In 2018, I wrote about the appropriation of idols that the RW in India seems to be carrying out, with no shame or even fear of being caught out, and questioned at the end of that article whether we Indians are indeed that stupid not to notice.
Let me try and explain based on my understanding (as has improved from 2018 till date) why the BJP and its RW kambhakts like:
1. Bose: He met with Hitler and shook his hand. The RW’s mind-twisting contortionist obsession with Hitler (because: he taught an ethnic minority a lesson and showed them their place) as well as Israel (because, Muslim-hate) is well-known. Bose’s INC connection, his hate for the Hindu Mahasabha, his personal beef with Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, his secular credentials, his embracing Urdu as the official language of his government in exile, and so on do not register on the RW radar. That is all immaterial in front of his jackboots and uniform and his handshake with their toothbrush-moustachioed one-testicled hero with hate as his only weapon. Another thing is his mysterious death and Nehru’s apparent silence on his legacy (even while secretly making sure his family was well-looked-after), along with his dying young.
2. Patel: He was not Nehru. That, in many ways, explains it all. But let us delve deeper. He was a strongman who united India (and the idea of Akhand Bharat is something that makes right-wingers come prematurely in their knickers). In his various acts as Dy PM and HM of a newly partitioned country (which was the result of a religious divide), he was more pragmatic than Nehru about how far religion can be used by the enemy in creating a fifth column, turncoats, and spies. He was Gujarati and a visibly Hindu Hindu (to Nehru’s atheist). His banning of the RSS, his secular nature, his lifetime service to the nation via his party, the INC, his deep friendship with JLN, his acceptance of Gandhi as his spiritual superior, all of that melt away in the hate-fuelled love the RW feels for Patel. It also helped that he died soon after independence and many coulda-shoulda-woulda stories can be made up now.
3. Bhagat Singh: He used guns and bombs. Material used in violence always gives the RW a hard-on anywhere in the world. Nothing matters once you picture a young Bhagat Singh with a bomb in his hand. Also, revenge. While Bhagat Singh saw himself as a political prisoner, the RW sees his ‘crime’ as that of ‘revenge’ alone and his surrender to the police and wanting to be classified as a political prisoner and having his day in court has no bearing on anything. The RW loves revenge. Indeed, their entire lives are full of feelings of vengeance, all of which stem from their own insecurities and lack of real idols who have transcended their animal nature, either in themselves, or have led movements to help others do so in them. It is enough that Bhagat Singh used guns and bombs to exact revenge, and was then not ‘saved’ by Gandhi (ask anyone details of this and they’ll have absolutely no idea, but they will claim this fact or the nuances around it as if Bhagat Singh wrote to them from jail personally about this). Also, as with the other heroes, he died young. And a long time ago. That helps, because then you can make up whatever stories you want about them, regardless of the wealth of knowledge, literature, and even their own writings and statements, all of which pale in the bright light of truth from WhatsAppU.
4. Ambedkar: How can they like this man, you ask? He wrote the Constitution, which is decidedly secular in its very nature, he wrote in reservations (which are, as everyone knows, against a meritorious society), he kicked Hinduism in its balls, switched religion, and got millions of his followers to do so too. Yes. It’s a mystery why this man finds himself in the RW pantheon. But there is a simple explanation: there are too many of his followers for the RW to ignore and hope to win or remain in power. The RW kambhakt secretly hates him, but has to include him in their list of idols to worship at the feet of because they know that if this man’s followers walk out on their (the RW’s) version of Hinduism and nationalism, Indianness and patriotism, development and safety, national honour and reputation, they will collapse in a heap, back to the 2 seats they held when people still recognised them for the wolves in sheep’s clothing they were. Ambedkar’s inclusion on the BJP’s election manifesto and banners is political expediency. Nothing ideological. It is like their worship of female goddesses like Kali and Durga, Saraswati and Laxmi, Vaishnodevi and Parvati, none of which has anything to do with their respect for women, but is explained more easily by their need for the women voters and votes.
5. Gandhi: Ah, the apostle of peace, of secularism, of self-sacrifice, of equality, the man who gave up wearing too many clothes because his countryfolk had none, he who wanted to see a Dalit girl as India’s Prime Minister, the spiritual and political baap of almost every influential Indian in the larger part of the mid-20th century. But the RW loves him for his technology phobia, his insistence on abstinence, his tee-total vegetarian diet, his gau-raksha, his advice to dismantle the INC once independence was won, and much more of his impractical and obscure thought rather than the greatest tool he gave any oppressed people to use effectively against the oppressor without actually hating the oppressor! But no. They don’t love him for Ahimsa. They don’t understand Nidartaa. They don’t even approve of Satyagraha. What they love is gau-raksha. So, yes. Gandhi makes the cut. That. And he was Gujarati. Like Patel.
So, here are my reasons why in spite of the sterling and completely non-RW, indeed anti-RW credentials of these larger-than-life leaders, the RW is insistent on including them in their lineup of idols and Gods. I am sure there are others, but these are the ones I can think of.
And of course, we are that stupid.
