BY JAVED ANAND
In July 2010 well-known secular activist Suresh
Khairnar spent several hours at the Goa headquarters of the Sanatan
Sanstha and came out convinced that it is the most rabid Hindu
organisation in the country, engaged in an attempt to Talibanise Hindus.
For various reasons we were unable to publish an interview he gave to
Javed Anand within days of his Goa visit. With recent news
reports indicating that the Maharashtra government is preparing a case
for a ban on this organisation, which has been implicated in several
bomb blasts since 2008, we are publishing the interview now, as it
remains topical.
Q: Khairnarji, you made a
special visit to Goa just to visit the office of the Sanatan Sanstha
(SS) and to find out more about the organisation, its aims and its
activities. What prompted your decision?
A: The Sanatan Sanstha has often been in the news
in the last two years. It is implicated by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of
the Maharashtra police in a bomb blast in a Thane theatre in 2008, where
the play Amhi Pachpute was being staged. A similar incident had
taken place in Panvel town earlier where the same play was staged.
That’s the first time I got to hear of this organisation. Then, around
Diwali in 2009, there was an accidental blast in Margao in which two of
their own people died. Apparently, the accident took place while they
were trying to plant a bomb somewhere.
Following the incident, I received several calls from
secular activists based in Goa. Some people seem to think I am some kind
of expert at conducting investigations. But I could not go then because
of my other commitments.
Then some 15 days ago (in July 2010) I read an SS
statement in the newspapers. It was claimed that it had made an
application to the home ministry under the Right to Information Act,
seeking information on whether the SS was implicated in terror
activities and if so, on what basis. The statement claimed the ministry
had given the SS a clean chit.
This news made me even more curious about the
organisation. Since the SS seems to have no presence in Nagpur, the city
where I live, I contacted my friends in Goa to try and collect more
information on this outfit. But they insisted that I must visit Goa and
do the investigating myself. So I agreed and on July 19 (2010) I went to
Goa and headed straight for the ‘Ramnathi’ headquarters of the SS. It
has a four-acre campus situated some 20 km from Margao town. At the
reception centre I disclosed my real identity, stated the purpose of my
visit and requested a meeting with any office-bearer of the SS.
I was kept waiting for nearly half an hour in the
reception hall. It’s a very impressive reception lounge, about 500-600
square feet in area, with a 15-foot high ceiling. On display all over
were slogans on wall hangings and posters with slogans mostly in Hindi
and Marathi calling for ‘Hindu awakening’ and ‘defence of Hindus’, etc.
Also on display were highly provocative slogans targeting Christians and
Muslims.
Q: Can you give some
examples?
A: Yes, ‘Hindus must speak out against their
oppression by Goa’s Christians’, ‘Look at what Muslims are doing all
over the world’ and so on.
Q: Please proceed...
A: After a long wait, I was received by Mr
Prithviraj Hazare who introduced himself as the editor-in-chief of the
organisation’s mouthpiece, Sanatan Prabhat, which is published in
several languages – Marathi, Hindi, English, Gujarati, Kannada. They
have recently started a daily newspaper too, under the same title.
While I waited, I glanced through that day’s
Sanatan Prabhat, a four-page daily. The paper’s declared mission was
spelt out in the banner line: ‘A newspaper to highlight and protest
against atrocities on Hindus’. To my great surprise, not even one news
item in its four pages had anything to do with the major news of the day
or about daily concerns of people: political developments, price rise,
unemployment, earthquakes, nothing. Every news item had to do with
atrocities against Hindus.
Q: For example?
A: ‘Muslim boys beaten up in Digras (a small town
in Maharashtra, hundreds of kilometres away from Goa) for teasing Hindu
girl’. All other news too highlighted conflict between Hindus on the one
hand and Muslims and Christians on the other. The news reports were
interspersed with ‘editor’s comments’ such as: “How long are Hindus
going to tolerate these atrocities?”, “How long will Hindus tolerate
molestation of their women?” The comments were all in bold or larger
fonts compared to the news text!
I introduced myself to Hazare as the national
convener of the All India Secular Forum. I asked him whether it was true
that the Sanatan Sanstha had got a clean chit from the home ministry
with regard to terrorist activities. He replied in the affirmative. I
asked him how this could be so, since his outfit had been implicated in
the Thane/ Panvel blasts and also in the accidental blast in Goa. He
claimed that the Goa chief minister had made a statement in the state
assembly absolving the SS of any role in extremist activities. He added
that no SS worker had been convicted in any court of law to date.
I asked him then about the history of the SS, its
aims and activities. He said it was started in 1993 by Dr Jayant
Athavale, a practising psychiatrist from Mumbai. Pointing to a person
who was there, he credited him with being the first person to
“establish” how what are claimed to be modern scientific discoveries and
inventions – the atom bomb, aircrafts, computers, etc – were known to
our sages and find mention in ancient Hindu scriptures. In other words,
India was an advanced civilisation until invaders arrived and destroyed
our civilisation and its achievements. It was on the initiative of this
admirer of Dr Athavale’s that the SS chose Goa as its headquarters.
Earlier, while I waited to meet Hazare, I was
intrigued by the titles of some of the books displayed in the reception
hall: ‘Importance of ornaments’, ‘How ornaments influence our bodies’,
‘How our modes of dress, food habits influence our mental process’. To
me these books and booklets seemed to be attempts at nothing but mind
control. Incidentally, Dr Athavale is also known to have conducted
workshops on hypnotism. Today, for the SS, he is no longer just a doctor
but ‘Param Pujya (His Holiness)’, ‘Paramhans (Spiritual Master)’.
While I was talking to Athavale, I noticed the
presence of several foreigners, especially women who were dressed
Indian-style, on the premises. I was told that these people had been
impressed by SS literature and that is why they were there, to learn the
Hindu mode of living and worshipping. Hazare claimed the SS already had
1,315 centres across the globe.
Q: In that case, should we
not see the SS and its leader, Dr Athavale, as one among many new age
gurus with a large following overseas?
A: No; according to me, the SS is the most rabid,
aggressive Hindu organisation I have ever known. Certainly, there are
many sadhus, mahants and maharajs who have contributed to the
‘Hinduisation’ of India (similar to the ‘Islamisation’ of Muslims) in
recent decades. But of all the so-called Hindu spiritual leaders and
groups that I have come across in my life, the SS is the most
aggressive. They are nothing less than a ‘Hindu Taliban’.
Q: Why do you say that?
A: I say this having glanced through some of
their literature at the Ramnathi in Goa, seen their method of
functioning, and looking at their growth chart. I cannot think of
another organisation that has expanded at this exponential rate in a
mere 17 years. The organisation was formed in 1993. In 2010 it has a
magazine published in several languages from five different centres,
runs a daily newspaper, claims to have published hundreds of books and
booklets and proclaims a countrywide presence. What does all this tell
us?
Q: You could say the same
things about the sangh parivar
too?
A: No, I would not say that. I live in Nagpur,
the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). I often visit
the RSS headquarters to find out what’s being published, activities
being planned, etc. I have been looking at RSS literature for a long
time. To date I have not seen anything there compared to what the SS has
been producing.
Q: Why? Doesn’t the RSS also
talk of atrocities against Hindus for over a thousand years and so on?
A: Yes, they do but they do it in a sophisticated
way. The Sanatan Sanstha is crude, more head-on, more like Bal
Thackeray. But Thackeray is a novice compared to these fellows. The SS,
according to me, is way ahead of the likes of Thackeray, Praveen Togadia,
Sadhvi Ritambhara. And they are an independent outfit, similar to that
of Lt Col Srikant Purohit (Abhinav Bharat). What is particularly
striking and disturbing are the inroads they have made in a state like
Goa, otherwise known as a laid-back, peaceful society. The influence of
the SS is growing rapidly in Goa. I will not be surprised if Goa is
turned into another Kashmir-like situation by the SS in the coming
years. Incidentally, their initial headquarters were in Panvel from
where they have shifted to Goa.
Q: You believe this shift is
a well-thought-out move.
A: No doubt about it. With a significant
population in Goa being Christians and many of them being reasonably
well off, convincing Hindus that they are the “enemy” should be a
relatively easier task.
I asked Hazare whether there was any difference
between the SS and the RSS. In a way our efforts are complimentary, we
do not see them as rivals, he said. But was there any organisational
affiliation? Hazare said, no, the SS is a totally independent
initiative.
During the two hours or so that I spent in the
reception area I had noticed the presence of around 15 people. Later, I
was invited to lunch and was taken inside to the dining hall on the
first floor. That’s when I noticed that there were some 300-400 people,
all busy doing their own thing in different rooms. I was amazed at the
all-pervasive silence of the place, the trance-like state of the people
there. No smiles, no light-hearted conversation, no laughter anywhere.
It was as if everyone there was filled with some sense of purpose.
I was shown around the place and introduced to
people. Here was someone who had left her job as head of the
microbiology department of Goa University to join the SS. This computer
engineer too had left his job and so had the SS’s construction engineer
who had held a senior civil engineer’s post earlier.
Q: Why did they do so?
A: I was told they are here in the service of
Hinduism just as Muslims and Christians serve their own religions.
People find self-fulfilment in our organisation and that is why the
message is spreading fast, I was told. Despite the glib talk however, I
became increasingly convinced that Dr Athavale was using his own
understanding of human psychology to mould minds just as the fascists
had done in Germany and the communists did in the Soviet era. What is
being attempted here is some cocktail of science and spiritualism which
apparently finds favour with today’s generation.
Q: But I am still unable to
see the connection that you obviously do between the Hindu ritualism and
spiritualism they claim to be promoting and the acts of terrorism that
the SS is implicated in. You say they are far more dangerous than the
sangh parivar
could ever be; you call them the Hindu Taliban. Are you being
oversensitive or overreacting?
A: Look, I have been a social activist for over
40 years now. For the last 20 years, since the 1989 carnage in Bhagalpur
(Bihar), communalism has been my exclusive concern. Whatever I have
read, heard, experienced, about Hindu communalism or Muslim communalism,
from all the literature that I have studied of communal organisations –
the RSS, VHP, Jamaat-e-Islami, Popular Front of India, Muslim League –
from what I understand of Zionism and the Taliban, the SS belongs in a
class of its own. I think of the speed with which it has expanded in a
mere 17 years, looking at the body language of all the people I saw at
the SS campus, almost all of whom seem to be in a trance, points to
something disturbing.
For example, I saw a youth there, named Neelkanth,
who I will remember for the rest of my life. I found the look in his
eyes very disturbing. I walked up to him and tried talking to him but it
was almost impossible to connect. He seemed like a completely programmed
automaton who would not think twice about acting on any command from his
handlers. Neelkanth seemed to me an ideal product of the SS project. I
wondered if they produced Neelkanths in all their centres. And how many?
Very curiously, despite my repeated queries and offer
to pay, they would not part with any of their printed literature. The
answer was that they do not sell any literature on the campus. From
where then could I buy their literature? “No, we don’t have any such
centres”, was the response. All they gave me was a sanitised publicity
brochure about activities like eye camps, etc. It was probably specially
conceived for public consumption.
Q: This is really curious.
An organisation with hundreds of centres across the globe, so many
publications, books, booklets, CDs, acting so coy about parting with or
selling any of its literature is surprising.
A: Isn’t that interesting? Another interesting
thing I noticed at the SS headquarters was the young children in the
10-15 age group on the campus, all dressed in similar fashion.
Smart-looking, they seemed to come from well-to-do families, all of them
sporting a shendi (pigtail). I asked Hazare about the children.
He replied that the SS has started a school with an eight-10-year course
for turning out purohits (priests). He explained that this
activity had been initiated in view of the increasing difficulties
Hindus faced in finding purohits for Hindu rituals and
ceremonies. He claimed that the students were from good Hindu families
who had been performing brilliantly in normal schools until their
parents chose to enrol them at the purohit school. I was told
that currently there were 11 children enrolled. Out of curiosity, I
inquired about the caste background and was told that 10 of them were
Brahmins while one was from a Kshatriya family. I asked whether students
from Dalit or OBC (other backward class) families could also join. Why
not, replied Hazare, the SS has no problems with it except that such
children coming from poor backgrounds were more career-oriented. What
about female students? No problem, said Hazare, pointing to the
significant female presence on the SS campus.
Q: Did you meet some police
officers, civil servants or politicians in Goa and talk to them about
their views on the SS?
A: No. Unfortunately, I had only a day in Goa and
had no time to meet others. But I did speak to activists from an
interfaith group in Goa after my day at the SS headquarters. I shared
with them my experience of the place and the people there and voiced
concern that in the days to come the SS might turn Goa into a conflict
zone like Kashmir. These activists had very little knowledge of the SS;
none of them had ever visited the Ramnathi campus. I guess after the SS
was implicated in the bomb blasts, they would have been even more
circumspect about doing so.
Q: How would you sum up your
understanding of the SS?
A: Based on my understanding of what fascism is,
I have not the least doubt that this is a fascist outfit. The mind
control at work, the trance-like state of the people I saw or met in Goa,
the body language, the look in their eyes, their highly charged state,
all these remind me of Hitler’s SS at work in Germany. I have met people
from many Hindu and Muslim communal organisations; the youth always seem
so charged up. But there’s something far more ominous here. I would say
that I did not see normal mortals at Ramnathi. Instead, they all seemed
to me to be malleable clay there to be shaped according to some grand
design.
Q: The Shiv Sena, the
Bajrang Dal, are no comparison according to you?
A: Absolutely. The Shiv Sena, for example, has
virtually no literature with which to nurture its cadre. It stands on
the shoulders of one individual. Even the RSS is not too concerned about
flooding its cadre’s minds with literature. Propaganda work at
shakhas (cells) and shishu mandirs (schools) seem adequate
for their purpose. But with the SS it is different. Here is a
carefully-thought-out, all-embracing mind control technique at work.
What alarms me most of all is their exponential growth. They claim they
are growing rapidly in Goa, the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Karnataka
and elsewhere.
Q: Does the SS share the
sangh parivar’s
Hindu Rashtra ideal?
A: I believe their goal is the same. But the SS
is like a different sect, just as even among the Marxists you have so
many factions. Though I do not know this for sure, I would not be
surprised if, like the Savarkarites and Abhinav Bharat, they too
consider the RSS to be an impotent organisation.
Q: You were telling me
earlier about some Goa minister’s wife being involved with the SS?
A: Yes, it’s a fact. I do not recall the name of
the Goa minister in the cabinet but his wife is an SS volunteer and a
regular fixture at their headquarters.
Q: So what should we expect
from the SS in the days to come?
A: Let’s see what comes out of the Thane, Panvel
and Margao blast cases. Perhaps they slipped up, made some mistakes, and
might change their strategy in the coming period. I am particularly
concerned about their attempt to exploit the social demography of Goa.
Q: It seems that the SS has
no problem as far as resources are concerned.
A: That’s a good question. I asked Hazare about
this. He replied that he was in no way concerned with finances and
accounts.
Q: Is there anything more
you’d like to add?
A: Just to say that I have not the least doubt that the SS is an
experiment in building aggressive Hindu organisation and creating a
Hindu Taliban in India.