One Cohesive Hindu Society

By April 1940, before he arrived in Nagpur, Dr Mookerjee had begun articulating his party’s—the Hindu Mahasabha’s—political creed, philosophy, and programme across the country, and emphasised the need for Hindu unity. His presidential address at the Barak Valley and Shillong Hill District Hindu Conference, held in Sylhet on 6 and 7 April 1940, was an important statement “on certain general questions of policy affecting the growth of the Hindu movement.”

It would be interesting to look at some of Dr Mookerjee’s statements, since there has been a sustained campaign of misinformation and vilification, distorting the Hindu Mahasabha’s and Dr Mookerjee’s political moves and decisions made around this time. “The Hindu Mahasabha stands primarily for the consolidation of the Hindus throughout India on a broad national basis,” Dr Mookerjee told the Barak Valley and Shillong Hill District Hindu Conference. “The word ‘Hindu’ is used in the widest sense possible, and includes every son and every daughter of India who regards this land as their fatherland and professes a religion of Indian origin. From this point of view, a Buddhist, a Jain, a Sikh are welcome to stand united under the banner of the Hindu Mahasabha for the common good of the country.”

Increasing cases of defilement of Hindu images were being reported from several districts of Bengal. Sirajganj sub-division of Pabna district in East Bengal, historian Anil Chandra Banerjee tells us, “earned special notoriety”, seeing 16 such cases occurring in a single month, in April 1939. Banerjee described the communal modus operandi: “Generally, the images were damaged and broken; sometimes they were garlanded with bones of cows. It appears from the reports of the District Magistrates and the Sub-Divisional Officers that these outrages were the result of ‘reckless and irresponsible speeches delivered by Muslim League leaders in huge gatherings attended by illiterates.’” Cases of atrocities on Hindu women were on the rise “in the villages where the Muslims were in an overwhelming majority.”

As he described the situation to Doctorji, Syama Prasad’s voice choked with emotion. “Organising a martial Hindu protection force in Bengal had become an urgent necessity; Hindus could not survive otherwise,” he argued. H.V. Seshadri records that, silently listening to him and knowing in depth the political and social texture of Bengal, Doctorji argued that it cannot be forgotten that “there is a Muslim government in Bengal” which will not “tolerate a Hindu militia”, and they also have the support of the British. For them, “the rise of Hindu power is a nightmare”; they will not tolerate an organisation of Hindus that Syama Prasad was planning.

On Syama Prasad’s query on the way forward, Doctorji laid out the roadmap. It was his well-thought-out and deeply reflected thesis. “Whether it is Punjab or Bengal or any other province,” he told Syama Prasad, “the chief cause of the pitiable plight of the Hindus is want of organisation among themselves,” and as long as this was not addressed, no solution was possible. “Hindus will continue to undergo such travails at one place or another,” and the “situation cannot be transformed by half-baked retaliatory measures. The Hindus must be made to feel intensely that they are one single cohesive society. The concept of one nationhood must be deeply engraved in their hearts. They must love one another and share the common goal of raising up our country. This is the only way, the only positive and enduring way of national resurrection.” The Sangh was doing just that. It was working on that programme.

Doctorji had laid bare an actionable roadmap before Syama Prasad. Syama Prasad was moved and suggested that the Sangh “take part in politics.” Doctorji replied that the Sangh was “not interested in day-to-day politics”, but with “the support and blessings of enlightened people like” Syama Prasad, he had no doubt that the Sangh’s work in Bengal would grow fast, and the “protection and help needed by the Hindus will thus become automatically available.” Syama Babu, writes Seshadri, was “deeply impressed” with Doctorji’s confident and reassuring words, and “it was apparent that both had developed close rapport in their feelings and views.”

Soon, Dr Mookerjee wrote to Doctorji that he wished to start a training camp near Calcutta, similar to the one he had seen at Nagpur, from 18 June onwards. He expected more than a hundred trainees to take part and requested Doctorji to depute “a few experienced instructors who could impart physical, military and intellectual training” to the participants. While the arrangement was being made, Nana Palkar tells us in his biography of Doctorji that around a dozen swayamsevaks from Calcutta, who were in the Nagpur training camp, gathered to pay their respects to him. Doctorji, writes Nana Palkar, “having spent many years in Kolkata, was deeply concerned about the situation there.” He addressed the swayamsevaks from Bengal in Bengali. He emphasised that pracharaks can be sent to Bengal, but “the real work will not be done just by sending pracharaks. The work must be done by people in that area itself. They must pull all their efforts towards this.”

While addressing the Faridpur Hindu Conference in the middle of June 1940, a report dated June 18, 1940, in the Hindusthan Standard notes that Syama Prasad spoke of the need to organise a strong Hindu volunteer force and to take up immediately the “work of Hindu Sanghathan.” It echoed the words and direction he had received from Doctorji in Nagpur.

Speaking of the policy pursued by the Muslim League-dominated ministry in Bengal, Dr Mookerjee said that their policy made it imperative that the Hindus should fight for their rights with unabated vigour and strength. Mere passing of resolutions of protest would not meet the situation…the people should refuse to accept wrong and unjust decisions either in silence or in whispering protests.” The Hindus of Bengal, Dr Mookerjee “averred, had suffered because they had failed to unite and fight against deliberate wrongs done to them.” In these critical times, it was thus necessary “to shake off fear and mutual suspicion and resolutely combine for carrying on a struggle which would bring progress and freedom not only to themselves but to their province and country, which they had served in a spirit of sacrifice since the beginning of the freedom movement in India.”

The Faridpur Hindu Conference also urged the British Parliament to “make an immediate declaration that India will be recognised as an independent State immediately on the termination of the war, and that she would be free to frame her constitution.” It also called upon the British government to “take immediate steps for the nationalisation of the Army.” It also strongly condemned “the Pakistan scheme adumbrated by the Muslim League as anti-national and mischievous,” and called “upon all Hindus to resist the same.” Over the next few years, Syama Prasad succeeded in building up a formidable resistance to that idea and to its promoter, the Muslim League.

The intervening years leading to independence, partition, and the creation of West Bengal were momentous and challenging. Syama Prasad never forgot that larger message of the need to forge a greater Hindu unity in Bengal and across the country. As president of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, he strove to crystallise that unity. In Bengal, his relentless pursuit of that unity saw Hindu leaders, the intelligentsia, and the masses unite in raising the demand for the creation of West Bengal as a homeland for the Bengali Hindus—a homeland that would be forever integrated into the Indian Union.

About eleven years after his meeting with Doctorji, Syama Prasad had another historic meeting with Sri Guruji, by now Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, having succeeded Doctorji. That meeting led to the formation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951. It was a party founded by Dr Mookerjee, with the aim of charting out a new politics for free India.

Speaking of patriotism, Sri Guruji once remarked, according to his biographer C.P. Bhishikar, that “selfless patriotism is the touchstone of the Sangh.” In his patriotism and uncompromising nationalism—especially when it came to the Hindus of Bengal, and after independence when it came to speaking up for India’s unity and integrity—Syama Prasad displayed that uncompromising and inspiring selflessness. In that, he truly reflected the spirit and ethos of a swayamsevak.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC), BJP, and the Chairman of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation