Ear to the Ground

BJP’s foreign connection

So what is this ‘foreign connection’, rather ‘the Italian connection’ of the BJP that the Congress has dug up to counter the ‘foreign origin’ issue? And why is the BJP so embarrassed and keen to dismiss Dr B S Moonje as a Hindu Mahasabha leader with no connection with the RSS? Who is Dr Moonje anyway?
While putting more emphasis on rebutting the Congress’ other charge—that L K Advani’s family possessed a Victoria buggy in pre-1947 Karachi which demonstrated that the family was pro-British—as factually incorrect, a senior BJP leader and party spokesman sought to downplay the Moonje affair last Wednesday. He not only denied Moonje’s relations with the RSS but tried to make light of his admiration for and meeting with Mussolini by drawing parallel with Subhash Chandra Bose’s attempt to get the help of Hitler in his fight against the British.
For the uninitiated, the Moonje affair came to public arena a few years ago with the publication of a report by Marzia Casolari, described as an Italian scholar, in the Economic and Political Weekly issue of January 2000. She sought to substantiate the ‘fascist ideological background of Hindu fundamentalism’ through ‘archival evidence’.
In her report she said: “According to the literature promoted by the RSS and other Hindu fundamentalist organisations and parties, the structure of the RSS was the result of Dr Hedgewar’s vision and work. However, Moonje played a crucial role in moulding the RSS along Italian (fascist) lines…”
She went on to quote from Moonje’s diary, newspaper reports of the time and other historical materials to strengthen her argument. According to her, Moonje went to Rome in 1931, on his return from the Round Table Conference, met Mussolini and visited a few fascist military organisations. What he learnt there was passed on to the RSS.
But what was his connection with RSS? “One can wonder at the association between B S Moonje and the RSS but if we think that Moonje had been Dr Hedgewar’s mentor the association will be much clearer”, she wrote.
Then she quoted from a book by B V Deshpande and S R Ramaswamy, Dr Hedgewar, the Epock-Maker, published in 1981 to make the relations clearer. “It was indeed Moonje who brought up the young Hedgewar in his own house and later on sent to Calcutta, officially to study at the National Medical College, but with the secret aim to get in touch with the revolutionary organisations in Bengal.”
And what was Hedgewar’s connection with the Hindu Mahasabha? He was secretary to the Hindu Mahasabha from 1926 to 1931, according to British intelligence report of March 7, 1942.
Casolari provided answer to the doubts raised by the BJP about the links between Hindu Mahasabha and RSS in those days too. She said: “According to the commonly accepted opinion—supported by the organisations of militant Hinduism—the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha have never been particularly close, and, during Savarkar’s presidentship, they severed their links. Reality, however, seems to be starkly different. In fact, the available documentation shows not only that such a split never existed, but that the two organisations always had strict connections…”
She asserted that Hedgewar went to Ratnagiri to meet Savarkar after he decided to set up RSS in 1925 “in order to obtain from his suggestions and advice” and claimed that she found several letters exchanged between the two among ‘Hedgewar papers’ in Nagpur.
Again for the uninitiated, the Hindutva concept of the RSS and the BJP comes from a book of Savarkar by the same name, and gives a glimpse of why the Hindutva brigade so dislikes anything of ‘foreign origin’. Savarkar wrote about Muslims in his book: “Their holyland is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently, their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin.”
The Italian scholar had probably anticipated that the Hindutva brigade would try to obfuscate its critics by equating Moonje’s love for Mussolini with Subhash Chandra Bose’s attempt to seek outside help to fight the British. So she wrote: “Moonje’s trip to Italy, contrary to what happened in the case of Subhash Chandra Bose and other nationalists, did not give place to any further co-operation between Hindu nationalism and the fascist regime. However, these contacts were important at the ideological and organisational level…” She reminded that neither the Hindu Mahasabha nor the RSS took part in the Quit India movement.
Casolari concluded that the contact between fascism and Hindu nationalism resulted in militarising Hindu society and creating a militant mindset among the Hindus. At the same time, she points out, RSS’s shakha was a ‘typically Indian phenomenon’.
Coming back to the Moonje connection, the Italian scholar quoted from a British intelligence report published in 1933 to reveal how Moonje, the RSS and the fascist character of RSS were intimately inter-linked. The report, “Note on the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh”, she said, ascribed to Moonje the responsibility of the organisation of the Sangh in the Marathi speaking districts and in the Central Province in 1927. Describing the activity and the character of the RSS, the report warned: “It is perhaps no exaggeration to assert that the Sangh hopes to be in future India what the “Fascisti” are to Italy and the “Nazis” to Germany.”