COMMUNAL WAR IN TAMIL NADU
RSS, India’s fascist force, has at last succeeded in engineering perhaps the biggest communal clash between Hindus & Christians in the sub-continent’s southern end of Tamil Nadu, ending in the death of 6 Christians, but unofficially over 16, on March I. The war is continuing. The controversial Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanya Kumari & the historic mass conversion of Untouchables to Islam of 1981 have been used by the RSS to spread its wings, And today this Hindu high caste organisation is the fastest growing force in the land of Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy who once led the country’s most powerful movement (Dravida Kazhagam) of the low castes. The difference between the Poona communal riots of Feb. (DV no. 10) & the Nagercoil incident of March is that while the former was directed against Muslims, the latter was against the Christans, India’s two most persecuted minorities. Communal riot has been the trump card of RSS. 1t whips up communal passions by telling the poor, low caste; illiterate shudras that if they are suffering, unemployed, it is because of the minorities who are pictured as the enemies of Hindus. As the high castes control the property & the priviliges including the govt ., it is very easy to fool these gullible masses. Their “Hindu feelings” are roused, “sentiments wounded” by the “anti-Hindu”, “anti-national” work of the minorities. This is the aim of the current series of “Hindu unity conferences”, all over India, and at Nagercoil on Feb. 13-14 when Christian priests and nuns were abused in most vulgar language. TN religious leaders and swamijis had attended this meeting. The result was the March 1 killing of poor, innocent fishermen who happened to be Roman Catholics. The death toll is actually over 16 The RSS-Christian dispute is 20 years-old. The Vivekananda Rock Memorial. RSS outfit, was built exactly for this purpose to terrorize the poor Christian fisher- men. In 1980 & 81 there were series of clashes between RSS & Christians. This trouble had been going on since 1963. The dispute resulted in the closure of the ferry service between the mainland and the Rock Memorial in 1981. The Memorial financed by India’s biggest Hindu capitalists has destroyed the traditional fishing industry. The TN govt. has been consistently siding with the RSS. The March 1 killing of Christians, therefore, did not come as a surprise to us. What happened at Mandaikadu, near Nagercoil, the scene of the police firing on March 1 ? As the press in India is in the hands of the high caste Hindus, whose sympathies are with RSS, we cannot expect it to speak out the truth. That is why both the Hindu & the Indian Express, the two “national” English dailies, have preferred to remain silent although both have given a glowing picture of the RSS work in TN. It is only the Statesman that published a fairly good investigative report on March 7. But even this report did not say why the police opened fire on Christians. As for our civil & human rights heroes, less said the better. People’s Union for Civil Liberties holding its national convention at Madras & attended by India’s leading lights of liberty V. M. Tarkunde, Rajani Kothari etc had nothing to say about the police-firing except passing a bad resolution demanding judicial probe. But Marxists did not pass even a resolution. The police-firing is said to be due to the loud- speaker war between Hindu & Christian participants at their respective places of worship. But the Statesman sp. correspondent S. Rajappa’s report says “the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is situated two kms. beyond the Mandaikadu temple.” A press report said the police opened fire “when a Christian mob allegedly attempted to force its way into the Hindu temple.” But the Statesman says: It is customary for people offering worship at the temple to bathe in the sea. A rumor spread that some women returning after their bath were molested by men who had congregated in the church compound. Clashes followed. On Monday night, a crowd collected at the church compound. Police tried to disperse them. When lathi-charge failed, they fired 46 rounds. Six bodies were returned after postmortem. But according to the parish priest eight people were still missing and feared killed in the firing.” But it has nothing to say on the provocation for the firing. The Bishop at Nagercoil. M. Arokiaswamy says : “The police opened fire without any warning & when the fishermen were praying at the Catholic shrine far away from the Bhagawati Amman temple.” (Hindu-March 7) He has held the RSS directly responsible for the attack on Christians. The Govt. statement made in the TN legislature puts the blame on the Christians : “On March 1 nearly 2,000 persons from Pudur village went to Mandaikadu village and ransacked tea shops there. The police issued warnings and began a lathi-charge. The crowd attacked policemen & 25 of them injured. The situation got out of control and the police opened fire. Four persons died on the way to the hospital and two more died at the hospital. Beside 15 others were injured.” (Deccan Herald, March 4) If the govt. is so sure that it is the fault of the Christians, why it has not conceded the Christian demand for a judicial probe ? The pro RSS bias of the govt. is clear. Be that as it may, the killing of Christians has resulted in unprecedented unity between the persecuted minorities. And the Hindu in fact expresses concern over this welcome development. Backlash has begun. Indian Express (Madras) of March 9 has front-paged a story headlined: “Mob Attacks RSS Leaders’ Houses”, and blamed Christians for this. But a Nager- coil dalit comrade writes that they are much more, angry with the RSS for trying to Hinduise the Unteachables. “Dr. Ambedkar is being taken over by the RSS & it is taking his photo to dalit areas in villages to convert them to Hinduism,” he says. RSS exercises might have united the Hindus but it has also polarised the persecuted minorities Christians, Muslims and dalits. ” ….. its growth has forged an unprecedented unity among Christians of various denominations like Roman Catholic, Church of South India, Lutheran, Salvation Army, Syrians and Pentecostals. Besides, the Christians have also developed fraternity with the Muslims because they too faced similar problems”. (Hindu March 7) While thanking the RSS for helping this, we call upon dalits to take advantage of this new situation and join hands with their co-sufferers. RSS is frantically wooing the dalits many of whom attended Mandaikadu temple festival. We don’t know what dalits have got to do with temples from which they were kept out for centuries. All over India it is the pro-RSS elements who are committing violence on dalits. Therefore, they should not fall prey to RSS tricks mistaking its new-found love for Ambedkar. They should identify their enemy and choose their allies. And no community has done greater service to dalits in India than Christians. It is a fact of history admitted by Dr. Ambedkar himself. The entire Northeastern India is today liberated because of the work done by Christian missionaries. Their work for eradication of ‘untouchability, literacy drive, tribal liberation is now part of history. It is true that the Church at least in the South has not fully succeeded in destroying caste among Christians. The fault lies not with the Church but with Hinduism. The Church has admitted its lapses, but it must step up efforts to set its house in order. The only problem people are the vast OBCs (Hindu backward classes) who are being used by the high castes against Christians, Muslims & dalits. It is here the DK, the powerful cadre based socio-cultural organisation started by India’s great revolutionary, Periyar EVR, that has to play a crucial role, Veeramani, DK general secretary, assures us that he is very much interested in dalits but some section of the dalits in TN are yet to be convinced of this. They want action & not words. Therefore, it is for him to gain the dalit confidence. And dalits say they are willing to join with the DK. ” A crucial time has come for DK to educate its OBC followers, wean them away from RSS influence, impress upon them that their “class interests” are with dalits & not with those high caste exploiters. Only this can win the confidence of dalits. The task is urgent-that is to unite OBCs, dalits and persecuted minorities against their common enemy which Periyar has so clearly identified. Political & communal polarization is taking place in TN as in the rest of India. TN being 100% Dravidian, it will naturally be the intellectual leader for the whole country. The fact that both DK & RSS- the two non-political cultural forces -are growing proves the utter failure of the Indian political system including the Marxist brand. In days to come RSS will be directly confronting the DK. Therefore, it must get ready for the battle. RSS shall lead the exploiters & DK shall protect the persecuted. DK is thus facing the most crucial testing time in its 50 year history. As for the RSS, it is indulging in this game of perseouting the minorities as part of its philosophy propounded in its Bible, Bunch of Thoughts (Rashtrothana Sahitya, KG. Nagar, Bangalore-19, pages 440-1966) which has clearly identified its three enemies ; Marxists, Muslims & Christians. Describing the Christians as blood-suckers, it speaks about a “Christian plan” “to surround the Southern peninsula and make it Christian- dominated. Then the whole of the Himalayan belt was to be captured in the second sweep.” (page-185). If the RSS has declared war against its three enemies it is because it sincerely believes in converting India into a Hindu nation. The RSS official journal editorial (March 7) under the headline, “Recognize the Fact That This is a Hindu Country””, directs that “the ruling party together with other major parties must declare India as a Hindu nation”. India’s ruling class has already implemented this directive in some parts like Arunachal Pradesh where Christians are not allowed to enter. Even Mother Teresa was barred. While the govt. there is encouraging Hinduism with funds to Hinduise tribals, Christianity is treated as a foreign religion. Even courts have upheld restrictions on conversion in several parts of India. Every effort is being made to suppress the minorities because ruling class knows that it is difficult to destroy them. As for the dalits, the strategy is two-pronged : separate them from minorities by Hinduising them and thus ensure their servility. The second one is to deny them education and impoverish them. Dalits being 100% poor, it is possible to do this with ease. Dalit activists should alert their brothers on this danger. The only way to face the new social forces mobilised by RSS is for the persecuted minorities to join hands with dalits. The minorities, particularly Christians, being better placed, educated and alert, besides having international connections, they can undertake this job effectively. The TN Christians have set a commendable example. This is the first time the Christian militancy is vigorously surfacing before which the RSS fascists were forced to retreat & run. Kudos to Christians.
