Beyond the facade: Of all places, why Modi took Bibi to Sabarmati Ashram
On the first day of his state visit to India, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu was shown around the Sabarmati Ashram. While he tried his hand on a charkha, PM Narendra Modi watched over him benevolently in a photo which went viral. To what avail and purpose?
Honoured to take Mrs. Netanyahu and PM @netanyahu to the iconic Sabarmati Ashram. We paid homage to the venerable Bapu and remembered his noble thoughts. pic.twitter.com/0cv5KinQvc
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 17, 2018
Thank you to our good friend, Indian Prime Minister @narendramodi, who accompanied us today on our visit to Gandhi’s home, Sabarmati Ashram. This was a special and moving day. pic.twitter.com/WQrr45QWJY
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 17, 2018
It was a study of irony at various levels. The Sangh Parivar’s hostility against Mahatma Gandhi, the dark history of the BJP’s ideological mentor, the RSS and its part in Gandhi’s assassination, as well as Gandhi’s comments on Palestine, are well known and a matter of public record.
Gandhi had written: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
In view of both the roles of India’s Sangh Parivar in fomenting divisiveness and sectarianism, and Israel’s Likud Party and its atrocities against the Palestinian people, both of whom Gandhi would have bitterly opposed, that photo op in Sabarmati is an obscenity, only paralleled by another one:
In 2004, Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, school textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board portrayed Hitler as a hero, and glorified fascism. The Class 10 social studies textbook had chapters entitled "Hitler, the Supremo", and "Internal Achievements of Nazism". The section on the "Ideology of Nazism" reads:"Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race." The strong national pride that both these phenomena generated, the efficiency in the bureaucracy and the administration and other "achievements" are detailed, but pogroms against Jews and atrocities against trade unionists, migrant labourers, and any section of people who did not fit into Mussolini or Hitler''s definition of rightful citizen don't find any mention.
What An Irony! Violence Specialists Posing With Non-Violent Charkha!@netanyahu #GoRacistGo pic.twitter.com/PDwx9v4Eq6
— Asif_Mamji⚪️ (@Asif_Mamji) January 18, 2018
International dignitaries probably burst out laughing once back in the hotel room that in the age of Alexa there still exists a de-industrialized society backward enough to revere this wheel enough to exhibit its mystique to heads of state 3000 miles.https://t.co/Dpr8q27p2x
— The Learning Point (@learning_pt) January 18, 2018
VD Savarkar, had a great liking for Hitler’s Nazism and supported Hitlers anti-Jewish pogroms. "There is no reason to suppose that Hitler must be a human monster because he passes off as a Nazi," he said, addressing a Hindu gathering in 1940, adding, "Nazism proved undeniably the saviour of Germany." Seeking to purge Muslims from India, he wrote: "If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslim friends of the League type will have to play the part of German-Jews instead."
This fanatical admiration for Hitler and his genocidal agenda is not an aberration. It was, and still is, endemic among the RSS leadership. MS Golwalkar, the founding father of the RSS also known as “Guru Golwalkar” idolised Hitler’s Nazi cultural nationalism, and wanted to create a Hindu nation by adopting Hitler’s totalitarian and fascist pattern. In his 1939 book, We, Our Nationhood Defined, he wrote: "German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races - the Jews ... a good lesson for us in Hindustan for us to learn and profit by."
It would be naïve to assume that Netanyhu is unaware of all this, but then today’s Jews of the Likud-National Liberal Movement are a far cry themselves from the Jews who were driven into concentration camps and gassed by the Nazis. There would be nothing “anti-Semitic” in comparing their genocides of the Palestinians with their former oppressors. There is nothing more organically sound than two such fundamentalist leaders coming together and breaking bread.
Yet the realpolitik of convenience requires disconnects to be papered over, and public perception to be shallow and accepting. It requires paying homage to the icons that people hold dear without any exploration beyond the fact that they were “great” people.
The woeful lack of any leaders of stature of their own makes the BJP appropriate leaders whose lives and beliefs contradicted them completely.
Ambedkar too is one of them. In 1923, Ambedkar captured the essence of the Hindu Right, as a “purely political” movement “whose main object and aim is to combat the influence of the Muslims in Indian politics.” To do so, Ambedkar wrote, the Hindu Right has to “preserve its political strength,” for which it must “maintain social solidarity, and its way to maintain social solidarity is not to talk about caste or untouchability.”
Yet, on Ambedkar Jayanti, Modi, keeping in mind the Dalit vote, has to pay floral tributes at Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur as he did last year and tweet that he was "extremely honoured" to be visiting Nagpur, on the "very special occasion".
A mammoth statue of Sardar Patel has to be built, keeping the Patel community in mind, at enormous cost - the very same Patel who banned the RSS and found its fanaticism loathsome in these words:
“Hindu Raj…that mad idea….all their (RSS) speeches were full of communal poison. As a final result of that poison an atmosphere was created in which such a ghastly tragedy (Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination) became possible…RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death.”
In what kind of world view and understanding of history does Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose and Savarkar exist on the same page in cosy camaraderie?
The lip service to Gandhi, the eulogising speeches and garlanding of statues, celebration of Godse, the appropriation of both Ambedkar and Patel, the hatred of Nehru and yet the same praise alloted to him in government functions and the like, and you have a very confusing pickle.
In this mishmash, where everyone is paid obeisance to equally in an officially pious display, but with dark mutterings in private and through proxies, we are not looking at history and historical figures in any informed way. We are looking a pantheon. Take your pick. Choose an idol. And like Shaivites and Vaishavites have fought through the centuries and the different cults have vied with each other as pressure groups to dominate political space, Subhash, Babasaheb, Mohandas and Damodar too will have their following bickering with each other till the end of time. One is sure the likes of "Double Shri" Ravishankar and Ramdev can be added to that mix.
An icon is an image that represents an entire family of beliefs, a gestalt of common impressions - that is not created overnight. Rather, it evolves, by the same process of natural selection as you and I stand, at the top of the food chain - by ruthless and brutal elimination of all other brands that aspire to be icons. In its final stage, it is a referent that many turn to as an anchor in an uncertain world and an emblem to stand behind during insecure times. As in, “My country, right or wrong.” It is pointless to counter an icon by invoking fair play and parity of beliefs.
In Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, the astronomer is told, “It is an unfortunate country indeed which has not produced any heroes.” To which he replies, “It is an unfortunate country indeed that requires only heroes.”
Throughout history, tyrants have deliberately manufactured climates of paranoia, insecurity and emergency where none exist, to consolidate their hold on people and project themselves as their only saviours, and then, in lieu of bread, distributed icons to their hysterical populations to suckle on. By harvesting the fertile alluvium of mythology and folk legends, culling and discarding according to their needs, editing and annotating as per their convenience, they produce the fruit - the icon - to be marketed for universal consumption. A little like a Bollywood film.
Today at the Taj Mahal. A place of serenity, love, and infinite beauty. pic.twitter.com/jucktTm6p7
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 16, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin @netanyahu and his wife Sara pose for a photograph at the Taj Mahal. This was the first visit by an Israeli Prime Minister to India in 15 years. https://t.co/Pqa2Yu1kNC pic.twitter.com/phoLwezbew
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 20, 2018
On the second day, when he visited the Taj Mahal accompanied by the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Netanyhu was presumably not given an earful on how it was actually an ancient temple called Tejo Mahalaya or alternately, a symbol of imposition by foreign invaders. As one wag on social media put it, “After all the comments disparaging Taj Mahal and its origins, Adityanath should instead have shown Bibi a few goshalas as national monuments and be done with it, no?