7 min readSep 28, 2022 08:59 AM IST
First published on: Sep 26, 2022 at 03:59 PM IST
There are constant reminders that we are not a homogeneous nation but one riven by caste and religious divisions — the most lethal of which is the Hindu-Muslim divide that, like a contagion, has even spread to the Indian diaspora in its most primaeval form. The recent violent clashes in Leicester after the Asia Cup India-Pakistan T20 match and the heightened tensions between Hindus and Muslims in New Jersey following the showcasing of a bulldozer at the local Independence Day parade, have not surprised anyone in these “Howdy Modi” times. Nor has anyone been jolted by the Indian High Commission’s official statement condemning the violence but advertising its partisan concerns by highlighting the “vandalisation of premises and symbols of Hindu religion”, thereby equating one community’s problems with the nation’s, while blotting out the plight of fellow-Muslim Indians.
At home, the cracks are getting wider. As has been happening in the last eight years, the communal cauldron is kept boiling. In a move that will only further exacerbate communal tensions, the government, in the early hours of September 22, swooped down on the Muslim-dominated Popular Front of India (PFI), arresting around 100 of its members from various parts of the country. Founded in 2007, the organisation describes itself as “a neo-social movement which strives for the empowerment of marginalised sections of India”, and it is no secret that it has fashioned itself on the lines of the RSS in form, incorporating martial exercises and parades as part of the routine for its cadres. The latest crackdown on the PFI has provoked a howl of protests by Muslims across the country.
It is in this fraught context of communal disharmony that one needs to view the recent meeting between RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and five “eminent Muslim intellectuals”. According to one of the eminences, the purpose of the visit to the RSS Delhi headquarters was to “bring up concerns of the Muslims and to know the issues that the RSS had with Muslims”; in essence seeking to build a bridge of understanding between two hitherto irreconcilable entities.
Anyone who has watched the inexorable, ruthless march of Hindutva to the very centre of the body politic under the leadership of Mohan Bhagwat would dismiss such a venture as a fatuous exercise that will change nothing. Hindutva’s lifeblood is an implacable hatred of the Muslim who must pay for historical wrongs committed against Hindus. The relentless hatemongering of the RSS and its cohorts that has seeped into the minds of an overwhelmingly large section of Hindus and anaemic petitions to the Hindutva papacy are nothing more than so many straws against the storm.
The hush-hush meeting took place at the end of August and the almost three-week-long silence thereafter was broken only when some journalists made the parleys public. Did these wise men initially have second thoughts about the wisdom of holding such a meeting that possibly compromised the interests of one community? That’s not how these worthies construed the meeting when they eventually emerged from the closet.
Latching on to the crumbs thrown their way as concessions by the RSS Sarsanghchalak, they noted his acknowledgement that Muslim citizens are not to be called Hindu Muslims but Indian Muslims and that referring to Muslims as jihadis was wrong and hurtful. They would also like us to believe that he conceded the impossibility of India’s Muslims outgrowing and dominating Hindus.
Playing along with these do-gooders and making concessions purely in the realm of semantic superficialities, the Sarsnghchalak succeeded in his intent of portraying the RSS as the embodiment of rationality, fair-mindedness and simplicity. One member gushed in admiration: “Despite being so powerful, he lives in a very simple room with very simple furniture.” Mohan Bhagwat, and by inference the RSS, emerged from the meeting wearing a halo of accommodation and tolerance.
No substantive life-and-death issues concerning Muslims were raised. The CAA, the abrogation of Article 370, and, most important, the ongoing controversy around the Gyanvapi mosque were clearly out of bounds. On the contrary, Bhagwat upbraided these self-appointed Muslim “spokespersons” for not amplifying his munificent message on the Gyanvapi Mosque controversy, that “there was no need to find a ‘shivling’ in every mosque and start a new dispute every day,’” which he believes is a major concession to Muslim sensibilities, as was his imperious assertion that the Court’s verdict in the matter would be honoured. He was not reminded by the five supplicants that he was not above the law or that the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court in its 2019 Ayodhya verdict granting the Babri masjid site for construction of the Ramjanmabhoomi temple, had categorically prohibited the further conversion of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947, in terms of the Places of Religious Worship Act, 1991.
One step at a time is clearly the wily Sarsanghchalak’s strategy. He knows that in the present environment when the faith (of the majority) has been placed above the law as in the Ayodhya judgment, it is more than likely that the courts will privilege the Hindu hypothesis in the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. Meanwhile, he is working to soften Muslim resistance to change in the status of the functional Gyanvapi mosque. Of course, in the event of the courts delivering justice on the basis of jurisprudence, the extra-constitutional methods, as applied in the Babri Masjid case, are ready at hand, despite his protestations about such a recourse.
It is difficult to fathom the rationale for the meeting between the Sarasnghchalak and this group of five, especially when no substantive issue concerning Muslims was discussed. Their unsolicited intercession on behalf of the beleaguered Muslim community with the RSS chief was a damp squib. Whether intended or not, the only positive outcome of the meeting is that Mohan Bhagwat has emerged as the voice of reason and moderation, publicly and heartily endorsed by the Muslim interlocutors.
The group of five drew a blank. And yet in a recent interview, one from this elite cast stated that 90 per cent of Muslims endorsed their interaction with the RSS chief, with his compatriot going further in stating that 99 per cent of the Muslims he knew approved of the deliberations and their point of view. But surely these gentlemen know better than to think that they could make any headway with the doyen of Hindutva. In any case, as Karan Thapar pointed out, they should have approached the PM or Home Minister who are the arbiters on most issues agitating Muslims.
In the ultimate analysis, it was a meeting of unequals and a classic example of propitiation of the oppressor who calls the shots. But these Muslim luminaries should know that appeasement never works!
The writer is a former civil servant and Secretary-General of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas). Views are personal
According to one of the eminences, the purpose of the visit to the RSS Delhi headquarters was to “bring up concerns of the Muslims and to know the issues that the RSS had with Muslims”. (Express Archives) 
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