Don't Foist Fear Onto Nationalism

Being anti-Hindu is secularism, support to terrorists is human rights, insulting national culture is freedom of expression. Only, love for the Mother is debatable!

- C.K. Saji Narayanan

Does the RSS need good conduct certificates from others? Suppose it does. What better certificate can be there than one conferred on you by your adversary? E.M.S. Namboo­diripad, Marxist politician and ideologue, was as staunch an opponent of the RSS as you would wish to find. But even he rejected any questioning of the patriotic credentials of K.B. Hedgewar, founder of RSS. In his critique BJP-RSS: In the Service of the Right Reaction, he wrote thus on Dr Hedgewar: “…a nationalist who participated in the Gandhi-led movement, he continued to be a Congressman for a decade more and participated in the 1930 Salt Satyagraha”. Bipan Chandra, a leading light of the Marxist brigade of historians, also had to reluc­tantly admit in his book Communalism in Modern India that “Dr Hedgewar never integrated with the colonial regime”.

Many Socialist leaders and others who remained opposed to the RSS also could not forget their past—the days they spent underground in 1942, when they were provided safe shelters by RSS activists. Aruna Asaf Ali and Jayaprakash Narayan were housed in Delhi sanghchalak Lala Hansraj Gupta’s residence; Achyut Patwardhan and Sane Guruji were sheltered at the residence of Pune sanghchalak Bhausaheb Deshmukh; and Krantiveer Nana Patil at Aundh sanghchalak Pt S.D. Satwalekar’s house. Aruna Asaf Ali reminisced in Hindi daily Hindustan in 1967: “After the 1942 movement became directionless with the arrest of the top leaders, I was underground at the house of RSS’s Delhi prant sanghchalak Lala Hansraj Gupta. He gave me shelter for 10-15 days....” This interview was given before she became a Communist leader.

Dr Hedgewar was a born patriot and this was evident from his early days. He was expelled from school for leading students to chant