POLITICAL IDEAS OF '100 PERCENT SWAYAMSEVAK' DEEN DAYAL UPADHYAY IN HIS OWN WORDS

POLITICAL IDEAS OF '100 PERCENT SWAYAMSEVAK' DEEN DAYAL UPADHYAY IN HIS OWN WORDS

These are Deendayal Upadhyay (1916-1968, hereafter referred as DDU) times in India under Modi government. The present Modi government has announced almost 16 public schemes majority of which are named after him. How omnipresent he is in the current regime can be gauged by the fact that Ram Nath Kovind after taking oath as President of the Republic in his ceremonial speech vowed to build "an egalitarian society, as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and Deen Dayal Upadhyay ji". Incidentally, never in the past, even during the prime minister-ship of AB Vajpayee, a senior RSS cadre, Upadhyay was never considered fit for such honours. RSS ideologue, Rakesh Sinha (The Indian Express, September 21, 2017) is right in complaining that "most people have remained ignorant of Upadhyaya’s ideas for decades" despite the second Supremo of RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, describing him as “100 per cent swyamsevak”.Rakesh also scents a conspiracy behind belittling the importance of DDU as latter's inclusion would have meant "diminution of Gandhi and Nehru" in the list of greats of India. Such complaints surely are directed against RSS/BJP rulers too who ruled India from 1998 to 2004.

Sinha is out to undo the injustice done to DDU, an "original thinker", "a man devoted to the good of his country, a person of unimpeachable character" who wanted "to decolonise Indian political thought" which was largely western oriented, who overriding the binary of Right-Left divide propounded “third way” known as "philosophy of integral humanism" which "provided a holistic idea of human welfare".

Let's compare this eulogy of DDU with his ideas which are being produced from the RSS publications.

When DDU talked of India as a country, it was not democratic-secular India. According to him we may call our culture with whatever name, "it is in the final analysis, Hindu culture. This culture was developed by people who were known in this land as the Hindus and so it has existed, without doubt, as Hindu Rashtra from times immemorial.”[C. P. Bhishikar, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya: Ideology and Perception: Concept of the Rashtra,vol. v, Suruchi, Delhi, 23.]

He did not believe in an all-inclusive India or Indian nationalism. According to him: “Hindutva alone is the basis of nationalism in Bharat…we must really understand Bhartiya nationalism which is Hindu nationalism, and Bharatiya culture which is Hindu culture.” [Ibid., 120-21] DDU decried attempt by Congress "to look upon Hindus, Muslims, Christians etc, as 'nationals' and forge them into an integrated force against the foreign rule". [Ibid., 19.]

When DDU talked of decolonising he did not mean liberating from the British imperialism. DDU joined RSS in 1937. There is no record in the RSS archives to show that he ever participated in the freedom struggle like MS Golwalkar, LK Advani or any other leader/cadre of RSS. He opposed the freedom struggle because its goal was not establishment of a Hindu State. He justified non-participation in the joint freedom struggle in the following words:“We were obsessed by the misleading notion that freedom consisted merely in overthrowing foreign rule. Opposition to a foreign government does not necessarily imply genuine love of Motherland…During the struggle for independence great emphasis was laid on the opposition to British rule…It came to be believed that whoever opposed the British was a patriot. A regular campaign was launched in those days to create utter dissatisfaction against the British by holding them responsible for every problem and misery which the people in our country had to face. This one-sided, negative notion of patriotism was chiefly responsible for the utter neglect of real, positive love of the land. No deep consideration was given to questions like whose nation this is.”[Ibid.,11.]

Like any other ideologue of the RSS DDU believed in the inherent inequality in the Hindu society. It was called 'integral humanism'. He described Casteism as natural. He called it swadharma (one’s own religion). According to him: “The concept of equality has to be accepted with discretion. Our actual experience is that from the practical and material point of view, no two men are alike. Their looks and colour of skin and their physical build are different as are their inherent qualities. Considerable bitterness could be avoided if the idea of equality as conceived by Hindu thinkers is studied more carefully. The first and basic premise is that even if men have different qualities and different kinds of duties allotted to them according to their qualities or aptitudes, all duties are equally dignified. This is called swadharma, and there is an unequivocal assurance that to follow swadharma is itself equivalent to the worship of God. So, in any duties performed to fulfill swadharma, the question of high and low, dignified and undignified does not arise at all.” [Ibid., 169.]So it was Manu talking through DDU!

Moreover, he was a perennial Muslim and Christian basher. According to him they must identify "themselves with the Hindu Culture" or be lost.

He was not prepared for any compromise on this issue. He looked upon (Hindu) culture as the soul of nationalism." He called upon Hindus to become “aggressive nationalists, not ready to accept any compromise on national level and not tolerating any anti-national action". [Ibid., 161.]He described all the Muslims of India a "complex problem" which Hindus were facing for last twelve hundred years.” DDU wanted Muslims to be 'purified' (parishkarit) which gave birth to the RSS projects like ghar wapsi.

It is intriguing that Rakesh Sinha keeps mum about the 'murder' of DDU whose body was found at Mughalsarai station on February 11, 1968. According to Balraj Madhok a life-long pracharak of the RSS who died in 2016, "the murder of Deendayal was not undertaken by Communists or some robber [as alleged by the RSS] but he was killed by a hired assassin. Conspirators who sponsored this killing were those self-seekers and leaders with criminal bent of mind of Sangh-Jan Sangh (predecessor of BJP).”[Balraj Madhok, Zindagi Ka Safar—3: Deen Dayal Upadhyay Ki Hatya Se Indira Gandhi Ki Hatya Tak, Dinman Prakashan, Delhi, 22, 23.]

Shamsul Islam