The Emoticon Lexicon

When you’re chatting with a friend over, say, GTalk, you usually don’t mean everything you say. After all, it’s just a chat. You’re not seeing each other face to face and it’s always bound to be casual. So, when you use an emoticon like “;)”, are you really dipping your brows and smiling? I think not. Here’s what I do when I use an emoticon.

1. 🙂 – I’m filling an awkward gap in the conversational gap by indicating that I am smiling; used when the other person might think you’re not interested in what he’s saying at all. So when someone uses this, it might be a good idea to say goodbye.
2. 😉 – I’m indicating that the other person has managed to pique my interest at long last, and that if he doesn’t continue on the same line, I might slip into using :). (Note: When used in the chat within GMail, 😉 becomes a wink, and since it’s all cute and expressive, it becomes more tolerable as a genuinely-intended expression.)
3. 😐 – This is one emoticon which I use when I’m making the same face, and it usually shows up in conversations where honesty is appreciated. I wouldn’t use 🙂 when I’m chatting with my girlfriend if I could use :|.
4. 😦 – Again, another symbol of honesty, but only half the time. The other half, I use it when I’m supposed to be feeling sad but can’t bring myself to empathise that much, like when a freakishly sensitive friend says his girlfriend dumped him.
5. ;( – An emoticon that’s closest to anger IMO. Sad faced and brow-dipped: I use it when I’m sad about something but that it’s either my fault it happened or that I can’t do anything to change it.
6. 😛 – Tongue thrust out?! I don’t think anyone ever does that in real life, and those who do must be very expressive people. But yeah, if I don’t do that in real, why would I do it online? I only do it because of what it conveys – “Really? I don’t believe you, but I seldom can’t believe you. Therefore, I am forced to believe you and subsequently find it quite interesting. Now leave me alone if I haven’t replied to it other than through an emoticon.”
7. :O – A pretty straightforward accompaniment, this wide-mouthed emoticon doesn’t say much else than it’s supposed to.
8. BP – I realised BP was an emoticon only after I used it once to denote ‘blood pressure’ and it showed up highlighted in blue. On close inspection, I concluded that the ‘B’ could be ‘big sparkly eyes’ and ‘P’ would again be ‘tongue thrust out’. But I’ve never seen it used as yet. The first person to do so gets the ‘Dork of the century’ award.
9. B) – Again, waiting for the ‘Dork of the century’.
10. 😀 – This is one good emoticon, I’d say. Expressing laughter when there’s only a weak smile on my face, it makes sure the other person isn’t disappointed by my stolid reaction to his slapstick joke while I get away with being not interested and, at the same time, courteous about it.
11. ;D – I use this emoticon often, and only when I’m talking to someone who is actually really funny. I know I’m being choosy about something so trivial as an emoticon, but it’s habitual. And at times, I can politely indicate to people that I’m not interested instead of strain my brain for a suitable euphemism.

P.S. If you are my girlfriend or a close friend, the above don’t apply to you.

The art of licking ass

This is a very specialised skill if you will, and requires a lot of conviction on the doer’s part in order to get the right message across. In today’s world of money and everything being as close as possible to materialistic, licking asses can get you a long way if you lack merit. It’s the single most efficient method that has been proven, each and every single time, to succeed. The amount of vanity that the people around us bear forth with pride is staggering, and years of evolution and civilisation have done nothing to castigate it. And the silver lining ultimately comes out to be the permission of that vanity to continue to stay and spawn from mind to mind. It is present in every individual, within me, within you, within Osama, within Obama, and speaks forth through one form of the arts or other. Money can do nothing to quell it: a poor man will have it, and it will show forth in his perseverance; a rich man will have it, and it will show forth in his philanthrophy. Wellbeing can boast of nothing it has done to defeat it: a sick man will have it, and it will show forth in his steadfastness in the belief of the value of life; a healthy man will have it, and it will show forth in his early morning jogs. And it’s not as if vanity and education are parallels – the illiterate is capable of being as vain as the educated are, and the fundamentalist will be as vain as the liberalist. It has its mark everywhere.

And that is good, nay, fabulous! What health or wealth can’t do, vanity does. It fires up the dying spirits of a man, it boosts his surging morale, and it gives an instantaneous solution to every conceivable problem. Suppose a society bereft of vanity, and everyone becomes Jesus. That is not good: we need to be human to feel human, and we have our needs and desires. These desires are what propels us forward, don’t you think? We need to feel good about being who we are, and we can get nowhere if not for vanity. It is an element that requires no faith nor belief. You don’t have to pray that you or someone else has it: it comes with the package. The highs and lows that speck our days or nothing but vanity and the castigation of that vanity, respectively. All it needs is acceptance, and once it sinks in that we are vain and can not help being so, then vanity is a boon. It is the fruit of knowledge in disguise.

There is no single governmental or private institution that is free from it. It begins with begging and ends with holy matrimony, at least the ones don’t work out that well. If you expect yourself to be sufficed by the happiness that emanates from the “admiration of nature’s beauty and her bountiful fruits”, then you and I are Aryan sages from 4,000 years past. Changes abound, and we need to keep up with them to stay around as ourselves! We, gentlemen, need to lick ass to be able to do that. We have to go to little children and tell them how cute and pink and chubby they are, and only then can we hope to sell them an ice cream even if they don’t want one, and only then can we hope for a commission on that. We have to go to young ladies and tell them how bright their skin is, and only then can we either get their phone number or sell them a skin cream. We have to go to sardonic men in coats and polished boots and tell them how we admire them and how we think they’re so inspirational in their business achievements, and only then can we hope to bag a contract to build a gate for their factories. We have to go to the local money lender, tell him how poor we are (this is a special one: others can feel good about themselves only if they feel bad for you), get some money for an exorbitant rate of interest from him, go to the police academy, fall on people’s feet (special one again), convince them that we won’t let them down, and sign up as a constable whose only job is to fetch tea for his bosses, while all the time hoping the government’s pension funds are still burgeoning. As for the man who is convinced that he is not vain and does not carry a single ounce of vanity, praise him on that and he will give you that loan you want to tint the windows of your ill-purchased car.

Vanity is everywhere. It is in the air, it is in the waters, it is in the sky. It is in the non-believers, it is in the zealous, it is in the dying, it is in the just-born. Whole governments stand on it, and the very same governments go to war if that vanity seems to have been mocked at. The law may have narrowly slipped through its cluthces, but lawyers and judges have not. I was hoping that the jury pools were still pure, but that thought went to hell if Boston Legal’s anything to go by. The only thing that is not vain is vanity itself. Moments after it has taken a firm grip over a young man’s mind, it will be disappointed. Humans don’t deserve to be vain, but since vanity is everywhere, we know not definitely of a world otherwise. And if my opinion counts for anything, I don’t want to be in a world otherwise!

The manifestation of argument in the great political debate

• Argument as government: In all, and especially, the industrial democracies of this world, the implementation of the decisions of the state as a discernible body on the functioning of the society is essentially a product of the great political debate. Even though a party has been elected to power, the basis of the presence of argument during the triumphant party’s tenure is contained in the fact that democracy does not halt at granting the citizen his vote, but at crediting him with having influenced the making of a decision in the senate. In fact, in a colloquial sense, democracy would indeed be perceived as the protection of the powers of the citizen on a national level at the very least. However, the strength of democracy lies not completely in the strength of this protection, but in the manifestation of these powers that have been safeguarded by it. As a result, in my opinion, democracy is not the modus operandi of a state post-polity, but the documented encouragement of debate and contention between different leaders and, eventually, different responsibilities. The face of the governing party is only the face of the nation for other states, but within, it is the citizen and rightly so. Argument, even a non-ideal one, dutifully fosters the inculcation of discipline and morality amongst the most narrow-minded amongst us, and when it is that the future of a burgeoning nation of a billion depends on the decisions of a volatile oligarchy, agreement and opposition are both equally essential in the making of a decision. One cannot afford to pin all of one’s hopes on the mindset of one man.

• Argument as representation of the voter:

The big picture

Drawn above is a simple representation of the electoral process in India. Voters from all over the nation vote to elect the central government, which may be a single party which manages to secure the minimum majority of 272 seats (out of a total of 543) in the lower house, Lok Sabha, or multiple parties that coalesce under the umbrella of a common goal. Once a party has been lofted to the center, a ministry is formed that manages the various portfolios. As I stated earlier, the decision of the citizenry in electing such and such a government is questioned in the senate when argument is used as a tool for decision-making. If the ruling party wins the argument, the investment of the voting populace is vindicated. If the ruling party (or parties) meets with formidable opposition that it cannot quell with sufficient conviction, we the people will have made a mistake, nay wronged.

• What the good arguer has: In his ‘Language and Responsibility’ (1977), noted linguist Noam Chomsky asks only the following from any man who has an opinion:

1. 1. The capability of facing the facts objectively,
   2. The usage of a rational line of common sense,
   3. A Cartesian sense of argument, per se, and
   4. A little skepticism.

Whenever there is some “breaking news” in the air, the various components of the mass media, especially the news channels on the television, turn to professionals in fields pertaining to the content of the news in order to extricate an opinion that is either valuable by itself or is made so by repeated broadcasts. Why this esotericism? Why can’t the chap behind the desk ask you and me if the country has to intervene in Angola? When the above factors suffice to define the good arguer, why is it that I must be in possession of compatible certification to but profess a one-line opinion? What must be discussed is the content and not my right to discuss it!

• Isolation of power by conserving argument: Arguments can be brought to life by interpreting information, and information is nothing but the lingual interpretation of an event, the interpretation being performed in order to transmit and convey it to people who are unaware of the occurrence of it. The information we assess and digest everyday is proportional as well as dependent on the ideals of the local government, which governs the information that it thinks its people need to come into contact with, and the ideas and opinions of the people around us that constitute the populace in general. With a democratic government ruling the central aspects of the Indian economy, finance, industry, society and other aspects of living and development, the interests of each individual vested in it demands productive work day in and day out. On the other hand, the ruling government, to carry out its wishes, needs people other than those who control its functions to fall in line with their solutions. Due to the embedding of this fundamental rule, as it were, in the roots of the structure of every democratic state, information can only play a greater role in the lives of the people of the state every day. The conveyance of this information happens through the media, viz. print, audio, and audiovisual. The print media includes newspapers, magazines, newsletters, articles, essays, stories and others; the audio media includes, prominently, radio channels; video comprises of information delivered via telebroadcasting, movies, etc. The radio and the television are two modern techniques that have stolen the limelight of sorts from the print media. Owing to advancements in technology, of these two, the audiovisual media is growing steadily as well as quickly, borrowing from the inherently faster conveyance of data, the greater accessibility, and, with the incorporation of a sense of personality, the notion of originality and being specific to a given set of peoples with respect to their ethnicity involved is also born. Therefore, keeping in mind the importance of such a medium, its regulation has to be handled with care and finesse in order to get across your message while maintaining the original intensity of the purpose and the frequency of conveying it. But in a large, immensely populous, and democratic nation like India, apart from the already very many number of television channels, there are many more being operated by political parties. Although this does not constitute any violation of any rule for that matter, using the medium as a method of propaganda is not something I would suggest. You can not initiate and run programs just because it’s there for you to. In a way, it violates the right to information. How? Information is only when it is factual and wholly interpretative in a neutral manner. When you tamper and mess with it in order to get across a message that has been interpreted in a biased manner, it is a misrepresentation of the event that has occurred. You are now putting specific ideas in the minds of the people, ideas that can invariably lead only to a single conclusion. Furthermore, but in a partly trivial way, political propaganda must always begin and end during the time of elections for the local or national government, and must be nonexistent at all other times unless it is being projected via the deeds of those elected to office. Telebroadcasting can not be considered as a deed because it is propaganda itself, and parties that use this as a tool to brainwash the plebian and proletarian population in their favour is wrong. You will notice that now, with everyone around you being highly opinionated about some political party or the other, the ability to think freely and objectively will be on the decline.

Do Communists really have no class?: Some clarifications.

Yesterday night, after I put up the post questioning the possible fallacies of Communism, I had a small chat online with a friend of mine who was studying law. He had a few questions for me, the answers to which I thought I had mentioned in the post itself. Once I give it a comprehensive read, I realised I had taken some concepts and ideas for granted. Here are the clarifications:

1. In the flowchart, I have not taken a just and an absolutely meritorious law for granted. I have only assumed it to be the origin of my arguments. If I were to give you a physical representation, a sheet of graph paper would be apt. To me, the origin {0,0} is out of focus; the “law” point rests at a different point {x,y}, the point at which law as a concept in life becomes necessary.
2. I have taken the law to be just and fair, the (possibly necessary) precursor to the birth of society as it exists today. What I mean is the ‘law’ which I have taken to be the embryo of equality and justice is a just law, if necessary in an absolutist sense.
3. The metaphor of the smoke against the white skies I have used to detail the relationship between equality and freedom must be noted when reading about an individual’s rights being “endowed”. Here, I am not refuting the naturalist who says individuals are born with rights; I am saying the rights as we know them, the rights as we seem to be able to invoke them in the halls of justice, are endowed with. In other words, the rights I am referring to are those with the law as a backdrop, and not those that exist simply from, say, an idealistic existentialist’s point of view.
4. And, yes, I am a positivist. 🙂

(Refer to ‘Some useful links‘ for further information.)

If not for Nietzche

There is something mysterious about cinema that features drugs, a clinging hopelessness that refuses to let go even after breakfast at 8 in the morning and some good music thereafter. Self styled aversions to intoxication doesn’t last long, does it? At some point, the absence of a purpose gets to you. Even if Nietzche hadn’t existed, or had existed but not propounded what he did propound, the individuality we so blindly seek to establish encounters a core of nothingness within ourselves, something that the society we belong to seems to have engulfed. Or has it? Who we are, and what we do, is what makes us. We sustain some sort of an individuality, and many of us do it in different ways, it becomes an identity. An identity can’t be so easily damaged. It can be tarnished, but not obliterated. An identity is a memory. But individuality is so dynamic – we develop one while keeping in mind that it is subject to change, and we seek to perfect it unto a Utopic model. When we delve deep into ourselves and sense that there is no purpose, and that everything that happens around us is an effect of just our being, that is self-realisation. We find that a self does not exist, for if it did, then it must show. Something that never shows, that never comes to being, is as good as being dead. 

I knew I shouldn’t have watched ‘Rules Of Attraction’ the first thing in the morning. The pain and the suffering so unwillingly inflicted on each character is impinged in my head, and the last thing I want to do now is sleep. I am scared that they will show up in my dreams, and I don’t want to ruin sleep, my last refuge, thinking of such hopelessness.

If not for Nietzche, someone would have hit upon the idea. It’s inevitable.

The Change Of Guard

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a few friends of mine. We were talking about those things that 20 year olds usually talk about when suddenly the talks turned sober. Someone from some corner had brought up the issue of paedophilia, and immediately, small political arguments began to pop up from around the table. While we were engrossed in it, Benjamin made a quirky comment when asked by Niaz if he was willing to start an awareness campaign in college about it. This is what he said: “I’m not worried man! Oprah Winfrey will take care of it. She is one of the most powerful women in the world, she’s not gonna sit quiet in her studio and let paedophilia take over!” Although all that he said was right, it was not enough. I began to wonder if this was the mentality we had all begun to assume, that of complacence in favour of letting the lobbyists take care of everything. Where is democracy today? People think that once they’ve voted, their job is done. It is not! Democracy has a meaning, a very fundamental underlying principle that makes it the most efficient way to rule a country. It gives power to the people, we the people, not only during the elections but also after it. How many of us know that in India there quite a few methods to impeach our own MLA when he is in power? I’m sure the US also has something along the same lines. How many of us actually realise that while all the ministers sit in their chambers of ‘power’ and discuss ‘national issues’, they can only discuss the questions we have asked? For if it is money they are after, no minister would bother to open his mouth once the elections are done with. Our government runs the country, but WE run the government itself! We forget that chain of command and drown in cheap self-pity, an emotion that ultimately cascades into surrendering to the ways of the corrupt. If you think the sewage dump stinks, it’s only because you’ve dumped your garbage there. If we think it’s too late to change anything, we’re wrong. It’s never too late but I agree that it’s easier said than done. Let’s make a change today. All we need is belief. All we need to change is the small things around us. We need to be able to believe that one day, things will be different.

I’m sure you would have heard all of this some thousand times, but have you ever wondered why people keep talking about it?  

Art for the sake of art

Splattered all across the internet are numerous hosts of opportunities, each one varying from the most inconsequential of tasks to the most momentous. Each user is met with a barrage of questions and answers when a web-page is opened or a website explored, all of which prompt us to think, ideate and perform. Today, with everyone being brought in to assist, perform and lead, all subjects of the arts and sciences have at least one disciple. However, in this plethora of half-opened windows, the very fundamental art of communication is itself partially ignored when I see that there don’t seem to be any coordinated efforts to keep the writer writing and the editor editing. In all that is considered fun, writing has lost its place amongst the people; even though there are enough readers, there are not, in sufficient numbers, those who wish to satiate them by writing anything of quality unless it is for the sake of money. I don’t know if I should blame it wholly on the lack of encouragement or on the saddening inherent disinterest that today’s youngsters seem to be bred with. I am sure that the question of personal motivation, for no other reason than self-satisfaction alone, can be extended to many other fields of study and, of course, business, but I want to concentrate on the writer but it is the one topic I feel most strongly on. Moving on, I would like to bring in the topic of arts. As the name suggests, the arts encompasses everything that is human by nature – everything that bears a bit of us in it, everything that defies uniformity by bearing aloft the torch of hope that is personality and creativity. The moment we permit an individual to exchange it for money, the creation becomes a commodity. Although I am not here to battle materialism through commoditisation, I believe that such a piece of art that has solely been created to make money out of is not a piece of art any more. I say that if you want to call yourself an artist, you must do so only if you have performed for the sake of art itself. If you want to call yourself a writer, then you will be a true one only if you write for the sake of writing itself. If you have not done so, you are but a businessman, and there will definitely dawn a day when you will lay down your pen and shelve all your paper because you are now rich enough; does that possibility speak anything of creativity at all, or does it speak of riches? Our creativity is for ours to wield, yes, but it must be considered worthy enough if it has been utilised solely to deliver unto mankind the meaning of uniqueness and nothing else. Everything that we think of, every word that we write, every mood that we dictate, is an expression of ourselves. Our presence will then no longer be ripples on water, destined to fade, but markings set in stone. People around us will know that we existed, and they will know not in the remembrance of how rich or poor we were, but in the memory of our deeds. If we were to leave ourselves behind when we pass away, we should know now that we are capable of doing so unblemished; we should understand that there are more ways to show that we helped than in the creations of our desires.

Wasted years

I’m only 20 now, and in spite of that, I’m prone to think of my ‘good old days’ every once in a while. I think it’s not uncommon for many people to do that, given that everyone does have a part of their lives consigned to that particular title for them. The very utterance brings to mind those days which we all wasted knowingly just for the fun we wanted to have. When we all grouped around in the bar speaking to each other of every other girl and boy, and when the bartender goes “last call!”, we turn around surprised that time has flown by so quickly. I don’t know if I’m to attribute that to the ways of the bottle or to the ways of our days. We were quite given to the fact that we could skip the moments of time as it passed by, yet painfully aware that we would still have to give our final exams. We’d go wandering all over the city, trying to find one spot where we’d never been before, yet painfully aware that there never did exist such a spot. Such a lifestyle did go on to leave conspicuous gaps in my resume, but I don’t ever regret having them when it is that the weight of the world hangs down upon my shoulders, often at times reminding me of the pervading mediocrity that bogs me down along with it. Be it the bottle or be it the company, here’s to my lifelong bout of sobriety!   

Hindutva Fascism: Golwalkar & The RSS

In the wake of Varun Gandhi’s infamous speech against minority groups in India on March 6th, 2009, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections from Pilibhit, we the people need to the basis of such thought in India, and what sets apart the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its minions (or, the Sangh Parivar) from the rest of us. In fact, even more than the RSS, we need to, importantly, know about the life and works of Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, who succeeded Dr. Hedgewar as the Supreme Leader of the RSS and built it to what it is perceived as today. The following is an article by Mr. Ram Puniyan on the same. 

“

Beginning this twenty Fourth February, RSS combine has undertaken programs in different parts of the country to celebrate the centenary year of RSS second Sarsnghchalak (supreme dictator), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, known in Sangh circles as Shri Guruji. What are going to be the implications of this celebration? To answer this, we will have to delve into the work of Golwlakar, who penned a small book, ‘We or our Nationhood Defined’ (We…), which gives an outline of his ideology and later his articles were published as a compilation, ‘Bunch of Thoughts’. In both these books and also in various other outpourings of his, he denigrates democracy and pluralism on one hand and upholds fascist concept of nationhood and sectarian version of culture on the other. His writing is most intimidating to the minorities in particular. He was the chief of RSS for 33 long years and was instrumental in giving RSS a direction, which assumed menacing proportions in times to come, and strengthening the foundations of the ‘hate minorities’ ideology resulting in the consequent waves of violence, undermining the democratic norms in the society. He can also be ‘credited’ with giving the sharp formulations which laid the ideological foundation of different carnages in the country. Golwalkar praises Lord Manu as the greatest law giver mankind ever had. It was the same law giver Manu’s book, which was burnt by Dr. Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the dalits. In current times, Golwalkars’ successor also demanded a throwing away of Indian constitution, to be replaced by the one which is based on Hindu holy books, implying Manusmriti, of course.

His formulations of Hindutva Fascism are so blatant that even his followers, the RSS combine, is running for cover and claiming that this book, having a naked hatred for minorities and eulogies for the likes of Hitler, We…, was not written by him. They avoid owning these ideas. But one knows that this book *was* penned by him. In an affidavit submitted to the charity commissioner, Rajendra Singh, a later Sarsanghchalak pleaded, “With a view to give a scientific base to propagate the idea-India being historically from time immemorial a Hindu nation-the late Shri M.S. Golwalkar had written a book entitled ‘We or Our Nationhood defined’, which was published in 1938.” (Quoted in Islam, Undoing India: The RSS way) J.A. Curran in his classic study, RSS: Militant Hinduism in India Politics- A study of RSS: points out “The genuine ideology of Sangh is based upon principles formulated by its founder, Dr. Hedgewar. These principles have been consolidated and amplified by the present leader (i.e. Golwalkar) in a small book called “We or our nationhood defined”. It is a basic primer in the indoctrination of Sangh volunteers… (Curran 1979, p.39). Since its quotations have been brought to the notice of people, RSS publishing houses have stopped republishing this book. What does Golwalkar say in this book?

In this book he rejects the notions of Indian nationhood, India as a Nation in the making. He rejects the idea that all the citizens will be equal. He goes on to harp the notions of nationhood borrowed from Hitler’s Nazi movement. He rejects that India is a secular nation and posits that it is a Hindu Rashtra. He rejects the territorial-political concept of nationhood and puts forward the concept of cultural nationalism, which was the foundation of Nazi ideology. His admiration of Hitler’s ideology and politics is the running thread of the book and he takes inspiration from the massive holocaust which decimated millions of people in Germany. He uses this as a shield to propagate his political ideology. It is this ideology which formed the base of communal common sense amongst a section of the population. “German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races, the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into a united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

In the Sangh circles this book is regarded as their Gita. The implications for Indian minorities are presented here in a forthright manner. Today the swayamsevaks brought up on this Gita, do believe in all this but the language of expression is being made more polished so that the poison is coated with honey and administered with ease. Golwalkar goes on to assert, “From the standpoint sanctioned by the experience of shrewd nations, the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of Hindu nation i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ingratitude towards this land and its age long traditions, but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead; in one word, they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen’s rights.”

When the Hindutva politics came up in the late 1980s, in the beginning an unsuspecting observer could not comprehend from where has the concept of Hindu nation come up suddenly, why such an intense hatred for minorities, a glance at We… and one becomes clear that those fed on this ideology cannot but be what they are, cannot do anything else than what they did and have been doing since 1990, the Babri demolition, the anti minority violence and an open violation of democratic ethos of the country. These ideas were translated into the stories of atrocities of Muslim kings, the myth of Hindus owning this land from times immemorial and a lot of such make believe concoction. Irrespective of the fact the freedom movement rejected this ideology and its formulations, it was kept alive through the ideological indoctrination work in the RSS shakhas going on ceaselessly.

Golwalkar was also faced with some of the ‘naive’ swaymasevaks wishing to participate in the national movement, more so after the massive Quit India movement was launched. That time Golwalkar was the RSS chief and he dissuaded the people from participating in the movement, and some of them who participated did it in their personal capacity, some of them now claim that they also participated. (e.g. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was onlooker in the anti British movement, was arrested but wriggled out of the jail and later claimed to have participated in the movement.) As matter of fact Golwalkar was very contemptuous towards the anti British movement. There is no mention of presence of RSS in the anti British movement even in most of the sympathetic accounts written about it. Even Nanaji Deshmukh, the foremost leaders of RSS puts this question, why did RSS not take part in the liberation struggle as an organization? (Deshmukh, Victim of Slander, Vision Books, 1979, p.70) Since Golwalkar propounded religion based nationalism, there was no place for anti British stance. “The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis of our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the ‘freedom movements’ virtually anti-British movements. Anti Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of freedom movement…” . In a frank defense of British colonialist he reminds the people of RSS pledge, “We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of British in that.” With allies like this British could merrily pursue their policy of divide and rule!

No wonder British never repressed RSS. Also the collusion between Religion based nationalism and colonialism can be understood from such statements. Later the World saw that in tune with this pro imperialist ideology, Golwalkar was to support the US aggression on Vietnam and his successor Sudarshan defended the US aggression against Iraq. The murder of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindutva follower Nathuram Godse not only shocked the whole nation; it led RSS followers to celebrate this event by distributing sweets. While RSS followers were celebrating, and the links of Godse with RSS became apparent, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was arrested. They denied that RSS had any links with Godse. At that time it was easy to claim so as RSS had no written constitution and membership lists, enrollment register etc. Godse was RSS Pracharak and later he joined Hindu Mahasabha and was editing a newspaper, Agrani (leader), the subtitle of the paper was Hindu Rashtra. In the court he denied any links with RSS. Later his brother Gopal Godse, who was also an accomplice in the murder, in an interview given to Times of India (25 Jan 98) stated that his brother Nathuram spoke a deliberate lie in the court, “The appeasement policy followed by him (Gandhi) and imposed on all Congress governments’ encouraged the Muslim separatist tendencies that eventually created Pakistan…Technically and theoretically he (Nathuram) was a member (of RSS), but he stopped workings for it later. His statement in the court that he had left the RSS was to protect the RSS workers who would be imprisoned following the murder. On the understanding that they (RSS workers) would benefit from his dissociating himself from the RSS, he gladly did it.” 

In the wake of the murder of Gandhi, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was jailed, from where he wrote a letter to the Government of India offering to cooperate with the government in ‘dealing with the menace of Communism’ in return for being released from the jail. Incidentally it was also the period when US was on the witch hunt of communists world over. Today, the global US agenda of demonization of Islam, and Muslims world over matches with the RSS agenda, coincidence again? Is this running parallel in the matching agenda US and RSS policies a mere coincidence? For him the notion of Hindu Rashtra remained supreme and he could never reconcile to the secular values of Indian constitution. Time and over again he kept on harping on how *UnBharat* the constitution is and how Manu’s rules are more desirable and profound one’s. The partition of India and the consequent tragedy was registered through the Hindutva eyes, “Even to this day there are many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all they have no other place to go and they are all bound to remain loyal…It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriot overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan, which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.”

The way to look at Indian communities as Hindus and Muslims as uniform monoliths continues to be exhibited all through. Further he also goes on to label Muslims, Christians and Communists as internal threats to Hindu nation. And this is the ‘ideological fodder ‘ of RSS shakhas and its practical unfoldment is visible in the regular occurrence of attacks against Muslims and Christians. With collapse of Soviet Union, the venom against communists has been given a different turn. And in the third category secularist have also been added up as a threat to Hindu nation. It was Golwalkar again under whose stewardship the RSS gave birth to other organizations to play the divisive role in different arenas of social and political life. He was instrumental in helping bring up Bharatiya Jansangh, Akhil Bhartiya Vidayarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, amongst others. The infiltration of RSS cadres in different wings of state apparatus; army, police, bureaucracy, judiciary, education and media was another move initiated by Golwalkar, the effects of which are visible prominently from last two decades. While secular democratic elements, activists have a long road ahead, we need to take care that in the already vitiated atmosphere, the communal divide is not accentuated further by this move of RSS and we put forward the values of humane plural and democratic society and dispel the ideologies which have been playing a very divisive role in the society. 

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Take Back The Night!

Nirbhaya Karnataka (or Fearless Karnataka) is a nonviolent campaign based in Karnataka that is protesting, as well as raising awareness against, the recent attack on five women in a pub in Mangalore on 14th February, 2009. The violence was propagated by the Sri Ram Sena, a militant Hindu outfit based in the same city; earlier in the day, security around pubs and clubs was beefed up after an activist of the group, Pramod Muthalik, made an announcement that activists of the Sri Ram Sena would be present at these locations with a turmeric stub and a mangalsutra to marry off any dating couples at the nearest temple. Although public outrage followed the broadcast of the message, the attack happened anyway. Later the same night, the Pink Chaddi campaign was initiated by one Nisha Susan, who was present at the scene. As a primitive form of protest, she forwarded a a few pairs of pink underwear (‘chaddi’ in Hindi) to Muthalik’s office. As more and more underwear began to be forwarded to him, the campaign grew momentum till the point that a forum was setup online to prevent the repetition of such atrocities. Here are two posters by the Pink Chaddi people.

Our beloved Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, made a statement that “the Sri Ram Sena is a very dangerous group and that the the Centre was having its eye on it”. Let the Centre watch. Let us act.