Bangalore: India’s high caste Hindu fascist organisation, RSS, which has been boasting that no judicial inquiry commission has so far indicted it, is today reeling under the blow of the Jamshedpur communal riot inquiry commission. For the first time it is put on the defensive. Even the communal Hindu press, so sympathetic to RSS, could not save it this time. It was caught red-handed at a moment when it was actually riding the waves.
That is why every “chaddi party” leader from top to bottom is put on a white- washing job trying to attribute motive to the commission, sidetrack the issue and drown the facts under mountains of lies a game in which the RSS is an expert. The RSS chief Deoras is desperately going round the country explaining that his Hindu fundamentalist party has nothing to do with the Jamshedpur riots. Vajpayee, its blue-eyed boy being groomed to become the Prime Minister, is doing his best to regain the lost image. But any amount of window-dressing will not undo the damage done. The RSS resorted to this very same propaganda trick as soon as Gandhi was shot dead by Godse, including disowning him. In the case of Jamshedpur, RSS has quickly disowned Dinanath Pandey, indicted by the Commission as the arch-villain. But it was the very same Pandey, the local MLA, who has shouted “Godse zindabad” on the floor of the Bihar State Assembly. The BJP has suspended him but what we cannot understand is that if the RSS is so lily-white, pure as an angel, as it claims, why should it bother about any allegation.? It is this spate of denials and unending white washing efforts that make anybody suspect its claims for innocence. A strong proof of its guilt is available if we read the Oct. 4 issue of the RSS official mouthpiece, Organiser. The RSS is so much stung by this unexpected exposure by the inquiry commission that the Organiser brought out almost a special issue on Jamshedpur. On page 1, it carries an Interview of Pandey disowning any connection with the riots. If the RSS and the BJP had disowned him, why carry this picture and interview on page 1? Is it not a further proof that Pandey is indispensable to the RSS? The Organiser has an editorial headlined “RSS unperturbed”, a careful reading of which also proves that RSS is indeed rattled by this unexpected exposure. Right now, the RSS is on a big expansion drive. No doubt it has made tremendous progress even in Marxist strongholds like W. Bengal and Kerala. The conversion to Islam has been used to make inroads into TN which has been its weakest spot. When it is riding the waves, thanks to the all-out support it gets from the country’s ruling class, winning victories after victories, the Jamshedpur report comes as a bolt from the blue. Organiser editorial amply indicates that it will take years of painstaking work to repair the damage it suffered by this verdict. The Organiser carries a third article by Thakur Prasad, the R S S advocate before the Commission, putting all the blame on the Muslims for the riots. Prasad gives a new twist which should be of interest to Muslims and particularly dalits, Prasad says that the Muslims engineered the riots to crush the Dalits. Yet another article is about the speech said to have been made by Piloo Modi in the Rajya Sabha criticising the commission. Then it has two separate items reproducing an article in the Statesman by its Delhi resident editor, S. Sahay. This article by the most prestigious English daily in India has certainly damaged its reputation. Because the Statesman is noted for its impartial and progressive outlook. It is the only paper of India which is objective when it comes to the question of minorities. But unfortunately, Sahay has tarnished its fair image by writing this article a casual reading of which will convince anybody that it was written on behalf of the RSS. The very fact that the Organiser has cared to reproduce Sahay article is enough to prove this charge. Inquiries at Calcutta have revealed the Tatas, the owners of the Statesman who are said to have encouraged the RSS to curb the Leftist trade unions controlling the Tata industrial empire in Jamshedpur, have given the inspiration to this article. The Statesman has further shown its bias by publishing a report in its issue of Oct. 7. This long report from Jamshedpur is not from its own correspondent but from a mysterious “A correspondent”. The report says that the inquiry commission verdict has only helped the RSS and the Hindu fundamentalists. The Statesman should not have so openly sided with the RSS, almost becoming its mouthpiece. The sixth piece in the Organiser is to defend the RSS, an anonymous letter by “five readers of Jamshedpur.” The letter, which appears to have been manufactured by the Organiser office in Delhi, is a dire warning to the Times of India which in a surprise editorial (Sept. 15) on the Jamshedpur has strongly criticized the RSS for killing so many Muslims
The Times of India a is Jain-Marwari group and its editor himself is a Jain, Girilal Jain, who had written a front-page signed article openly criticising the Muslims for the Moradabad communal riots. The RSS is naturally surprised how such a sympathetic editor has so suddenly turned hostile to the RSS. It may be recalled that this very same Girilal Jain had supported Vikram Rao, its Lucknow correspondent, before the Press Council which had inquired into a complaint against Rao’s dispatch published in the Times of India [Aug. 20, 1980] under the headline: Factors behind Moradabad, holding Muslims responsible for the riots and also saying RSS had nothing to do with this. The Press Council verdict, however also went in favour of Vikram Rao. The RSS is naturally perturbed how the Times of India and its editor, consistently siding with it, have suddenly turned against it. Therefore the Organiser has rightly asked for the apology from the Times of India. Not only that, the apology should be published prominently on its front page. This warning or rather an ultimatum coming from the RSS is understood to have shaken the Bori Bunder head office of the Times of India in Bombay and high-level consultations are going on to make amends. The owners are now in a fix. The warning has once for all proved that the RSS will not tolerate any newspaper in India writing anything against it, even if it is a court verdict.
