Analysis
New Found Love of the RSS
The new found love of the RSS and the members of the Sangh Parivar for the people of North East India is intriguing to say the least. Public memory is very short, we have forgotten their vicious attacks and diatribes against the Christian community, in the recent past. Now they professedly want to do something for their "Brothers and Sisters" of North East India.
The reason is simple: they see the Muslim community as their enemy, and interpret (wrongly) the trouble in the Bodo areas of Assam as anti Muslim, or to use the misrepresented word: "Communal". The BJP has always taken umbrage under the seething ethno religious passions of the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and their likes. In the wake of the trouble in Assam, and the exodus of North East people from different parts of the country, the Sangh members saw a chance of lashing out against the Islamic community and made the illegal immigrants issue a target to vent their animosity. In Bangalore after the threat to residence belonging to the North East Community it was in fact Muslim groups which came forward and gave assurances and reassurances to the people of North East India residing there. How many times did the media highlight this?
If fundamentalist forces of the Hindu community behave like this they are no less than the Islamic militant forces, and two wrongs do not make a right. I have always been maintaining that the problems in the Bodo areas is due to the land factor and economies. In the past there have been threats against both the Assamese Hindu and the Bengali Hindu whenever the local people felt that their rights were endangered. Then there was attacks against the Adivasis.
It is land encroachment which is at the helm and crux of matters. It so happens that in the present crisis the wrath is against the Bangladeshi immigrants and the lesser we make it as an ethnic religious matter the better it is for our understanding of certain historical issues in Assam which has impacted upon the various communities living there. In fact, the historic Assam movement was against the ouster of the Bangladeshi immigrant be it Hindu or Muslim and the student leaders spearheading the movement did not make the religious factor a contentious issue, but clearly stated that they were against illegal migration irrespective of religion and community. The same holds true now and the fact that it is given and anti Muslim stance is capitalized by rightist elements such as the Bajrang Dal and the RSS.
We forget facts like the Assamese Muslim who has been settled in Assam for generations or for that matter the Bengali Muslim in West Bengal. Quite a few of domestic workers who come to Assam or for that matter even New Delhi to eke out a living are Bengali Muslims from West Bengal. So generalize this issue and create a Hindu Muslim divide is to create serious discord and rupture within the fabric of the Indian society. We must resist it at all cost.
The historical sense of Islamic presence in the country cannot be wished away and applying blinkers to history is to tamper with it and distort certain historical essentials. The trouble in the Bodo areas of Assam has to be seen against the backdrop of socio-economic causes, the fight for possession of wealth and land snatching. It is the issue of the common man who is a survivalist whether he is Hindu, Muslim or Christian. This new found love of the Sangh Parivar for the people of North East India has to be taken with more than a pinch of salt. It has to be viewed with skepticism because there is a hidden agenda in it.
10-Sep-2012
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Ananya S Guha
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RSS has been working in the northeast since independence. It is not the new found love of NE of RSS but the new found attention that non-RSS people have towards work of RSS.
People like Ananya Guha are like ostrich an d for whatever small time they raise their heads and see the world, base their world views. |
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