Fight to Finish

‘Struggle’ is a peculiar Chinese invention combining intimidation, humiliation and sheer exhaustion. Briefly described, it is an intellectual gang-beating of one man by many, sometimes even thousands, in which the victim has no defense, even the truth…. The technique was a thing of utter simplicity: A fierce and pitiless crescendo of screams demanding that the victim confess, followed by raucous hoots of dissatisfaction with any answer he gave them… The Struggle was born in the thirties, when the communists first began making headway in great rural stretches of China. Developed over the years by trial and error, it became the standard technique of interrogating the landlords and their enemies who fell into the hands of rebellious peasants. There is a system and real rationale behind it all. The Communists were and remain very formalistic. A man must be made to confess before he is punished, even if his punishment has been decided beforehand. The captured landlord was pushed, shoved or carried to a handy open area and forced to kneel and bow his head as dozens or hundreds or thousands of peasants began surrounding him. Screamed at, insulted, slapped, spat upon, sometimes beaten, hopelessly confused and terrorized, no victim could hold out for long. ... There is never a time limit to a Struggle. It can go on indefinitely if the leaders of the game feel that not enough contrition has developed. .. a Struggle is rarely resolved quickly; that would be too easy. At the beginning, even if the victim tells the truth or grovellingly admits to any accusation hurled at him, his every word will be greeted with insults and shrieks of contradictions. … After three or four days the victim begins inventing sins he has never committed, hoping that an admission monstrous enough might win him a reprieve. After a week of Struggle, he is willing to go to any lengths. 

Source: Bao Ruo-wnag (Jean Pasgualini), Prisoner of Mao (New York, Penguin Books, 1976, 59)

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Whatever ills may be attributed to our own liberal intelligentsia, they cannot be faulted on their commitment to the Red Book and their efforts to Indianise the war to dominate thinking prowess of a free Nation. Since India is a socialist democracy and not a ‘People’s’ Democracy, the way China is, there are of course, limits to what the leftists can do as far as replicating ‘Struggle’ in Indian context. Hence, while a physical ‘Struggle’ may not be feasible, a propaganda struggle is certainly within the realms of the doable. Like any struggle which requires an adversary and  foot soldiers to wage the war, the lines here too are clearly drawn – the feudal adversaries are those who can be called Nationalists, traditionalists, religious, law-abiding and those who believe in a culture defined way of life. The foot soldiers on the other hand are petty journalists, news anchors, ambitious politicians and their ilk – all guided by figures who may possess different backgrounds, but are brought together by their visceral hated of India.

In case such words seem out of place in our context and one may be moved to question if I am indeed talking about India, my request to the discerning observer would be to look around and judge for oneself, if the no-holds barred attack on Hindu Nationalism can qualify as anything less than a war fought with utmost application of Fascist principles.

The fact that the Indian Nation is a Hindu majority state cannot be wished away. Likewise, the fact that the majority of our population is religious and still retains its ties with its old cultural moorings is equally valid. That in times of struggle, people fall back upon religion and cultural totems for sustenance is another fact which social scientists of all hues will accept unquestioningly. Hence, it is not surprising that our Nation, with its tradition of deifying whatever it respects, considers the Land as a Divinity to be worshipped. Likewise, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to note that our freedom struggle was full of Hindu imagery and thoughts, right from Bankim Chandra to Gandhi. It was precisely this mooring to our cultural heritage that made independent India choose Sanskrit words and ancient motifs as its emblems and at the same time allowed Congressmen to associate with Nationalist organizations without guilt. 

However, things have changed and over the years and we now have a scenario where anything remotely associated to Hindu Religion or Culture is rabidly denounced as Communal. We have to bear witness to ridiculous scenes of icons being boycotted for hailing Narendra Modi’s model of development (though Modi is as away from being a Hindu Nationalist as possible), PILs being filed claiming dilution of Indian secularism when a bhoomi puja is conducted for commencing construction of High Court building, another crescendo of complaints that this secularism is compromised when mortal remains of a revered religious leader are draped in Indian tricolor, another controversy when the President professes her faith towards a religious sect - the list is endless and can go on and on.

It was not so long back that country was stuck by a series of bomb blasts. While none of the alleged perpetrators of these crimes have been punished till date, the entire investigative and judicial system seems to have zeroed in only on the so-called Hindu terror, which even if true, together has caused far lesser damage and casualties compared to even a single blast in Mumbai.

The entire state machinery, with able abetment of the press seems to have taken it upon itself to tar the RSS and associated Nationalist organizations with the polemical brush of communal terrorism. For a person to be declared an RSS wallah, it is enough to put a stop to his/her career, particularly if that person belongs to academia, performing fields, judiciary and bureaucracy. Since the pronouncements of all learned judges are not music to ears of our thought police, even as respected and upright judges as JS Verma and MN Venkatchalliah are today denounced for their ‘rightist’ leanings. While an AP Shah, whose only claim to fame is decriminalization of homosexuality, is feted as a progressive and right thinking judge, an erudite and thorough judge like Markendya Katju is dismissed as being sanctimonious and of donning  saffron behind his black robes.

One could imagine the furore it would have caused, had someone criticized the Nobel committee for having awarded the prize to Amartya Sen, solely on account of he being a leftist. Not surprisingly though, today’s vitiated atmosphere allows the Karnataka Governor to get away with a recommendation of not awarding a renowned literary figure only on account of his pro-Hindutva leanings. 

Works published by those scholars, who had in the past, spoken in support of the Ayodhya movement, are dismissed as communal rantings without even a cursory review, while dismissal of a noted danseuse from her official post is justified on account of her having sung in some function where some RSS leader was present. 

The closest this Nation has come to in organising mass movements in the last few years was around Anna Hazare’s fast for a Lokpal bill. Sadly, the fact that there was a Bharat Mata portrait, that Vande Ma Taram was chanted and that hawans were conducted, have proven to be proofs potent enough to have convinced our gullible friends that the entire event was stage managed by the RSS. What are these ‘secularists’ trying to convey? That any person who is a patriot is an RSS wallah or that the RSS has sole copyright over patriotism? Or more critically, is patriotism a vice or being religious and being moored to one's culture a taboo?

Are we far from that stage that mere whiff of association with our Gods, our temples and our forefathers, enough to cast aspersion on our commitment to democracy and civilization? Forget about us ever having a fresco of Rama in the Parliament or having Ganesha/Lakhsmi on our currency note, a re-evaluation of Gandhi will certainly show his to be a hardcore communalist.

While I may find lots of areas of improvement in RSS’s functioning, cannot deny that for good or bad, the RSS has occupied a banyan like presence in the sphere of Hindu Nationalism. Hence, any attack on the Hindu Right must necessarily mean an assault on the RSS and its associates. With allegations being thrown around thick and fast, it is but likely that even hardcore RSS supporters would find it more and more inconvenient to continue their association with the RSS. With the Government, Media and ‘civil society’ seemingly determined to finish off the RSS and the thought process which sustains it, it is likely that sometime in the near future, we may see a reappraisal of what happened in Tibet a few decades back.

These struggles were diabolically cruel criticism meetings where children were made to accuse their parents of imaginary crimes, where farmers were made to denounce and beat up their landlords; where pupils were made to degrade their teachers; where every shred of dignity in a person was torn to pieces by his people, his children and loved ones. Old lamas were made to have sex with prostitutes in public. And often, the accused was beaten, spat and urinated upon. Every act of degradation was heaped upon him – and it killed him in more ways than one. When someone was through in a thamzing session, no one ever spoke of him again. He was no martyr for the people, because the people had killed him. His death lay in the hands of those who honoured and remembered him; but in their guilt, the people tried to forget him and the shameful part they had played in his degradation. 

Source: Jamyang Norbu, Warriors of Tibet, 133) Warriors of Tibet: The Story of Aten and the Khampas' Fight for the Freedom of Their Country (originally titled Horseman in the Snow), Wisdom, 1987, Wisdom Pub