Indian liberals want people to learn Hindutva from RSS. Yes, you read that correctly.
At his traditional Vijaya Dashami rally in Mumbai yesterday, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray put it clearly. One must take lessons in Hindutva from RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. The “Hindutva” of the RSS is the same as the Hindutva of the Late Balasaheb Thackeray, he explained. And presumably, the Shiv Sena remains committed to the vision of Balasaheb.
So where is the liberal outrage? Where are all the liberals who would swear that RSS is against the “idea of India”? Where are those who compared Hindutva to Nazism? And those who chanted “Hindutva ki kabar khudegi” and insisted that it was not a hate slogan?
Are they comfortable with Uddhav Thackeray’s ringing endorsement of Hindutva? The Maharashtra CM left nothing to imagination. He explicitly endorsed the RSS vision of India. Is the liberal crowd comfortable with this? And if they are not, where is their outrage?
Wait, because this gets even better. The Maharashtra CM went on to actually say this.
Where are those who always cry for ‘idea of India’ whenever the topic of Babri Masjid comes up?
If Uddhav Thackeray had not made himself clear enough, he went a step further. Due to Covid related reasons, the Sena shifted the rally from the traditional Shivaji Park venue. The new venue was Swatantrata Veer Savarkar auditorium in Dadar. The name of the venue was chosen very deliberately. The CM made a special mention of it in his speech.
RSS, Hindutva, Babri Masjid, Veer Savarkar. All the keywords that generally set off sirens from the liberal ecosystem.
Except this time they did not. How could they? After all, the government in Maharashtra has 10 Cabinet ministers from Congress. And that’s all the idea of India crowd cares about. Approval from Madam G.
Imagine if a BJP Chief Minister had given a speech with these same ingredients. Imagine how different the reaction would have been.
Now, politicians changing sides and changing views is nothing new. It is too common to be funny any more. But I am not talking about the politicians. I am talking about the great intellectuals of our nation. They have spent their whole lives condemning the RSS. They have condemned Hindutva and Veer Savarkar in the worst possible terms. They’ve built entire careers in TV, newspapers and academia criticizing the RSS. What happened to them?
For Hindu right wing, this should be an important realization. Many of them see the liberal class as an ideological enemy. Let me tell you: there is no ideological war. Because your supposed opponent has zero ideology.
Please rewind in your heads every time you have fumed at some intellectuals for comparing Hindutva to Nazism. In some ways, it was totally pointless. Your supposed opponent on screen did not believe a word of what they said.
Pick your favorite liberal historian or liberal media person. They never cared even a bit for principles. They had no ideology. Just some interests that were served by pretending to hold certain views. The ‘idea of India’ stuff was always a joke. No intellectual actually believes in it.
They were beneath anger. We gave them anger when they only deserved contempt.
