In contrast to both Italian fascism and Nazism the RSS does not rely on the central figure of the leader” (pp 63-64). As distinct from Nazism, RSS’s ideology treats society as an organism with a secular spirit. has been to downplay the role of the state we cannot classify it as a fascist movement.
But in a scholarly study, the French sociologist, Christophe Jaffrelot states, with evidence, that the RSS is neither a Hindu nor a fascist organisation. Nehru once described the RSS as “an injurious and dangerous organisation and fascist.extraordinarily narrow in outlook”. For instance, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s RSS ‘shakha’ in Gwalior had numerous Muslims. The RSS is a communitarian organisation, whose membership is open to all religions. The Arya Samaj is a reformist Vedic sect and not a political Hindu entity, whose followers belong to every shade of the spectrum from the Congress to the Communists. Their only commonality is that both are very convenient targets for secular fundamentalists. Kothari’s curious juxtaposition of two wholly dissimilar entities, the Arya Samaj and the RSS muddles the discourse. Even more dismaying is the blatant partisanship of the article which reads like a morality play with the Arya Samaj, the RSS, and Sindhi Hindus cast as Belzeebub and Satan, and the Sindhi Muslims as the Archangel Gabriel. The end result is an essay in casual empiricism. Oral evidence is peculiarly susceptible to the familiar perils of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (the very act of observation changes the process of event being observed) and the Rorschach Test (the identical ink-blot is interpreted differently by eyewitnesses). The evidence based on such an unrepresentative sample is wholly anecdotal, an inadequate basis for any robust inferences. We are not told how the other more numerous Hindu castes like the Bhaibunds, the Labana Rajputs, the Harijans, and the nomads of Tarparkar reacted to events. Her sample of informants too seems to be wholly confined to Amils. It is based on a total misconception of the true character of the Arya Samaj, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Sufi Islam in Sind, coupled with an uncritical reliance on an arbitrary sample of wholly oral evidence and a willing suspension of disbelief when evaluating the Muslim narrative, as, for instance, Hamida Khuhro’s article on ‘The Masjid Manzilgah, 1939-40, Test Case for Hindu-Muslim Relations’ (1998), which concedes that “in the resulting mess after the Manzilgah issue had been revived and bungled, it was the Hindus who had suffered the most in terms of lives and property lost” (pp 73-74), a finding conveniently omitted by Kothari. It omits major defining events that permanently jeopardised Sindhi Hindus, most notably, the statutory ban on the Arya Samaj scripture, Satyarth Prakash (1937-38) imposed by the Hidayatullah ministry the anti-Hindu depredations of Pir Pagaro and Pir Barchundi the inequities of Partition which completely by-passed Sindh the ghastly Karachi riots of January 1948 and the dire straits of Sindhi Hindus after Partition. To begin with, the very choice of an arbitrary period like 1942-48 is not explained.
Ita Kothari’s interesting essay ‘RSS in Sindh: 1942-48’ (EPW, July 8-15) raises several unanswered questions on highly controversial themes. Wadhwani L D – Dr.The Untold Betrayalof Sindhi Hindus ANAND CHANDAVARKAR Familiar, Popular Sindhi & Sindhi Professionals of Satna CityĪjaykumar Sukhramani – Ajay Tejwani – Amit Kamrani – Ashokkumar Gunwani – Ashok Vasani – Ashish Cheejwani – Baksharam Wadhwani – Bhagwandas Kapdi – Bharat Kamdar – Bhisham Valecha – Chandrakant Wadhwani – Chandrumal Sukheja – Dilip Bhojwani – Ferumal Tolwani – Gautam Manghnani – Ghanshyamdas Manshani – Ghanshyamdas Soni – Ghanshyamdas Wadhwani – Girdharilal Soni – Gopichand Gelani – Gurmukh Panjwani – Hariram Jivani -Hariram Kakwani – Harish Dasani – Harnamdas Manglani – Jaikishan Janvani – Jethanand Wadhwani – Jitendra Panjwani – Jitendra Wadhwani – Kanhaiyalal Kamdar – Khemchand Sukhani – Ladharam Varandani – Laxman Janvani – Mahesh Soni – Manoharlal Ahuja – Manoharlal Bhojwani – Manoharlal Digwani – Murlidhar Jagyasi – Prahlad Nagdev – Pawan Soni – Rajaldas Adwani – Rajaldas Gelani – Rajesh Kotwani – Ratanlal Rijhwani – Samanaram Kamdar – Santosh Notwani – Sudhir Ahuja – Sunil Sainani – Suraj Tekchandani – Sushil Jagyasi – Thakurdas Chhabdiya – Tulsidas Tolwani – Vikram Choudhari – Vinod Panjwani – Vijaykumar Jagyasi -Vijay Rijhwani – Virbhan Puraswani