In his book, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase , Gandhi’s secretary, Pyarelal, writes that the partition of India in 1947 and the horrific vio...
In his book, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Gandhi’s secretary, Pyarelal, writes that the partition of India in 1947 and the horrific violence that accompanied it “provided a fruitful soil for Hindu chauvinism. Its most serious manifestation was infiltration of the Hindu middle class and even the Government services by the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]. It had begun to command the secret sympathy even of a section of Hindu Congressmen.”
Pyarelal then outlined for his readers what this organisation of Hindu chauvinists stood for, and what its aims were. Thus he wrote: “The RSS was a communalist, para-military, Fascist organisation... Their declared object was to set up Hindu Raj. They had adopted the slogan, ‘Muslims clear out of India.’ At the time they were not very active, at least overtly, but it was being darkly hinted that they were only waiting for all the Hindus and Sikhs in West Pakistan to be evacuated. They would then wreak full vengeance on the Indian Muslims for what Pakistan had done.”
As newly-independent India grappled with the wounds of Partition and the plight of the refugees, it faced a serious threat from within, an internal enemy, so to speak. This was the rising tide of Hindu chauvinism. In the...
