By Khan Yasir,
In 1948, RSS stood disgraced and banned in the wake of the ignominious assassination of Gandhiji. The ban was lifted soon enough but the organisation remained socially ostracised for a long time. The RSS, however, left no stone unturned to spread its tentacles across the length and breadth of India, though with meagre success. Even its political wing Jan Sangh and later BJP failed rather miserably in gaining momentum. In 1984, BJP got two seats.But since then the communal force enjoyed an unforeseen and unpredictable legitimacy especially in urban areas and returned with the figures of 88, 120, 161, 182 and again 182, in the national elections of 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively. BJP tasted government at the centre for 13 days in 1996 and then 13 months in 1998. It realised that it cannot gain enough votes and seats to form a government on its own.
RELIGIOUS DIVISION AND SOCIAL CONFLICT: THE EMERGENCE OF HINDU NATIONALISM IN RURAL INDIA
By Peggy Froerer
Social Science Press, 1/24, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi – 100 002
Pages: 296 + xx
Price: Rs 295
It did form a stable government (later in 1999) but only with support of a dozen of allies under the banner of NDA. In this alliance BJP was the core party, yet it had to concede communal demands – like building of Ram temple at Ayodhya, making a uniform civil code and repealing of the Article 370, etc. – to the pragmatic concerns of the ruling. RSS realised, sooner than later, that depending on the upper caste votes based in urban areas will not be enough. Need for penetration in rural areas was recognised and concrete steps were planned and taken in this direction.
It is for this reason, argues Peggy Froerer in her Religious Division and Social Conflict, that “Mitigating the ‘backwardness’ of India’s adivasi communities is one of the objectives that has recently figured in the agenda of RSS” (p. 3). This was not the first diagnosis of this phenomenon which, even, earlier has been identified by scholars; for example by T.B. Hansen who referred to this as Vernacularisation of Hindutva. In the following study: How these efforts were made? How far they succeeded? What are the factors responsible for the respective successes and failures of these attempts? These questions, as most of us recognise, are of pivotal interest to understand the dynamics of politics in India.
Religious Division and Social Conflict is a research-based account of the emergence of Hindutva or what the author calls ‘Hindu nationalism’ in a tribal community in Chhattisgarh. The method implied in the research for the in-depth analysis of the field is ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative research design. In an era of Twenty-20 kind of research with haphazard and often incongruous statistical approaches, ethnography stands out as a Test Match. It is a patient researcher’s domain and his quest for meaning, in the culture of the people amidst whom he is spending his years of study (fieldwork). It tries to observe phenomenon from the perspective of the people on whom the research is based and not from the biased point of view of the researcher. Though bias, invariably, plays a fairly important role in such a study and so ethnographic studies need to be considered with caution. In this study the ethnographic approach is applied to gain a wider understanding of the process by which Hindu nationalist ideology is successfully transmitted in rural adivasi areas. Froerer’s main aim is to examine the role of what Paul Brass refers to as ‘conversion specialists’ i.e. those RSS activists who serve as the primary facilitators in this process.
The study is based on a village in Chhattisgarh, namely Mohanpur. The fieldwork for research was conducted for 22 months between October 1997 and August 1999. Mohanpur is a typical village which is relatively cut off from urban ‘mainstream’ due to thick forests and inaccessible roads. The near most city Korba is 40 km from Mohanpur, that takes four-hour of cycle (or even bus) journey, a distance that local people think to be quite far. Hence, people here do not visit the city generally; it is a distant dream. The universe of their access and visits is spree of villages located around 10-12 km radius. Most common occupation of the villagers is rice-cultivation. Besides, people also indulge in sale of non-timber forest products and produce and sale of liquor. The area is plagued by the general problems of rural areas that exist throughout India like lack of electricity, illiteracy, etc. Presence of vehicles is not only unusual but also an amusing sight for the children and youths of the area. Caste distinctions are as acute as anywhere. Locally Ratiya Kanwar is at the highest ladder of the caste system and Oraon community (which is Christian) is at the lowest. The area, like other adivasi areas in the country, is characterised by practices that are considered ‘Backward’ in urban areas.
Mohanpur has a population of 886 people in 163 households. The history and geography of the area, nearby villages, their demography has been analysed and described in detail by the author in the introduction of the book. However the main point is the fact that Christians are largely concentrated in this village comprising 241 people (42 households). This unusually large population of Christians, though comparatively, leads to various crises and the book argues that “One of the objectives of this book is to show that it is partly due to the relatively large Christian presence that the RSS has been able to successfully employ its instrumentalist strategies in the manner that it has done in Mohanpur”. (p. 27)
Local beliefs and customs (both of Hindus and Christians) are much more altered than ‘mainstream’ Hindu and Christian practices. Local people themselves identify this difference as difference between ‘Sahari’ and ‘Jangli’ customs. The distinction applies more severely to Hindu practices which has almost nothing in common with what it ‘ought’ to have been. These ‘Dehati’ or ‘Jangli’ practices of innumerable local deities, animal sacrifices, supernatural ways of treating ailments, etc. are a pretext utilised by both RSS and church to justify their existence and civilising missions. The author tells us about RSS:
When I first began my research in October 1997, this organisation was relatively unknown in the area. The four RSS activists or organisers (pracharaks) who visited Mohanpur every few months to conduct meetings amongst few interested young men held the interest of the majority of locals more for their motor bikes and fancy clothes than for their message of Hindu unity. By the time I completed my research nearly two years later, visits by these activists had increased to a weekly frequency. (p. 3)
OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
As per the statements mentioned in the book, following objectives of the study stand out:
The emergence of ‘Hindu nationalism’ in a mixed and culturally plural village (here Hindu/Christian adivasi village) and the impact that this has had on the lives of local people are the principal concerns of this book. (p. 27)
With respect to the broader concerns of this book, [the author tries] to show how RSS emphasis on the ‘Hindu-ness’ of local adivasi Hindus, in opposition to the ‘threatening Christians’, is an attempt to include the former in a sort of ‘imagined community’ of Hindus. (p. 39)
Specific aims are twofold:
To identify the local conditions and cleavages that have contributed to the transmission of ‘Hindu nationalism’ in this community, and to explore how nationalist ideology is tailored by individual activists to correspond with local concerns.
The broader objective is to understand the manner by which, through the instrumental involvement of its activists in local level issues, groups like the RSS are able to gain a legitimacy on the ground, and to extrapolate from this analysis in relation to the complex link between the growth of ‘Hindu nationalism’ at the grassroots level and broader discourses of ‘Hindu nationalism’. (p. 3)
RATIONALE BEHIND POLITICS OF ‘INCLUSION’
Froerer indulges in fairly extensive literature review over the theme of RSS and Hindutva and their activism and argues, “Beyond the generalised descriptions of how members of the Sangh Parivar modify their message to suit the situations and histories of different communities however, the specific activities in which these activists engage at the local level remain largely undocumented and unanalysed” (p. 7). Hence this study!
The author recognises that Hindutva thrives on the “ideological bedrock”, as Hansen puts it, of Muslim-enmity. But this ‘threatening-other’ has been replaced at times with Christians and other minorities for convenience sake, by the RSS. Yet in mid-1990s, the author points out, adivasis became major focus of the RSS. Shuddhi and ghar-wapsi movements gained momentum. A plethora of factors are responsible for this but the author hastily jumps to regard this as a “shift” in RSS strategies. This is not a “shift” but “expansion” of the work area.
The root of the adivasi problem is identified by the Froerer as Indian State’s recognition of Hinduism as “default religion” of the adivasis, which is far from truth (to say the least!). It is in this regard that Froerer argues, “RSS activists’ ability to successfully endear themselves to the community as a whole is made easier by the failure of the state to guarantee entitlements to local adivasis and to prevent their economic rights from being infringed” (p. 14).
To view the world from RSS’s perspective, it is clear that Hindus can remain in majority, in India, only when adivasis do not declare to be outside that majority. This strategic importance of adivasis forces RSS to pay adequate attention there and also cry foul at any attempt at conversion (obviously other than that of Hinduism). Yes, ghar wapsi itself is conversion because adivasis are not Hindus. Mass conversions of tribal people “have shown the Sangh Parivar that they cannot take the Hindu identity of marginal groups like adivasis for granted” (p. 11). Sangh has always justified its paranoiac activism in adivasi communities as a defence of Hinduism but the author argues that:
The fact that Christians number less than 2.5 per cent of India’s population suggests that the Sangh Parivar’s shift in attention toward Christian adivasi communities is less a defence of a threatened religion in the face of conversion and more a tactic aimed at breaking out of its urban and upper caste ‘cocoon’ (ibid).
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams for tribal development and Vidya-Bharati schools across India are specimen of such strategy. Youths are especially targeted with simple and gradual brain-washing. The power and effectiveness of this indoctrination lies in the simplicity of the message convened. It is based on the following points:
Hindus alone constitute real Indian nation. (original inhabitants)
Hinduism is extremely tolerant but this tolerance has been exploited by Muslims and others.
Due to such cunning, Hindu nation has been conquered by Muslims and Christians in the past, though it is needed meaningfully, despite every effort, they could not convert the whole India.
To avoid such a future conquest, from within or without, organisation of Hindus is necessary.
However, ideology does not have the final say on such matters. Ironically, it comes in the last. First the youths of rural areas are lured by the motor-bikes and fancy clothes (especially uniform of RSS). They are shown the city (bahar ki dunya) and the whole world of opportunities. The sophistication of language and the feeling of being with an ‘organisation’ which can help its workers in distress also increase RSS’s hold in rural areas.
What the Sangh has achieved through this so-called rural-shift? The author exemplifies:
The active engagement in ‘civilising’ strategies, manifested in the form of medicines and other material assistance, has enabled RSS activists to successfully legitimise their presence locally and to endear themselves to both Christians and Hindus. This seemingly constructive outcome is the product of one of the more insidious means through which Hindutva is propagated in this area and elsewhere; for, under the auspices of ‘good works’, it conceals the more aggressive communal agenda that underpins the Hindutva movement as a whole.
The second strategy through which Hindutva has been propagated locally is more directly related to this wider agenda, and that is the communalisation of local grievances and the promotion of the ‘threatening other’. Specifically, it is by involving themselves in the local land and liquor disputes, and attaching these to the ‘one-nation, one-culture’ agenda that the RSS activists have successfully facilitated the spread of ‘Hindu nationalism’.
In her analysis, Froerer used the theoretical tools employed by Tambiah (1996) like ‘focalisation’ whereby the original incident or dispute is ‘progressively denuded of its contextual particulars’, and ‘transvaluation’ where the incident is then ‘distorted and aggregated into larger collective issues of national or ethnic interest’. (p. 17)
Mohanpur soon became the arena between church and RSS. As church is active in rural areas of India, since the early age of colonialism, RSS is facing tough resistance in terms of social work and proselytising efforts of church. And so RSS knows that in rural areas its “…success is achievable only if Christianity and its associated ‘good works’ are discredited and its efforts are replaced by those of the RSS and its affiliated organisations” (p. 14). Thus in Mohanpur the problem is compounded by Church’s attempt to make Oraons proper Christians (p. 20) and RSS trying the same with respect to Hindus. RSS has skillfully exploited local tensions and launched its ideological agenda from that platform, thereby endearing itself to the local populace and joining and directing their grievances (p. 22).
How barely interested are village people, in RSS’s intricacies, is well-exhibited by the author in terms of three instances sifted out from the book:
Raj – the most active RSS activist in the area – decides that to communicate the proper cultural ethos and civilisation, Mohanpur needs a school. Word spreads that a new school will be launched for every child in the village. A teacher was arranged at Rs. 300 a month. However, “The mild interest that was initially expressed quickly waned” when people realised that “the students who attend this school would not receive a free meal” unlike the pathetic government nursery ‘school’ (p. 64). Even in the absence of a ‘proper’ school, this attempt of RSS failed miserably with eventually five students signing up for the same among whom three were Raj’s nephews. The school died its natural death within a couple of months.
RSS, as is said earlier, is against local traditions and customs. It abhors local deities, animal sacrifices and other things that are practised locally. One of its main agenda is to ‘teach’ adivasis ‘proper’ and ‘mainstream’ Hinduism i.e. Hinduism as practised by the Sangh. Once, Raj along with three accomplices visited the village. All four sported a choti, three draped a scarf with Shri-Ram inscribed thereon. Greetings of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ were exchanged. They were on a mission and Mohanpur was their first destination in a planned four-village visit. Raj instructed one accomplice to gather all village women. Despite every effort only five women with several suckling children assembled. Two were close relatives of Raj. One was most outspoken and public woman – a necessity. Only two general women arrived who consistently complained of being pulled away from their important preoccupations. Five teenage girls too were called and they were happy to escape their routine work. To cut the long story short, none was interested in the speeches that were delivered, procession that followed, and the sahari deity (i.e. Shiva), sahari festival (i.e. Mahashivratri) and proper methods of puja that were introduced. Even if they could have tried to understand, they would have not for the pure Hindi that was spoken all through. Raj had to scold the five women several times to listen what was being said and stop chattering. When the ceremony came to an end, the author asked two women what all they got from it. One said, “Who knows I did not understand.” The other one said, “We have enough festivals to celebrate here in the village. Why do we have to also celebrate sahari people’s festivals?” (p. 65-69)
RSS conducted a kind of programme by collecting young people of the village. Not a single youth was interested in ideology and barely understood the message they had brought. They wanted to be sahari walla too and knew that RSS could help in realising that dream as it had realised it for Raj. But after 12 months, the participation in these meetings gradually decreased and only four semi-regular participants remained by the time the fieldwork ended.
Such are the adivasi people who are target of RSS’s civilising onslaught.
The book can be divided in three parts. The first part gives us a glimpse of the life in Mohanpur; the ‘backward’ and ‘jangli’ practices of adivasis; their beliefs, whims and customs; means of livelihood; caste discriminations and biases, etc. This part describes the relationship and biases of Hindus who are original inhabitants of the area (sons of the soil) and Christians who are developing economically, and how this complex relationship is exploited and channelled by RSS into communal hatred. Separate chapters have been devoted to describe the Hindus and Christians of the area. The earlier chapter chiefly discusses the dominant local caste Ratiya Kanwar and its hold on the village. The later chapter discusses, after giving some historical background of the missionary work in India, Oraon people’s relationship to church and its impact upon their individual and communal life. These chapters also briefly discuss how the intervention of RSS on one hand and church on another has fuelled the communal tensions in the area. The author also goes on to argue that RSS ‘emulates’ the missionary strategies, proven successful by history, albeit with a difference and more vengeance.
The second part examines what the author refers to as ‘civilising strategies’ of the RSS. Such strategies aim at providing the raison d’être and legitimise RSS’s presence in the area. While such strategies could be many, analysing and deriving conclusions from them could be problematic. Hence the author has chosen only two strategies and analysed them in separate and detailed chapters. One is of installation of a medical ‘doctor’ in the area. The other is of supporting the dissenting group in the village against a corrupt village headman. The author says, “It is argued that these methods together are part of a more implicit strategy to ‘emulate’ the successful methods that the Church has historically employed in its proselytising efforts in adivasi areas, with a view to gaining further local legitimacy”. (p. 39)
The third part examines what according to author are, ‘aggressive strategies’ of the RSS in order to directly propagate its communal and hatemongering agenda. Froerer pays special attention to RSS’s invocation of the ‘threatening other’ (here Christians) and poisoning the minds by igniting and aggravating the local biases, which in many cases are based on false assumptions. Local issues are connected to national and international ones and economic grievances are readily exploited by RSS to communalise a harmonious society. Here too, two specific issues are raised in separate chapters. One chapter examines the nature of land disputes. These disputes are between ‘original settlers’ (i.e. Ratiya Kanwar Hindus) and ‘first-clearers’ (i.e. Oraon Christians). The author argued that such ‘conflict symbols’ can be stretched totally out of context to serve the communal agenda of the RSS. Another chapter examines the liquor dispute between the two communities and how it was communalised yet again by the ‘conversion specialists’ of the RSS at the local level. The author’s “specific attention is on how these tensions have been appropriated by RSS activists who then strip such tensions of their local particulars and attach them to one of the most powerful discourses of the Hindu nationalist movement: the ‘threatening other’”. (ibid)
Villagers of Mohanpur classify diseases in two categories i.e. simple diseases and supernatural diseases. Simple diseases are treated by medicine for which a clinic facilitated by church is available at a distance of 6 km from the village (one hour walking distance). Such diseases basically include fever, cough, diarrhoea and headache, etc. It is an established practice in the village that for every ailment villagers visit the clinic and get three-day medicine. But in case of not recovering within a day or two, or falling ill again after brief recovery they say that the illness is not a simple one but a bhuti bimari caused by divine disapproval of human misconduct. Then gunias i.e. local healers would be called and they would investigate which deity is angry, why it is angry and what it wants.
Both RSS and church strongly disapprove of these healers and such practices which result in many casualties. Often medical treatment is prematurely abandoned especially in case of malaria and typhoid where fever returns after intervals, which signifies for local people that illness is not simple; had it been, it would have been cured by the medicine.
Church in Sunday sermons discards these practices. It conducts various health workshops to increase awareness regarding health matters. These efforts are not totally falling on deaf ears. Awareness, though gradually, is spreading in the area. Due to the monopoly over the health service i.e. clinic – it is considered that church’s influence is increasing with this awakening. This was too much for RSS, which installed a local ‘doctor’ – a relative of Raj – after three months training in primary healthcare. This was a challenge to church clinic – only medical authority for villages within a 15 km radius. RSS is much against what has been described as clinical-Christianity. The RSS sponsored ‘doctor’ had many advantages. Unlike nurses of the clinic, RSS ‘doctor’ was local and knew people personally; unlike them, he also visited home and was conveniently available. Soon people from other villages too started calling him.
Froerer deduces the following from the whole incident:
By identifying a social need and mobilising a response to that need, Raj and other RSS activists were successfully able to endear themselves and engender respect and trust from the community as a whole. In this way, they were able to establish a platform from which more aggressive strategies could be initiated later on, and to ensure that their appeals would be taken seriously. (p. 144)
Second such strategy that RSS adopted was to extend support to those, especially angry youths, who sought to contend the corrupt local power but could not have done so without outsider-help. RSS made the most of this opportunity and threw its weight behind the disgruntled people of the village. Patel was the village headman. He was also the government-appointed Munshi for the collection of tendu leaves collected by locals. People will collect leaves and give in bundles of fifty to Munshi who was responsible for counting, colleting and handing over these bundles to the government. He was also in charge of distributing the payments of these leaves to the collector families.
Predictably, he devoured a major sum of money in between. Though this was an open secret in the village, no one dared to rebel against the Patel. The condition in the village was so that “State is subordinated to Patel” (p. 165). Everybody desired a change but everybody lacked initiative. RSS took the initiative and intervened. As a national organisation was involved, though clandestinely, everyone grew confident that they could do it. Patel was removed from the position of Munshi. The concluding observation of the author is, “…part of the RSS’s broader strength lies in the fact that it performs these kinds of ‘social services’ even as it holds out the (unspoken) threat of aggression and violence”. (p. 178)
AGGRESSIVE STRATEGIES
Establishing itself through civilising gimmicks described above, RSS adopted more aggressive stances regarding the local land disputes. Land disputes were rooted in village history. Ratiya Kanwars were original settlers of the village and they (i.e. their ancestors), as a gesture of grace and for flourishing of the budding village population, allowed the Oraons to settle down on the outskirts of the village. There was no land for Oraons though they were allowed to cultivate some nominal portions by clearing the forest. Oraons naturally are hardworking people. With their hard work and toil, they cleared a lot of forest and increased their land holding to a considerable large area. This comparatively prosperous situation of the Oraons was a cause of suspicion and envy for the Hindus in general and Ratiya Kanwars in particular who thought that they possess the distinguished right to the land for they are the ‘first settlers’ of the area.
This claim was contradicted by the Oraons that they were farming on the land that they cleared with their own toil. The problem can be said of a threatened high caste versus an aspiring low caste and clash between them. This is also explained by Horowitz as ‘politics of entitlement’. Angry Ratiya Kanwars gradually started asserting claims on the lands on which they had never laboured. “Such claims” as the author says, “are being made on the basis that, as the ‘sons of the soil’ and rightful proprietors, this land ‘belongs’ to them”. Even lands cleared and cultivated by Oraons for the last three decades also came under dispute.
The author notes the point that though many Hindus are also involved in land encroaching, the encroached landholdings of Oraons came under attention of RSS. How nominal is the threat of encroached landholdings of the Oraons is explained statistically by the author who argues that despite every encroachment, Hindus, even today, have 94% lands of the area and only 6% is owned by Oraon.
Another significant point is that the Oraon community is the possessor of cash as it indulges in sale of labour in village farms and mainly outside village. They indulge in construction work. Therefore they receive cash payments, while for their daily needs Hindus rely on barter system using rice as a currency. But there are certainly occasions when cash is needed. This cash Hindus get from Oraons by selling rice or mortgaging land. This led to the creditor and lender relationship between the communities. Hindus are also jealous of this ‘overflowing cash’ of the Oraon community. When someone from the Oraon community bought a TV, it became a constant source of scorn and irritation in the Hindu basti. “While this sort of indebtedness might not be unusual, it creates a power relationship between the borrower and the lender, in favour of the latter”. (p. 210)
RSS jumped on the bandwagon of these tensions and oiled them a great deal – “…the concern that the Ratiya Kanwars have for the Oraons’ increasing wealth, land and overall economic advantages has created a sense of growing unease that has spilled out into the rest of Hindu community”. RSS played an important role in this. “The Oraon were acceptable neighbours when they were poorer than their Hindu ‘hosts’ three decades ago. Their increasing wealth and steady acquisition of land through encroachment and mortgages not only creates resentment but also threatens the power and status of the original ‘sons of the soil’” (p. 217-8). The author concludes this discussion on a theoretical note:
Through a process that Tambiah (1996) calls ‘focalisation’ and ‘transvaluation’… local tensions, which are connected to the relationship that both communities have to land, labour and access to cash, are stripped of their particulars and attached to one of the most powerful discourses of the Hindu nationalist movement: the ‘threatening other’. It is through the strategic transformation of original settler claims into ‘conflict symbols’ that a cultural allegiance between local Hindu adivasis and Hindus elsewhere in India has been successfully created. As land tensions move beyond the local, caste conflicts acquire communal elements in a process whereby religion has come to be used as a tool for economic and political gain” (p. 219).
Another tension in the area that is fuelled by RSS is tension over liquor sales. Liquor is consumed by both Christians and Hindus; however it is generally produced by only Christians. Most Oraons produce it on occasional basis while half of them sell it regularly. Froerer argues that the main source of income for Oraon people is wage-labour, and liquor produce adds negligible amounts to their profits. “But the perception remains that the income that Oraon Christians are able to generate from liquor sales has not only contributed to their material affluence, but has, more critically, enabled them to purchase mortgages for Hindu land” (p. 220).
In short, Oraon Christians are cause of “social deterioration” of Hindus. Liquor in the area is made from the flowers called mahua after drying and treating them. Sale of dried mahua flowers is a monopoly of Hindus and the author substantiates, through statistics, that by selling this ‘raw material’, they acquire more profits than Oraon Christians who produce liquor out of it. Before the issue of liquor was communalised by RSS, drinking was the only means of interaction between local Hindu and Christian communities. Hindus would visit the Oraon basti in the quiet hours of morning or evening, spend at least half an hour drinking and chatting about village affairs, would also be offered a free drink or two by the host Oraons, who themselves would drink with their customers. Hindus would pay for liquor with rice as they lack cash.
Hindu women are pretty much against drinking of their men for two reasons. One, they are victim of domestic violence that increases after men drink liquor; and the other that they are concerned about their ever depleting resources of rice (i.e. their money) by consumption of liquor by their men. Based on her study, the author concludes that women are more concerned about the latter than former. The notable point is that the Church is as much against the liquor as Hindu women. It launches several campaigns in the village and adjoining areas against liquor production and consumption. The Church has launched these initiatives more as a reform of Christians than for any social service.
In the village there is an organisation of women. To be specific this organisation is a branch of a larger organisation initiated by the church at the district level. This was an attempt of the church, after proselytising was legally prohibited, to outreach the local people. In local meetings of this organisation in Mohanpur, liquor issues were raised, but earlier they were raised more as general issues demanding attention. However, as the meetings progressed and RSS influence increased, Hindu women started raising the liquor issue more prominently. Christian women protested at this and argued that focus on liquor was interfering with wider aims of the organisation such as electricity and clear water.
But tensions kept on increasing until a boycott was announced from both sides. Hindus will not go to Oraons to buy liquor and Oraons will not sell liquor to Hindus. But “the immediate ceasing of regular sales to and consumption by local Hindus would last only a few days, however, as Oraons would begin to sell quietly to trusted customers, and then more openly, to others. Within a week or so, another meeting would be called because another Hindu customer would be ‘caught’ drinking” (p. 236). This became an endless cycle. The author makes a sharp point here:
That the Oraon vendors have taken the brunt of the blame for the social and economic problems felt by the Hindu consumers is an important point. The attitude amongst Hindus was that consumption of liquor in itself is not bad; to be sure, it is an acceptable cultural practice when exercised within a locally appropriate manner. And indeed, at least one member of nearly every household consumes liquor on certain ritual, social or private occasions. Selling, however, is perceived as bad. (p. 237)
Most of the Oraon, on the other hand, thought that the liquor issue is only blown out of proportion due to the jealousy of the Hindu community over their wealth and improving material status. Though liquor sale does not contribute much income as distinct from wage labour, it is a highly “regular” and “visible” source of income and hence the tension. The author points out, “In the past, such tensions would have been contained locally – resolved, perhaps, in the context of the village council. During the course of my fieldwork, however, they took on a new urgency due to their appropriation and transformation by the RSS into issues of communal concern” (p. 242).
During such a meeting of the women’s organisation that had reached the breaking point, and amidst shouting Christian women were about to leave, that Raj came and calmed all of the women down. He then accused church of instructing Christians to make and sell liquor to Hindus. For this allegation he supplied so innocuous but so convincing an argument. He asked Christian women: why, when the catholic fathers visit the village in their jeep, they go directly to the Oraon Christian locality? He alleged that fathers have a “secret plan” to bring Hindu community down through liquor “like Christians of all over India”. Nobody listened to the forceful denials of the Christian women. The meeting exploded and ended with Hindu men beating some of the Oraon men accidentally present there and Hindu women shouting “you Christians are using liquor money to buy our land”, “you Christians should give us our land back and leave”, “if we see you buying anything else like a television with liquor money, then we will destroy it”. The author significantly points out at this stage:
“…this was the first time that local Hindus used the category ‘Christian’ (isai) in place of ‘Oraon’ as a term of identification in a public context” (p. 244). And “the speed with which communal categories began to be utilised locally points to the success of the introduction of Hindu nationalist sentiment – particularly the ideology of the ‘threatening other’. This was related to the kind of ‘conflict symbol’ – liquor – that was utilised to transmit this sentiment” (p. 250).
CONCLUSION
It required no study to note that the main emphasis of RSS is to emphasise the otherness of the Christians or Muslims whomever they can lay their hands upon. Through this scarecrow of threatening-other they could easily rally together the scared Hindus and make them conscious of their Hindu identity. Frequent invocation of a national and international conspiracy of Muslims or Christians (depending on situation) that they will convert or outbreed Hindus and will become majority also works in favour of RSS.
“It is perhaps no coincidence,” Froerer asserts, “that local tensions have increased in tandem with the growing frequency of RSS ‘training meetings’… which are more often conducted on the same day that the panchayat or women’s meetings are held” (p. 252). “This is why,” she further states, “Raj could be classified as what Brass calls a ‘conversion specialist’, a person whose pivotal role is to attach new meaning to local conditions or convert an ordinary local incident into communal discourse, enabling its potential escalation into communal violence”. (ibid)
As an ethnographic study, the book was based on personal and firsthand observations of the author. Besides collecting the firsthand observations, she also enjoyed a unique privilege. In her own words:
“…the arrival and increasing presence of RSS activists in this area paralleled my own. This placed me in a unique position to observe how, in the space of two years, they managed to endear themselves to the local community. I also observed how they inculcated some of the tenets most crucial to the success of Hindu nationalism, and was able to consider the impact that this has had on the local people.” (p. 256)
The RSS model of exerting influence in rural areas of India raises some deeper problems besides concerns of communally plagued environment. One of such distressing implication of the way in which RSS, over the years, has legitimised its presence in rural areas “is that a precedent has been set whereby the provision of basic needs requires the involvement of an extra-state power that is widely associated with aggression and violence”. (p. 180)
It is important to note that RSS’s efforts to inject the communal poison in the rural vein of India proved remarkably successful. In 1998, Madhya Pradesh assembly elections were held. Talking specifically of Mohanpur, it was a Congress’s stronghold. Patel is the dominant political and spiritual head of the village and Congress is known, instead of its name, as “Patel’s Party”. But in assembly polls Congress lost to BJP. BJP victory was helped by the votes that were unexpectedly cast in its favour by people from Mohanpur, a village that, until the 1998 election, had been a traditional Congress stronghold.
It is significant to note that since 1990s when RSS turned towards adivasis, the anti-Christian violence has increased. It reached its climax between 1997 and 2000. The author substantiates different studies on communalism focusing on RSS especially by Paul Brass, who argues that collective violence often evolves out of circumstances that are not necessarily communal in nature. He is also critical of accounts that describe communal riots as ‘spontaneous acts’ instead he argues that as riots have ‘functional utility’ for dominant political ideologies they are more often than not carefully orchestrated. He holds that there are specific, identifiable individuals who work intentionally to produce riots.
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This review first appeared in Radiance Viewsweekly.