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SAFFRON RAGE

Bajrang Dal flirting with terror?

With Increasing Attacks On Churches, Demand For A Ban On Saffron Outfit Grows Louder

Rajeev Deshpande | TNN

   Aug 25: Two die in Kanpur when a bomb explodes. It transpires these were Bajrang Dal activists who were making explosives
   Aug-Sept 2008: Spate of attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka. Karnataka unit head Mahendra Kumar arrested. Home ministry says Bajrang Dal is behind the attacks
   April 2006: Two Bajrang Dal activists died in Nanded while they were making bombs. The same group suspected to carrying out the 2003 Parbhani mosque blasts

In Jan 1999, a Dal mob led by its local leader, Dara Singh, burnt alive Graham Stains and his two little sons in Orissa

The Bajrang Dal is said to have been at the forefront of murderous gangs that killed Muslims and burnts their homes in Gujarat in 2002

On several ocassions, Dal activists have acted as moral police, catching unmarried couples on Valentineâs Day and forcing them to apply sindoor or tie rakhi against their wishes

The record of Bajrang Dalâs lawlessness is long. And now the Dal, the 24-year-old sword-arm of the Hindutva brigade, is in the news again â" as almost always, for the wrong reasons. A number of political leaders have been demanding its ban. Their argument: the Bajrang Dal, like groups such as SIMI, is an extremist organisation that are also flirting with terror.

In the middle of September, anti-church violence erupted in Mangalore where prayer halls of the evangelist New Life order were attacked. Soon violence enveloped other denominations, and then churches in Bangalore were vandalized. A month earlier similar anti-Christian attacks rocked Orissa and trouble is still simmering there.

In the middle of the violence that broke out in Mangalore was the figure of Mahendra Kumar, Bajrang Dal âconvenorâ for the state, who claimed responsibility for some of the attacks, and said they were a âspontaneous Hindu upsurgeâ. While the Dal said it was inflamed by New Lifeâs âconversion activitiesâ, prayer halls were not the only targets. The Adoration monastry, where nuns live a cloistered life, dedicated to prayer, was not spared either, its windows broken and crucifix vandalized.

Saffron groups and Christian organizations have clashed over conversions and re-conversions as they jostle for influence from remote tribal homelands of Rajasthanâs Banswara to the north-east. But every now and then, an orgy of violence breaks out. In August, the murder of pro-VHP Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in Orissaâs western areas led to fierce clashes between tribal Kandhs and Dalit Panas, which are yet to die down.

Strikingly at the forefront of many such acts of violence, are men with saffron headbands who seem to revel in their roles as saffron avengers, and claim to protect Hindu rights and privileges. Yet, their organisation, said to be affiliated to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as a âyouth wingâ, remains shadowy, a free-floating franchise to be grabbed by any lumpen set looking to vent grievances that have included âcultural pollutionâ of young couples holding hands on Valentineâs Day.

Who, or what, is Bajrang Dal? hinduunity.org, a website dedicated to âpromoting and supporting the ideals of Bajrang Dalâ, outlines the âthreatâ before Hindu samaj. âChristians have an upper hand with economies under their control, secondly petrodollars in hands of Muslims and thirdly, from within us, Hindus who falsely believe Hinduism can survive the onslaught in modern times as it has in the past.â

The web page notes that âIn times when Christians have openly taken on the task of harvesting us to Christianity, Muslims with their Jihad and the pseudo secularists, who will stop at nothing...very survival of Hinduism is at risk.â Its view of history is reflected in observations that Muslims should have taken âadvantageâ of the Partition of 1947, and left for other lands.

Ever since Bajrang Dal was set up in 1984, ostensibly to protect a VHP programme for âawakening societyââ, the outfitâs chain of command has been nebulous. It has had a few national convenors who have attracted notice like Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, Vinay Katiyar and Surendra Jain, two of whom have been BJP MPs as well. The current convenor, Prakash Sharma, is less well known, but VHP claims the organisation is not as loosely structured as the popular impression is.

As an organisation allied to the Sangh Parivar, it has come to be handy for channeling the fury of an underclass whose utility as foot soldiers is useful on occasion while allowing BJP to promptly dissociate itself from any outrageous act of violence. The Bajrang Dal and its cadre are like unwashed cousins at a family wedding who everyone pretends are not present at all, but who might have their uses in settling a land dispute.

But Bajrang Dal does crash the party every now and again as Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa found out, after initial indulgence towards its lumpen mobs. As the BJP government hastily moved to arrest Dal workers last week, it did so as in response to political pressure and spiraling violence, after initially grumbling about âconversion activitiesâ of church groups. This is because most Parivar leaders feel all church organizations are essentially engaged in âharvesting Hindu soulsâ. There is a failure to appreciate that many church orders are almost exclusively devoted to callings like education.

But a senior RSS leader expressed concern over the attacks in Bangalore. âVHP or Bajrang Dal people are not involved in these incidents. But still they are happening,â he said. Almost any group of discontented young men were rallying under the Bajrang banner, indulging in hooliganism. The RSS would soon be deliberating on the issue.

It is unclear whether RSS brass will actually check the Bajrang Dal but even if what the leader says is correct, it only shows that once violence is triggered, it is difficult to turn it off like a switch. And, given the profile that it has acquired, it is not easy to shrug off the Bajrang Dalâs actions. The BJP could not wish away Ashok Singhal & Co and VHP remains bitter over being âbetrayedâ by BJP on the Ram temple.

Neither BJP nor RSS have ever tried to squarely face up to the need to define their relations with VHP or Bajrang Dal. Neither has disowned the Dal, even part of it. Would they disown the more obscurantist agenda of the two organizations? BJP has opted for a piecemeal strategy of going along with the view that VHP is a âculturalâ organisation while looking the other way whenever the Bajrang Dal flexs its muscles.

This is fairly typical of the RSSâs tactics in describing itself as completely apolitical. While it is true that RSS has a lot less direct interest or even facility with politics, it is far from being otherworldly.