made
to drive us apart. But despite their best efforts the Sangh could
neither separate us from each other, nor the two of us from the
oppressed Dalits we sought to work with. Our voices, raised in
favour of the oppressed and the marginalised, far from being
silenced by the Sangh’s attacks, were only strengthened. Today
Daulat Raj Nagoda is an established lawyer. He has been elected
unopposed three times to the post of chairperson of the Asind Bar
Association and is a leading figure in the Dalit movement in
Rajasthan.
 29

Towards Ambedkarism

I returned to my village in August 1995. Now I was more inclined

to make a political response. The Dalit–Muslim alliance had failed
to take off, and Christianity turned out to be not at all different from
Hinduism. It seemed all religions were equally rigid and irrational.
On the surface it was all sarva dharma sama bhava —treat all
religions equally—but actually every religion had a secret agenda to
expand its followers and control the world. Some wanted to make
the whole world dar-ul-islam, subject to the laws of Islam; while
others were insistent upon sharing the gospel with one and all. As
for Hindus, they were no better. Declaring krinvanto vishvam aryam
(‘Let us Aryanise the world’, meaning, elevate it), the Rig Vedic
verse made popular by Dayanand Saraswati as the motto of the Arya
Samaj, they were bent upon ‘civilising’ the world. Each one
expansionist, each conjuring visions of heaven and hell. I wanted to
run far away from the abstractions of fear, fortune and god.
So I started searching for alternative writings, and started with
Ambedkar’s works.
Until now, I knew of Ambedkar in two ways. First was through
the RSS, where in every morning prayer at the shakha we
remembered Ambedkar. I had also read the Sangh-approved story of
his life written by Dattopant Thengadi. Second was through my
reading of Osho, where Gandhi was criticised and Ambedkar
counterposed to him as the more scientific and rational thinker.
I had read about Babasaheb Ambedkar here and there in Sangh
publications like Panchjanya, Pathey Kan, Rashtra Dharma and
Jahnavi , from which I learnt that Babasaheb was a great nationalist,
and had contributed to writing the Constitution of India. That he had
wanted to make Sanskrit the national language and the saffron flag
the national flag. That despite every temptation, he had not
converted to Islam or Christianity but to Buddhism, which was part
of Hinduism. And that he was opposed to the continuation of Article
370 in Kashmir, which gave the state a special status.
Now I was reading Ambedkar himself, and found that his views
on everything were the exact opposite of what the Sangh claimed. It
was the first time I was reading him directly, not as presented by the
Sangh. I was dumbstruck. The first book I read, Riddles in
Hinduism , blew my mind. After that I found everything I could that
Babasaheb had written. I learnt about the many bitter circumstances
that arose in his life, with which he had to deal. Annihilation of
Caste gave me a clear understanding of how Brahminism was
responsible for the establishment of the hateful system of caste
hierarchy and discrimination. I came to recognise the true nature of
the RSS. How, through their claim of samrasata or harmony, they
were subverting the possibility of equality, justice and social
transformation. And what the politics was behind naming Dalits as
neglected (vanchit) and Adivasis as forest dwellers (vanvasi),
denying us our own identity.
I was now horrified by the song we sang routinely in the shakha
— manushya tu bada mahan hai/ tu Manu ki santan hai (Man,
greatness is your destiny/ You are Manu’s progeny). The song
celebrated humans as the offspring of Manu—the very Manu who
had enforced the system of caste hierarchy in the well-known
Manusmriti , who considered Shudras, women and avarna
untouchables as less than animals. Such a person was being
celebrated as a great sage and the ancestor of all humans? What
could be more evil?
The closed doors of my mind had started opening up. I read the
Manusmriti and realised that Babasaheb was right. The treatise
should be burnt as Babasaheb had done in 1927 in Mahad. As I read
more and more of Babasaheb, the more my rebellious thoughts took
firmer shape. Ambedkar’s writings sowed the seed of progressive
thinking in me. A Dalit perspective helped me understand my
personal, individual struggle against the Sangh as a collective
struggle for identity, social justice and dignity.
Then I read Kabir, Periyar and Phule. I was no longer just a
rebel. My desire for revenge was slowly becoming a desire for
transformation. In place of the poetry I had written for my own
pleasure and for the entertainment of others, suddenly emerged
poems that raised burning questions. I burnt my old romantic
poems, full of metaphors about beautiful dusky locks of hair and
deep intoxicating eyes.
Now the mood of my poetry was rebellious. I wrote:
Burning just the Manusmriti,
Why did you stop at that, Babasaheb?
Why didn’t you burn
All those volumes in which Manu resides,
In the minds of the so-called uppers….

And about Ekalavya’s devotion to his teacher:

Why Ekalavya, did you sacrifice
As a gift to your teacher, your thumb?
Why didn’t you cut off
Dronacharya’s head,
So that no other Ekalavya
Should be asked to give up his thumb
By another Drona,
And never would be born
Ever again, those who follow Drona….

On Ram and Sabari:

Raja Ramachandra,
You did not leave
With that Adivasi woman Sabari
Even a half-eaten fruit,
And you too kept faith
With enmity against us.

Those days I wrote dozens of verses like this. The tone of my prose
writing changed too, turned revolutionary. In place of abstract
supposedly literary stories, emerged sharp, rough, troubling stories
about Dalit life and oppression and struggle. I continued to read
extensively. Periyar’s Sacchi Ramayan (translated into Hindi from
Tamil and once banned in Hindi; in English, translated as The
Ramayana. A True Reading ); Phule’s Gulamgiri (Slavery ); L.R.
Balley’s Hinduism: Dharm ya Kalank (Religion or Stain), and
Sarita–Mukta magazine reprints that took a strong stand against
religious obscurantism and political authoritarianism. I read
Babasaheb of course, and books about him, but also Osho, J.
Krishnamurti, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Madhu
Limaye, Kishan Patnaik, Marx, Engels, Freud, Nietzsche. I read a
number of contemporary Hindi writers too. All of these built my
intellectual framework. I also read a lot of literature critical of the
RSS. It wouldn’t be too much to say that Ambedkarite and humanist
thought liberated me from mental slavery. Egalitarian thought
changed the direction of my life.
 31

From Sanghi to rebel

To begin with, my motivation was personal vengeance; in time it

grew beyond that. It’s true that my battle initially was against the
casteist Sanghis of the Maandal tehsil of Bhilwara district and their
discriminatory practices, not against the RSS as a whole. But when
my appeals even to the senior-most Sangh leaders went unheard, my
anger grew and turned against the organisation itself. I had, of
course, always had minor disagreements, always had questions to
ask, an attitude that was not appreciated in the Sangh; but the
casteist behaviour of the Sanghis of Maandal catalysed the sparks
created by each separate point of resentment into an explosion.
Somehow I had full faith that the moment my complaint reached
the higher echelons of the Sangh, the lower-level figures responsible
for the outrage would be sharply admonished, perhaps even
removed from the RSS. If not that, they would at the very least face
severe censure. When absolutely nothing was done, when my
complaint did not even receive an acknowledgement, I realised that
there was an unbridgeable gap between word and deed. The full
extent of the hypocrisy of the Sangh became painfully obvious.
There is no procedure in the Sangh for conveying the opinions
and complaints of lower levels to the higher ups. Orders are
conveyed from top to bottom, but for anything to go upwards from
below is impossible. Every pracharak, every official, every senior
swayamsevak in a responsible position, made sure to preface every
utterance with—the most revered sarsanghchalak has said so. The
authority of the sarsanghchalak was invoked whether relevant to the
context or not. They could silence any voice by citing this authority.
Earlier, the highly Sanskritised and stiff Hindi used by Sangh
officials had awed me. My youthful mind found it convincing and
forceful. But with the discrimination I faced, Sanskritised Hindi lost
its hold over me. I found the courage to contest its regime of terror.
As it was, my constant questioning made Sangh officials uneasy,
and they did not consider me to be a proper swayamsevak. Now that
I had raised the issue of caste discrimination, things became worse. I
became a headache to them, and they started avoiding me. Once I
realised that no conversation with them was possible, I turned
towards fresh audiences. I started targeting Dalit swayamsevaks . I
was astonished to find that each Dalit to whom I spoke reported
similar disheartening experiences in the Sangh, relating to his caste
identity. For the first time I saw that this was not my personal pain,
but that of every swayamsevak of my community. The difference
was that they were willing to accept it quietly, and I was not.
These faithful swayamsevaks of the Sangh sympathised with me,
told me their own depressing stories, but each one also advised me
to stop talking about my experience everywhere. The Sangh is a
massive organisation, they said, you cannot challenge it head on,
you must learn to work within it and move forward together. I
realised that these Dalit swayamsevaks lacked courage, each one
was in the Sangh at the behest or orders of some so-called upper
caste patron, and it was futile to expect them to support me, still less
my rebellion.
The battle was for my community, but it looked like I had to
fight it alone. I wrote, and spoke, and contacted people, and
published, and kept my story in circulation, and although nothing
came of my efforts, at least I felt I was fighting. In response I
received advice, and often animosity and admonitions, but it was
clear to me that my struggle would continue and that I would never
return to the RSS. My battle grew stronger. How strange that the
Sangh had no answers to the questions of a Dalit swayamsevak like
me, while other Dalit swayamsevaks had no questions to ask of the
Sangh.
I found a pattern in the internal organisation of the Sangh, a
connection between the representation of castes, the caste of office
bearers and the leaders of the Sangh, and their relationship to the
balance of castes in our society. This was my caste audit of the
Sangh. I realised that Dalits and Adivasis were mere tokens. The
real owners of the Sangh were Brahmins and Baniyas; there were a
handful of Rajputs, but the control of the Sangh was in the hands of
the former group. It was clear there would never be any place for us,
our dignity and our self-respect were immaterial to them. They only
want to use us to attack the Muslims, otherwise we did not matter at
all. A more informed understanding of the caste politics of the
Sangh gave a foundation to my feeling of rebelliousness.
It was not yet clear what my destination was, but the course of
my journey was becoming clearer.
 42

Adivasis and Dalits in trishuliya

Hindu Rashtra

At the height of the trishul deeksha period, I was told by Mukesh

Bhargava, a top leader of the Bajrang Dal in Maandal, that an
incident of blatant caste discrimination had taken place during
trishul deeksha there. The ceremony was happening at the Shiv
temple, Neelkanth Mahadev Mandir near the Maandal bus stand,
where the procession of triumph, the shobhayatra, of young Hindu
men had arrived. Each person ceremonially poured holy water on
the shivlinga, and was presented with a trident.
Suddenly there was a commotion. Three young men were
prevented by the pujari and others from entering the temple. They
were Dalits, Valmikis. They were given trishuls but not permitted to
enter the temple to perform the ritual pouring of the water, the
jalabhishek . None of the VHP, Bajrang Dal and Sangh activists
present tried to prevent this from happening. Mukesh Bhargava was
deeply shocked by this, and he left the Bajrang Dal in protest.
Although not a Dalit himself, he was horrified by the treatment
meted out to fellow activists whom he had proudly addressed as
Hindu brothers, and this incident led him to abandon altogether the
ideology of the Sangh. Bhargava later joined us in our struggle
against communalism and our efforts to promote solidarity and
goodwill.
In the light of this incident, I started challenging the
organisations of the Sangh in my writings, demanding to know what
their plans were for Dalits and Adivasis in their trident-equipped
Hindu Rashtra to come, when already they were showing such
disdain towards us. Will we be used only to carry out violence? To
die and to kill in riots? Of what use were lathis and trishuls to us in
this nuclear age? When their own children study in English medium
convent schools, why give us the slogan of Hindi–Hindu–
Hindustan? Humanity has reached the moon and circled Mars, while
in their shakhas they still teach puranik mythology? I asked the
Sangh why, in this age of science, they want to promote primitive
weaponry like the trishul and a primitive Taliban mentality.
Of course there was no way the Sangh would answer these
questions. Nor did they really have an answer to my question about
the role envisaged for Dalits and Adivasis in their so-called Hindu
Rashtra.
I studied the national meeting of the RSS held in Nagpur on 7, 8
and 9 March 2003, in which a thirty-six-member Akhil Bharatiya
Pratinidhi Sabha (All India Representatives’ Assembly) had been
formed. This is the Sangh’s national working committee. The Sangh
that cried itself hoarse about social harmony had handed over the
reins of the future Hindu Rashtra, through its national working
committee of thirty-six members, to twenty-six Brahmins, five
Vaishyas, three Kshatriyas and two Backward Castes (Shudras). Not
a single Dalit or Adivasi. It is very clear what the participation of
Dalits and Adivasis will be in their Hindu Rashtra. Better than this
is secular India, in which Adivasis and Dalits at least have 7.5 and
15 per cent reservations. Why should we Dalits participate in a
Hindu Rashtra which has no place or role for us? Instead of the
fraudulent slogan of Hindu–Hindu bhai bhai, the Sangh and its
affiliates should place before the nation the facts about how many
swayamsevaks and how many pracharaks, how many members of
their national working committee today, are Dalits and Adivasis. If
the answer is in the negative, it only proves that they still practise
untouchability, and merely want to use us as unpaid labour, as they
did in their agricultural fields for generations. Not as human beings
equal to themselves.
I also want to ask those Dalits and Adivasis who wear the
ganvesh, the RSS uniform, so proudly, and who work so hard to
prove themselves dutiful swayamsevaks—in its ninety-plus years of
existence , has the RSS launched a single struggle against caste and
untouchability? Why has the Sangh never raised the issue of ending
caste altogether? Dalits wage daily struggles for dignity, from the
right to enter temples and perform yagnas, to ride a ceremonial
horse to their wedding, or simply to sit quietly on a charpoy outside
their own home—where is the Sangh during these struggles, in what
little chicken coop does it hide itself?
Why has the practice not been ended, at pilgrimage spots from
the Ganga to Pushkar, of separate ghats for separate castes to bathe?
Of separate cremation grounds in every village for every caste?
These Sanghis who launch movements for cow protection, and who
worship rats, bulls, snakes and the like, have they once thought of
Dalits who are human like themselves, about their struggle for
equality? Never. And till today they stand shamelessly for the
preservation of the caste system. They oppose reservation in jobs, in
promotions, and want to end the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities
Act. This Sangh and the Hindu Rashtra it builds—how can there be
any place for Dalits and Adivasis in it?
 43

Animals, Dalits and the

Chakwara pond

In Dudu, an area close to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is a

village, Chakwara. Babulal Bairwa, a resident of Chakwara, was a
long-time VHP member who had also participated in karseva.
Disillusioned by the Sangh, he became inspired by Ambedkar’s
thought. Let me tell you about the incident that played an important
role in opening his eyes and those of other Dalit villagers. What
happened was that in the pond in Chakwara, in which all sorts of
animals bathed—cows, dogs, pigs, cats, goats, buffaloes—Babulal
had also dared to take a dip. He thought, I’m an activist of the VHP,
a dedicated karsevak who was ready to give his life for the Ram
temple. He had travelled to Ayodhya with the people of this very
village. And anyway, all Hindus are equal. Well, all his illusions
were laid to rest in December 2001 when the savarna Hindus of the
village slapped a fine of 51,000 rupees on him for having dared, as a
Dalit, to bathe in a public pond.
Babulal protested this illegal and unjust decision, pointing out
that this was a common pond for the whole village, that even
animals bathed in it, but not a single Hindutvavaadi organisation
took this up. Exhausted, Babulal approached the Centre for Dalit
Rights in Jaipur. The issue was then taken up by human rights and
Dalit rights groups and the battle to get justice for Babulal began in
earnest.
Some five hundred people from all over the country launched a
solidarity rally for the right of the Dalits of Chakwara to bathe in the
public pond. I too was part of this rally held on 21 September 2002.
The terror the Hindu Taliban is capable of unleashing was very
evident that day. About forty thousand aggressive Hindus armed
with lathis and other weapons advanced upon the unarmed and
peaceful Dalit rally, roaring Jai Shri Ram and Kalyan Dhani ki jai .
Their intention was clear. Only the police stood between the two
unequal parties, as we were stopped at Madhorajpura.
Realising the seriousness of the situation, the Dalits decided to
end their rally. Enraged that they could not fulfil their purpose, the
maddened Hindutva mob turned on the administration and police,
not sparing even senior officers, who had to run for their lives. A
lathi charge and police firing followed and over a hundred people
were injured.
The Dalit sadbhavna rally was a failure.
In this entire process, not one word of support for Dalits issued
from the RSS. Rather, the Sangh declared the Dalit rally as a
conspiracy hatched by foreigners to divide Hindu society. The mob
that came to attack the Dalit rally was led by various village-level
activists of the Sangh and its affiliates. It was evident that the move
to defeat the Dalit struggle for justice had the full backing of the
Sangh. The Manuvaadis succeeded in defeating the forces for
humanity. So, not only was Babulal Bairwa not accepted as a Hindu,
he was not even recognised as a human being; his status was
deemed to be beneath even animals.
The practice of seeing some humans as less than animals is an
old habit of the Sangh. A good example of this is an incident in
Jhajjar, Haryana, where in the presence of the police, five Dalits
were burnt alive on the suspicion of cow slaughter in 2002. The
Dalits were actually skinning a dead cow, which is an occupation
their caste practices. There was uproar against this incident all over
the country, but the response of the national general secretary of the
VHP, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, was telling. He declared openly that
the life of one cow is more valuable than the lives of five Dalits.
That’s how much they value Dalit lives. They can drink the urine
of a cow, which they consider holy, but won’t even touch water
offered by a Dalit. Their pet dogs and cats eat with them, sleep on
the same beds as they, travel in their air-conditioned cars with them,
but let alone sitting with Dalits, they will not permit even the
shadow of a Dalit to fall on them. What kind of religion is this, in
which those who create dirt are respected and those who clean dirt
are considered inferior? Unproductive people who merely chant
from almanacs and old tomes, who sit in their shops and cheat their
customers and lie and lie, they are considered superior, when in
thought, word and deed, they are inferior, living off the labour of
others. A religion that respects not hard work but idleness. A
religion based on lies and deception, which exploits women, the
poor, Dalits, Adivasis.
Every day, women are insulted, oppressed; they are married off
against their will, and every day, despite their not wanting it, they
must offer themselves to the so-called manly needs of their
husbands, which is limited to the ejaculation of semen. They are
restricted in every way, punished for the smallest infringement of
rules, and all the while this religion chants ‘Where women are
worshipped, there the gods reside’ ( yatra naryastu pujyante
ramante tatra devata ). Is this a religion at all, or an unjust system
for the exploitation of the weaker sections of society? To call this
deeply iniquitous arrangement a religion is to insult actual religions
and spirituality as a whole.
Thinking about this, I am often reminded of Dr Ambedkar’s
words of warning to the Dalits of India: ‘If Hindu Raj does become
a fact, it will, no doubt be the greatest calamity for this country. No
matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty,
equality and fraternity. It is incompatible with democracy. Hindu
Raj must be prevented at any cost…. Are not the millions of
Shudras and non-Brahmins, or millions of the Untouchables,
suffering the worst consequences of the undemocratic character of
Hindu society?’
For Dr Ambedkar, a Hindu nation meant a nation where the
savarnas would prevail over Dalits, Shudras and women.
 44

The approaching footsteps of

fascism

From March 2005, Bhilwara smouldered in the fires of

communalism set by the trishul deeksha programmes started by the
VHP in a systematic way after the violence in Gujarat. In 2002, the
BJP won the assembly election and chief minister Vasundhara Raje
Scindia lifted the Congress ban on trishul distribution. Businesses
and institutions belonging to minority communities were targeted in
different places. In Kota, a book called Haqeeqat (Reality) started
the process of tarnishing the work of a school run by Emmanuel
International Mission, founded in 1960, and a climate of tension and
terror was developing against other minority institutions too. In
February, the school was falsely accused of conversions and a
schoolbus was attacked by Sangh activists.
On 1 March 2005, just seven kilometres from my home, in
Karjalia village, Satyanarayan Sharma, the seventeen-year-old son
of Ramgopal Sharma, was killed by two young Muslim men,
Faroukh and Bilkis. Satyanarayan was a student of class nine in the
RSS-run Adarsh Vidya Mandir and he also ran the local shakha of
the Sangh. His murder aroused the anger of people, thousands were
mobilised on to the streets, and Muslims were targeted violently.
This public response was managed by the leaders of the Sangh
and its affiliates. At the time, the home minister of the state was a
swayamsevak, Gulabchand Kataria. The situation rapidly worsened,
most Muslims ran away from their homes to save themselves.
Mosques and dargahs became the focus of attack. The few Muslims
who stayed behind were beaten up and thrown out of the village.
Not a single Muslim felt safe anywhere in the entire locality.
I personally knew the late Satyanarayan and his father from my
days in the Sangh. Opposed to the Sangh as I was, I was saddened
by the cruel murder. I wrote in sharp terms against the murder of the
young boy, but also against the violence being carried out in his
name. In the midst of this growing tension, a bloody encounter took
place between the two communities, which was linked to rival
criminal gangs of the region. In the shootout that took place, a Dalit
boy named Raju Bairwa was killed by bullets fired by the Muslim
gang. He turned out to be a top organiser of the Bajrang Dal.
Although this was a gang war related to the criminal underworld, in
the circumstances this incident too took a communal turn. The
Bajrang Dal unleashed a violent counterattack that had the entire
district up in flames.
Even as this was raging, a student of Emmanuel Mission School,
Kishan Purbiya, was found hanging from a tree in his field. Again,
this was taken to be a murder and the rumour spread that he had
been killed by Muslims. Close to three thousand Hindus emerged on
the streets and the dance of death continued for hours. When the SP
of Bhilwara, Ashok Rathod, took firm steps to control the rioting,
the Hindutva forces turned on him. This Scheduled Caste officer
had been a thorn in the flesh of the Hindutva savarna forces, and
now he was taking stern action against them. All over the district,
clashes among Hindutva and Muslim groups and the police
continued unchecked for a long time.
On 8 April 2005, a saffron flag was found at the door of an
imambara (a building used for Eid prayers) in Maandal. The
angered Muslim community took out a silent procession to register
their protest. That very evening, as part of the festival of colours,
Phagotsav, the idol of Vishnu as Charbhujanath, the four-armed
Lord, was paraded in a ceremonial procession . At Lakhara Chowk
the procession turned violent. Eleven shops and two houses
belonging to Muslims were burnt, two mazars (tombs) destroyed
and one mosque damaged. The police were also attacked. In the
lathi charge and police firing that resulted, a Hindu youth named
Kanhaiyadas Vaishnav was shot dead. The rumour was spread that
pujari Kanhaiyadas had been shot by Muslims as he performed puja
at the temple.
This was like adding ghee to a fire, and led to a sharp
acceleration of the rampage in the whole area, with mobs organised
from neighbouring villages to systematically attack Muslim
businesses, places of worship and homes. Hindutva organisation
leaders and Congress leaders with a leaning towards the BJP sat in
the police station and directed the police towards Muslim-majority
neighbourhoods where the police conducted raids. Between 9 pm
and 2 am some twenty-five Muslim men were picked up by the
police, thrashed mercilessly and arrested. In lockup they were
abused with terms like ‘Pakistani dogs’ and so severely beaten that
one lost his hearing and two suffered broken bones. One had his
beard pulled and another was offered urine when he asked for water.
During this illegal operation in Muslim neighbourhoods, the police
also behaved in an uncivilised manner with Muslim women.
In this way the Muslim community of Maandal was broken—
physically, socially and economically.
The happenings in Maandal were still fresh when, at five temples
in Kareda village nearby, the number 786 (considered auspicious in
Islam) was found written; green flags and bones of dead animals
were also found. Hindus rose up violently and for seventy-two hours
the market of Kareda was closed. The Sangh organisations declared
these acts of sacrilege to have been carried out by the Sufi saint
Sailani Sarkar who was present in Kareda at the time. They claimed
that he offered refuge to Pakistani agents and criminals, that arms
and weapons were stored by him, and demanded that he be removed
from there. They threatened that if the administration did not do
this, they would take matters into their own hands.
For many days Kareda remained tense. The police searched
Sailani Sarkar’s ashram thoroughly, to their heart’s satisfaction, but
nothing was found there. Meanwhile the acts of sacrilege at the
temples were traced to Kareda resident and Shiv Sena leader
Ramratan Jhanvar, alias Sintiya. When this conspiracy was exposed,
Hindus were shocked, but expressed no remorse at the anti-Muslim
climate that they had helped to build.
 In those days in Bhilwara, idols being broken in temples, colour
being thrown on mosques—these were common occurrences, and it
was never clear who was responsible. The atmosphere was so
poisonous that it was not possible to even be seen with a Muslim. I
was deeply disturbed by all this injustice and oppression and
decided to fight it openly. I wanted to expose the role of the Sangh-
affiliated organisations, and along with a fact-finding team from the
People’s Union for Civil Liberties, produced a report, “The
approaching footsteps of fascism”.
No sooner was this small booklet published than all hell broke
loose.
 47

Love Jihad v. dhai aakhar prem

ka

From my days in the shakhas, I had often heard that one of the main
ambitions of Muslim men was to have sex with a Hindu woman at
least once in their lives. They believe it brings them savab, or
reward in heaven. This longing is what drives them.
It was difficult to believe this at first, but as it was repeated again
and again, I began to accept it as truth. They would say, look at
Muslim students in school or college, they are less interested in
studies and more in attracting Hindu girls. Gradually it appeared to
me to be true, that Muslim boys were indeed only interested in
getting Hindu girls to fall in love with them.
My entire outlook changed. I felt as if every Muslim youth was
engaged in this project. The term ‘love jihad’ had not come into
existence then, but the same kinds of things were said. It was said
that after working in iron foundries and garages all day, these men
emerged in the evening all dressed up, in search of Hindu women.
They land up at our fairs, at our community dandiya dance,
everywhere. It was often lamented, what do our women see in them!
A young and rising leader in those days held the view that it was
because Muslim men eat meat while Hindu men are vegetarian.
Non-vegetarian food increases the libido, where the sattvik
vegetarian diet of Hindu men douses sexual desire. One time a
Sanghi lawyer declared, you know what, the root of their attraction
is circumcision, Hindu women cannot resist this aspect of Muslim
men. I didn’t understand much of this at the time. Later I certainly
rethought many of these beliefs, but during my childhood, the
stories took deep root in my mind.
In the shakha we used to try and figure out ways of countering
this campaign of Muslim men to trap Hindu women. We decided
that we should encourage Hindu men to do the same with Muslim
women, inspire them by saying that having sex with a Muslim
woman would bring as much merit in heaven as feeding a hundred
cows. We should offer formal rewards to those Hindu boys who got
Muslim women to fall in love with them. This kind of crude talk
occupied us entirely for a long time, and only gradually faded away.
Now that ‘love jihad’ is talked about so much, these old
discussions come to mind. Nothing has changed, the same old third-
rate views are circulating, stronger than ever, now with a shiny new
name, still poisoning the air between the communities. The fruits of
a long secret preparation are now in the open. ‘Love jihad’ was
always on the agenda of the Sanghis, and now an old wound has
become a suppurating sore.
If you ask me, love is a jihad in itself. Falling in love, and
staying in love is nothing short of a dharmayuddha, a crusade. What
is so unfortunate is that these merchants of hate want to poison love
too. I hope that despite all the nonsensical talk about jihad, hearts
will meet, that people will fall in love, leaping across the borders of
caste and religion and community and country. That the religious
right-wing will be rejected in its attempts to police love, that these
walls will fall one day.
As for me, my family never gave me the chance of becoming a
love jihadi. I was engaged the moment I was born, married as a
child, and on becoming an adult I had to start living with my wife.
When people get close to me, they ask, ‘Have you ever fallen in
love?’ I answer, I married love. For twenty-seven years I have been
married to Prem, her very name means love, we have been life
partners. Our lives are very different. My world is that of books,
hers that of farming and livestock. I sling my cloth bag on my
shoulder and wander about talking of social transformation, she
remains steadfast as the axis around which my home spins.
As it happens, we never fight. Unlike traditional married couples,
we have never had the time to shout at each other. Never have we
shown our love by saying ‘I love you’, nor have we ever reached the
opposite point of yelling ‘I hate you’. Our harmonious relationship
has not needed explicit expression of feelings, and I hope it never
becomes dependent on words. My life is full of love—my children
Ashok, Mamta, Vimla and Lalit, my loving parents. At every step I
am supported by all of them. Whatever I am today, it is thanks to
my family. Had I not had such a pleasant and happy family life, I
might have been engaged in anti-social, not social, work.
Although my life partner never went to school or had a formal
education, her intelligence and understanding is such that our home
runs like a dream; she is an amazing blend of generosity and
modern thinking. Never has she doubted me or argued with me as I
did the work that occupies me. She has not read any feminist
literature, or been part of any feminist organisations, but she is
outspoken in her feminist beliefs. Atrocities against Dalits, women
being called witches and lynched—she has been at the forefront of
protests and political action against these. In fact, she is the real
head of our household, she gave new meaning to our lives, and with
her simplicity she has built a beautiful world for us.
Of course, life is not simple, nothing is as straightforward as it
might appear on the surface, there are ups and downs. It has
sometimes felt as if we are life partners only in name, but the two
and a half letters that Kabir says make up the word prem (dhai
aakhar prem ka )—this love has always survived every trial. My life
with Prem, my marriage to her, has taught me that at any point in
life one could meet someone, at any point lose someone, one never
knows. It is all a matter of fortuity. But I am grateful for the
countless blessings in my life, and my heartfelt desire is that there
comes a day when the words ‘love’ and ‘life’ become synonymous.
Then words like ‘love jihad’ won’t even matter.
 49

Samrasata, the Sangh’s humbug

The relentless questioning of the Sangh and its affiliates regarding

the place of Dalits and Adivasis, has shaken it to the core. The
challenge posed by progressive and democratic thought, as well as
the ideas of Buddha, Phule, Kabir, Periyar and Ambedkar, have
made the Sangh very uneasy. Questions have been raised in the
Sangh about equality and equal participation. The Sangh’s passivity
on untouchability and caste discrimination has been noticed, it is
being challenged to demonstrate its commitment to ending these
practices, or be held responsible for fostering them. Why has the
Sangh not initiated a single movement against casteism, caste
discrimination, and the oppression of Dalits and Adivasis? Does the
Sangh support inter-caste marriage, and if so, how many
swayamsevaks have married outside their caste? What is the
Sangh’s opinion on reservations for the marginalised? What about
the other unspoken reservation over centuries, for those privileged
by birth into specific castes? What is the programme the Sangh has
outlined to end discrimination and bring about equality? Does the
Sangh have any plans to amend those religious texts that speak
demeaningly of Shudras and women?
Many such questions are being addressed to the Sangh.
In 2012, the Sangh decided to work seriously on these issues and
try to address these questions to the extent possible. The concept of
samrasata or harmony was taken up as the core belief. Although the
term has an older history in the Sangh, it was given greater
emphasis and taken up on a war footing. The first step was to
identify all the individuals and organisations who had been raising
such questions, especially the most influential faces in Dalit
movements, with possible ambitions in politics. Systematically, the
Sangh began to contact such people, from the local level to Delhi.
Those whose desire was to become a councillor or sarpanch
received the appropriate assurances; so did those who wanted to
become MLAs or MPs. The sad truth is that eminent Dalits who had
fought the Sangh for years were seduced by these measures and lost
the sharpness of their beliefs, ending up as spokespersons for the
Sangh.
The second task the Sangh took up was the rewriting of literature
to do with Dalits and Backward Castes, by involving people of these
communities who had worked in the Sangh and the BJP for decades.
They were given the job of writing caste histories that presented
Hindu texts and the Brahminical system as noble and egalitarian,
placing the entire responsibility for caste-based evils on Muslim
invaders, thus obviating the need to amend religious texts in any
way.
The third task was to appropriate the legacy of Ambedkar and to
corrupt it. To propagate as Ambedkar’s words things he had never
said or to quote his words out of context, so that he could be shown
as anti-Muslim and a supporter of the Hindu Rashtra. Stories
circulated that were completely cooked up: something Ambedkar
was reported to have said to a pracharak ; Ambedkar attending an
RSS meeting, accepting the saffron RSS flag as a gift—such
concocted accounts were circulated to show that Ambedkar
supported the Sangh and its agenda. This kind of propaganda around
Ambedkar continues till today.
The fourth task was to defame progressive and left-wing
organisations that worked for Dalit and Adivasi rights, by spreading
rumours that they were funded by Christians abroad, and were
trying to destabilise the country. The whole point was to ensure that
Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Adivasis should not come together.
This campaign has picked up speed since then, especially after the
BJP came to power at the centre. Such organisations are being
officially hounded, investigated, and their funds restricted by
manipulating the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
 In order to achieve social harmony or samajik samrasata, the
Sangh has launched a campaign for ‘One temple, one cremation
ground, one source of water’ ( ek mandir, ek smashan, ek panghat) .
If it will take everyone sitting together and eating together to make
Dalits stay within the fold of Hinduism, then let’s do it, seems to be
the spirit of this campaign. They are also trying to look at inter-caste
marriage positively, since they understand the importance of
keeping Dalits and Adivasis with them. Despite making this their
main agenda, their real intentions are revealed by Mohan Bhagwat’s
statements on reservations. Periodically Bhagwat calls for a debate
on reservations, implicitly and sometimes explicitly criticising the
policy, and when there is an uproar, the RSS clarifies that it is not
against reservations.
As a result, once again the RSS project of samajik samrasata has
been derailed. Once again Dalits, Adivasis and the Sangh are in two
enemy camps.