An evening with a right-wing relative
By Debarati Choudhury
It was around noon when my father got the call, some relatives were coming by our place in the evening. I volunteered to get a couple of snacks ready, as I would do for anyone visiting our home. Standing in the kitchen, however, I wondered if I should take all that trouble. After all, the relative was an ardent right-wing supporter, a Hindutva sympathiser. Should I tell my parents that I feel too strongly to make anything for him and his family? My mother walked in and assured me that I didn’t need to do anything, my father suggested that we could perhaps order in. They both understood my reluctance, but have been socially conditioned to not express their own uneasiness with the relative. For the rest of this piece, I’ll refer to him as Mani.
Mani was born in the early 1960’s Bengal and was probably still in his teens when the Sangh had their first camp in his village. The schools in the area were approached, saying that they wish to conduct a two-day or a week-long camp in which students would be taught yoga, martial arts, moral classes, and so on. The camp was mandated for schoolboys in their adolescence, and open to those from nearby villages as well. A typical day in the camp started with Surya namaskar (sun worship), followed by physical education through exercises and games. This intrigued interest and enthusiasm in the young minds.
At the end of the game, Mani and his friends were asked to raise the slogan ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. The slogan has stuck in their Facebook status updates, extended family WhatsApp groups, and festive greetings. There’s a message reiterating the need to focus on Vedic values, medicines and numerical systems, at every Islamic festival. They were introduced to literature that talked about Akhand Bharat. There was also an allusion to freedom fighters, in an attempt to invigorate nationalist sentiments. Chief guests — who were mostly higher rung leaders in the RSS — gave lectures on Indian history or on the lives of iconic freedom fighters from the country such as Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose. The appropriation of Bhagat Singh is stark in recent times, and not surprisingly, his deeply socialist, revolutionary ideals do not find a space in the same WhatsApp messages.
The doorbell brought me back to the present day. Here he was, with his son. The latter had tried to convince me how India’s affirmative action policies go against merit, how talking about custodial rape and torture by the Indian army is something that ‘good girls (like me) shouldn’t bother about’. I forced a smile, while my mind wandered to times the father-son duo vehemently supported the continuity of the right-wing government before the 2019 elections. There would be a message pushing the larger national security narrative every day, as well as how ‘Hindu khatre me hai’ (Hindus are in danger).
“What’s the WiFi password?”, Mani asked, as I reluctantly shared the mobile hotspot. As he scrolled through his Facebook timeline, he exclaims, “these Muslim women should stop making a deal out of everything!” I could feel my ears turning very hot and red. I took a deep breath as I proceeded to enquire how they could possibly justify the online auctioning of Muslim women. He quickly changed the topic to the six students who were denied entry by college authorities in the Udupi district, for wearing a hijab. “Modi toh musalman mahilader jonno ekjon messiah. Triple talaq toh onar jonnoi thamlo. Ar ei meye gulo nijeder baba — borer mon rakhar jonno hijab er nichei thakte chay, sob dheke dhuke. Ei jonnoi toh amra boli Hindu khatre me hai” (Modi has been a true saviour for Muslim women. He banned triple talaq. And these women want to please their fathers and husbands and cover themselves up. This is why we say Hindus are in danger).
I switched my hotspot off. Mani and his son left soon after. They were to visit the shakha and meet the pracharaks here, for planning republic day events in the district. The Bengal unit of BJP has recently dissolved all its departments and cells after protests against the state party leadership intensified. However, there have been over 250 new shakhas established in the state of West Bengal since 2017. Concerted attempts have been made to go beyond the block level offices and reach out to people at a mandal or gram panchayat level. The current upheavals in Bengal’s politics have dragged to the fore distinct and complicated, if less talked about, legacies of the Hindu right that have shaped popular consciousness. The partition of Bengal in 1947 constitutes a critical moment that shaped popular mindsets and dominated socio-political discourse in the state. As historian Joya Chatterji writes, “The profound ways in which partition affected Bengal and India show how new borders help to shape the polities they circumscribe. What happened to the millions of Hindus and Muslims who found themselves on the wrong side of the Radcliffe Line which divided Bengal is a telling example of how partitions play havoc with divided peoples, in particular those relegated to the status of religious or ethnic minorities in new nation-states.”
The deep imprint left by partition is connected to a long history that suggests why large swathes of Bengalis have endorsed the right-wing majoritarianism with enthusiasm and alacrity. According to author Monobina Gupta, the story of the Hindu right in Bengal, among other things, is a story of how Muslims became the primary antagonist for a Hindutva project which in its early days often envied Muslims out of self-hatred. The forced binary of Hindu-Muslim categories and resulting communalisation has been slowly fostered since the colonial rule as part of the nationalist struggle and has manifested itself in contemporary times through targeted anti-Muslim propaganda and violence.
The Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have played a critical role here, but they are not the only ones. The binary has been sustained, exacerbated and exploited by other political parties as well, leading to further extreme reactions from the right-wing. The indoctrination continues, there will be many more like Mani, who would further teach their sons a doctored history of the glorious past.
As I closed the door, I turned to my parents. This had to be the last time we had any contact with him. They agreed in unison.
Author’s views are personal.
Sources and acknowledgements
- Second killing of Bhagat Singh & Subhash Chandra Bose by the Hindutva Gang. 2019, Shamshul Islam.
https://sabrangindia.in/article/second-killing-bhagat-singh-subhash-chandra-bose-hindutva-gang.
2. Attempts were made during the Vajpayee govt. by Right Wing outfits to project Bhagat Singh in saffron hues, highlighting his Arya Samaji roots. They were voted out of power in 2004 and Bhagat Singh as a Hindutva hero was put in cold storage, only to be revived in 2014 the next right-wing Government at the Centre. 2016, Ziya Us Salam.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Ziya_Us_Salam/appropriation-of-an-icon/article8342538.ece
3. 79.8% of India’s population identified and were numerically categorised as Hindus, and 14.2% as Muslims
4. Battle for the Bhadralok: The historical roots of Hindu majoritarianism in West Bengal. 2019, Ishaan Mukherjee.
https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/historical-roots-of-hindu-majoritarianism-in-west-bengal.
About Debarati Choudhury
Debarati is a postgraduate in public policy and social conflict from TISS. Her research lies in the domain of caste, gender, violence and law. Her advocacy is inspired by an anti-carceral and feminist approach to human rights, while challenging the systems of privilege she benefits from. She is currently pursuing her M.Phill from Jadhavpur University, West Bengal India.
