Digvijay Singh and Yechury : The Alliance of Proselytisation and Dogma

At first glance it would seem that there could not be any serious alliance between the lunatic comments of Digvijay Singh of the Congress and the Marxist Sitaram Yechury. And yet we find Yechury of the CPI (M) saying that Diggy is right, the Sangh Parivar must change itself.(Reported in CNNIBN  Jan.28, 2011). This remark is explained below.

Yechury usually comes across as a sombre serious person who speaks with some authenticity about social issues and is serious about the question of Congress corruption. Diggy,on the other hand,  is a well known  baiter of the Sangh Parivar and identifies the RSS, a nationalist organisation , with the anti nationalist SIMI, as does his protégé Rahul Gandhi. The current lunatic remark he made  is that it was not Mohammed Ali Jinnah who inaugurated the two nation theory, but Vinayak Damod Savarkar, the author of the book Hindutva (1923). As if to accentuate Digvijay’s ignorance he refers to Savarkar as the founder of the RSS ! As is well known , it was K.Hedgewar who founded the RSS in Nagpur, in 1925.

Factually,  Digvijay is wrong. Jinnah was a secular person until the 1930s after which he clearly advocated the two nation theory of a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. Apart from his personal ambitions to play a historic role in the Indian subcontinent and his brainwashing by fundamentalist Muslim elements, Jinnah had come to believe that the Hindus and Muslims were two nations. He maintained this position because he sincerely believed that in religion, culture and historical tradition the two communities were as distinct as day and night.

Savarkar on the other hand, did not concern himself with this distinction. For him, the history of the Indian subcontinent had been clearly a Hindu one since time immemorial.
But this did not preclude the acceptance of various communities and religions in this predominantly Hindu country. Hence, Muslims in India were also Indian citizens who would have the same rights as the Hindu population, when the country became free.
All this is clearly stated in his book Hindutva (1923).

This is also the philosophy of the Sangh Parivar. Hence, Digvijay Singh’s vicious remark about the Parivar’s communalism is simply a political statement to gain mileage for his political masters in New Delhi. The Congress is naturally interested in anything that would tarnish the Sangh Parivar. And today with the nation endorsing the validity of the recent Ekta Yatra to Kashmir the BJP and its ally the Parivar are seen as threats by the Congress.

They can rely on their attack dog to disseminate falsehoods about the Parivar. There is also the related question of the proselytizing streak in Congress members like Digvijay Singh who cannot simply tolerate the existence of a majority Hindu nation. He is following the example of the President of the Congress.

But why Sitaram Yechury ? The answer is in the Communist party’s ideological dogma. While from time to time for political considerations they may team up with the BJP in opposing the Congress, as in the case of the question of corruption at the Centre, their basic ideology is opposed to Hinduism.

Marx, as is well known, opposed all religion as the opiate of the people and in the case of Hinduism he saw it as worse than even Christianity. He was severe in his criticism of Britain for its colonial exploitation of India. Neverthless , he believed that with all its iniquities Britian played a progressive role in India where Man who should be the Master
of Nature, fell down on his knees before Hanuman the monkey and Sabala the cow !
(British Rule in India).

Marx’s emphasis on humans only, is a mistaken, misguided humanisn, which he borrowed from the Greek sophist philosopher Protagoras who said : Man is the measure of all things.

In one stroke, Marx dismissed the Hindu religious belief in the sanctity of all beings, human, natural, animate and inanimate. Indian Marxists have inherited this dislike of religion and especially of Hinduism in particular. This explains their dogmatic distancing themselves from the Hindu component of the Indian polity. This is why they cannot understand the Hindu respect for the noble ideals of the Indian Constitution and interpret it wherever it exists as some type of ‘secularism’. In other words, they can only relate to those components of Hinduism which tally with their own ideas.

It is the proseltyising faiths that have created divisions, not Hinduism. Digvijay Singh uses this trick as a stick with which to beat the Parivar and calls them ‘communal’. Yechury is blinded by the ideological blinkers that he wears, to lecture the Parivar. They must change their philosophy, he pontificates. In the above report he is  also seen as endorsing Digvijay’s blunder that it was Savarkar who founded the RSS !

The Indian Marxists may fondly wait for the disappearance of Hinduism, an event that is not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. Meanwhile, they are hampered by their own dogma and fail to team up with what is a ‘progressive’ force in contemporary India, the Sangh Parivar. The dogmatic blinkers they wear prevent them from seeing this.

It is in this context that one must read Sitaram Yechury’s endorsement of Digvijay Singh. It is not political opportunism, but simple ignorance. It is not the Parivar that must change its philosophy but the CPI(M).

(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university)

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