36. K. Satya Deva Prasad

I am in receipt of your pamphlet ‘Time for Stock Taking: A Swayamsevak Speaks’ wherein you solicited response to the issues raised therein from Hindus in general and Swayamsevaks in particular.

As I can see, you sent the pamphlet to me for only one reason, that is, myself being one of the participants of the Prajna Bharati Seminar of July‘96 at Pune. I see no other reason why you should know my whereabouts.* As such I am responding as a Swayamsevak. My association with Sangh is of two decades. I have great respect and admiration for Sangh. In my view it is the only organisation that is working to implant love for our motherland and Hindu tradition deep in common people’s minds on a large scale. If today I am seriously interested in issues concerning Hinduism and Hindu society, it is totally due to the inspiration I derived from the Sangh. Therefore I insist that wherever I differ from what we call Sangh’s view or formulations, I do so as an ardent follower of Sangh but with an independent viewpoint of my own on certain issues.

As a native of Hyderabad city, I have had the gruesome opportunity to witness Islam since my childhood. I come from a middle-class family and I have experienced both the envious aggressiveness of my less fortunate Hindu brethren and the condescending attitude of the callous Hindu rich. But there is something special about the attitude of the Muslims towards a Hindu. A Muslim’s hatred for a Hindu transcends the normal human boundaries. It cannot be understood or explained in terms of normal human behaviour. It is a deep pathological symptom. I tried very hard in my younger years to understand this symptom. I was baffled until I joined the Sangha. There I learnt some lessons in Muslim history and Muslim mentality. But only after reading the publications of Voice of India, I acquired the necessary knowledge to analyse Muslim behavior through an understanding of Islam.

After a serious study for over 15 years and combining my own experience with the results of my study, I came to the inevitable conclusion to which Dr. Shreerang Godbole also arrived - Islam is the culprit. Islam is a pathological mindset. Islam is the evil force that moulds Muslims into what they are.

Mouthing slogans like Sarva Dharma Samabhava thereby equating Hinduism with Islam and Christianity, is a matter of blind conviction for some people and a matter of strategy for some others. I personally feel that on both counts, Islam stands to gain at the expense of non-Muslims. I place Gandhiji (with due respects to him) in the first category and Sangh leaders in the second. I have a strong feeling that Sangh leaders know (at least instinctively) about the true evil nature of Islam but they do no want to foreclose all avenues of dialogue and reconciliation with Muslims by telling the truth openly. They perhaps feel that possessed by the evil spirit called Islam, Muslims need some pep talk until the latter are cured of the evil; perhaps they also feel that Muslims also were once upon a time Hindus only and have need for persuasion rather than enmity.

I personally feel that any sort of soft-peddling on the issue of Islam will not bring Muslims into the national mainstream. History offers innumerable examples that there is no such thing as peaceful coexistence with Islam. What we see as co-existence, like the present situation in India, is only a respite between two Islamic invasions for total hegemony.

On this count I totally agree with your two brief comments. Hindu leaders of all shades continue to take Hindus for granted vis-a-vis Muslims. Congress played a big role in perpetuating Muslim influence in India for worse. No doubt a Swayamsevak sometimes feels that the Sangha Parivar at times betrays the same weakness of soft-peddling on Islam in the name of national unity.

During a conversation with a Sangh stalwart at the said Pune Seminar, I pointed out to him that the long presence of Islam in India only made life miserable for Hindus. In reply, he repeated the worn out cliche that there are good Muslims too! I was rather disappointed. If this (naive) comment is any indication, it reveals the poor understanding of Islam as a global-hegemony ideology even among the higher echelons of the Sangh family. It is a serious lacuna indeed!

As for the comments offered by Dr. Godbole at the Pune Seminar (vide first document of your pamphlet), I totally agree with him. I only wish to add one point to his comment No.8 ‘Namaz offered on a disputed site (like Ayodhya) is not acceptable to Allah.’ Here there is no dispute as far as Muslims are concerned, because the Quran clearly says that all land belongs to Muslims (through Allah). As such there is no such thing as a disputed land. Therefore they can offer namaz anywhere and everywhere. That is the credo of Islam. That is why Muslims destroy other people’s places of worship and build their mosques on the same spots with a clean conscience.

Lastly, we Hindus are sending wrong signals to the Muslims by mouthing slogans like Sarva Dharma Samabhava and Sarva Pantha Samadara. It only fortifies Muslims in their misanthropic ideology called Islam. Instead, we should tell them the truth about Islam, that is, how the world at large sees Islam. I only hope the Sangh leaders bestow the attention this crucial issue needs.

Footnotes:

The brochure was sent to him as his name was on our mailing list because of his being a buyer of our publications, as he himself admits. We had no knowledge that he was a participant in the Pune Seminar.