01-21-2008, 07:59 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the last decade, another quote from We has become the most popular Hindutva reference, being presented as somehow encapsulating the essence and the genesis history of the Sangh Parivar: "German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic Races ? the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." (1939:35, 1947:43) Though the RSS spokesmen don?t specify this, it is obviously this paragraph that prompted them to dissociate themselves from Golwalkar's We.
4. The meaning of the ?race pride? quote
What does the controversial ?race pride? quote mean? Let us first of all look at what is not here. These days, when the word ?Nazi? is uttered (in this case not by Golwalkar but by his detractors), reason is switched off and hysteria takes over, so that people think they have seen or heard things which aren?t there in reality.
Conspicuous by its absence in Golwalkar?s allegedly pro-Nazi statement, is the term Nazi or the name Adolf Hitler. Before the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939, it was perfectly acceptable in India, both among Hindus and Muslims, to praise Hitler and National-Socialism. Let us not forget that in the preceding years even the British leaders Lloyd George and Winston Churchill had spoken favourably of Hitler and his magic formula for reviving Germany after the humiliation of Versailles, something which Golwalkar refrained from doing, if only narrowly. And that even the later leftist icons Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro were youthful admirers of the F?and of his Italian colleague Benito Mussolini. As late as Christmas Eve of 1940, Mahatma Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler assuring the latter that he (Hitler) certainly wasn't as bad as his enemies painted him.
But Golwalkar did not want to draw attention to the existing regime in Germany as some kind of model to be emulated. On the contrary, elsewhere in the same book, he contrasts the militaristic barbarity displayed by the contemporaneous Germans with the Hindu ?spiritual giants? who ?stalk the world in serene majesty? and serve as the homegrown role models for modern India (1939:32, 1947:39-40). He concludes the booklet with the un-Nazi vision of ?one glorious splendrous Hindu Nation benignly shedding peace and plenty over the world? (1939:67, 1947:76). He also supports the Czech position against Germany on the disputed Sudetenland and deplores the Czechs? failure to assimilate the Sudeten Germans (1939:38, 49; 1947:46, 57), clearly favouring the typical homogenization policy of nation-states pioneered by the French Revolutionaries in non-French parts of France. He holds the Czechs? failure to assimilate their minorities up as a warning to the Hindus. What he focuses on is the incompatibility of two nations forced to co-exist within one state, any two nations, and that is the ?lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by?.
Many examples of ethnic conflict within multi-ethnic states could be given, but the example then in the eye of the world was Germany, where the Nuremberg laws of 1935 had defined the Jews as a separate nation. German-Jewish intermarriage got prohibited, a move actually welcomed by the orthodox in the Jewish community, who frowned upon the ongoing cultural and biological assimilation of the Jews into German society. The participation of Jews in a number of prestigious professions was either ended or reduced to their percentage of the total population (a leftist move otherwise applauded as ?affirmative action? in favour of an ?underrepresented? group, i.c. the Gentile Germans), and Jewish emigration was encouraged and facilitated.
But surely this meant that Golwalkar supported the German hatred for ?the Semitic races, the Jews?? Not at all. In his survey of nations whose experience and nationalism are to ?serve as a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to profit by?, the very first one is the Jewish nation (1939:19, 30; 1947:25, 37). This was and is standard fare in Hindutva writings, starting with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar?s trail-blazing book Hindutva (1923), which speaks out in favour of the Zionist project. Hindu nationalists have always looked up to the mettle of the Jews, who managed to maintain their identity for two thousand years under adverse circumstances, and who even managed to revive Hebrew as their mother tongue and national first language, where Hindus aren?t even able to promote Sanskrit to the status of national link language or pan-Indian second language. Hindu nationalist parties have always advocated diplomatic recognition of Israel when Congress (until 1992) and the Communist parties opposed it.
This, incidentally, explains the sudden popularity of this Golwalkar quote in anti-Hindutva writings. The main exploiters of this quote, the Indian Marxists, have seen their intellectual power centre expand from India to North America. In the US media and academe, they have cornered the same power position that they have enjoyed in India for decades, and they largely control the information flow from India to the American public including the professional India-watchers in academe and the government. From there, they exercise a lot of influence on public political discourse back in India. However, to secure their position in the US, they have to deal with the powerful Jewish influence there.
The Jews are not stupid and they know that in the Indian ideological spectrum, it has always been the Hindu nationalists who supported the Zionist project while the leftists opposed it. Just as it was always Hindus who let Jews live in peace in their own country, while Hinduism?s Christian, Muslim and Communist enemies have a rather darker track record in this regard. Indeed, some US Zionist groups co-operate with Hindu nationalists, teaching them the ways of modern communication and lobbying. So, in order to gain the upper hand over the Hindus in winning over Jewish opinion, the Marxists have to divert attention from today?s Middle East politics to other issues in order to paint their opponents as somehow even more anti-Jewish than themselves, or at least tainted by association with an even more anti-Jewish movement, viz. National-Socialism. Hence their hyperfocus on this seemingly pro-Nazi quote of Golwalkar?s.
Very often, the Marxists even add their own explicitation to this quote: ?Here, Golwalkar is applauding the genocide of six million Jews.? That, of course, is a lie. Those who put forth this claim are either ignorant of history or shamelessly speculate on their readers' ignorance. The ?purge? to which Golwalkar referred, was the progressive exclusion of the Jews from public life and the policy of promoting their emigration. The Holocaust only took place in 1941-44 under specific and largely unforeseen war circumstances. In 1938 and until 1940, Nazi policy was still one of Jewish emigration. That?s not so nice either, but given their history, the Jews know better than most people that migration is a preferable alternative to persecution and death. In 1938, Hitler?s mortal victims were still counted in hundreds, Stalin?s in millions (which didn't prevent Jawaharlal Nehru from visiting the Soviet Union, guzzling down all the propaganda fed to him on a guided tour, and praising it for the rest of his days). In that light, if anything is shocking in Golwalkar?s book, it is his innocent and highly uninformed inclusion of the Soviet Union in his list of examples of nation-building.
Conspicuous by its absence is most of all the entire Nazi policy vis-à¶is the Jews as a possible model for the Hindu treatment of the Muslims. Not just extermination but even expulsion doesn?t figure in Golwalkar?s plans. On the contrary, whereas Hitler first of all wanted to dissimilate the largely assimilated Jewish minority, Golwalkar favoured the assimilation of the Indian Muslims into the ?Hindu nation? from which their ancestors had been estranged by conversion.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dr. Koenraad Elst
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti...iWithdrawn.html
4. The meaning of the ?race pride? quote
What does the controversial ?race pride? quote mean? Let us first of all look at what is not here. These days, when the word ?Nazi? is uttered (in this case not by Golwalkar but by his detractors), reason is switched off and hysteria takes over, so that people think they have seen or heard things which aren?t there in reality.
Conspicuous by its absence in Golwalkar?s allegedly pro-Nazi statement, is the term Nazi or the name Adolf Hitler. Before the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939, it was perfectly acceptable in India, both among Hindus and Muslims, to praise Hitler and National-Socialism. Let us not forget that in the preceding years even the British leaders Lloyd George and Winston Churchill had spoken favourably of Hitler and his magic formula for reviving Germany after the humiliation of Versailles, something which Golwalkar refrained from doing, if only narrowly. And that even the later leftist icons Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro were youthful admirers of the F?and of his Italian colleague Benito Mussolini. As late as Christmas Eve of 1940, Mahatma Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler assuring the latter that he (Hitler) certainly wasn't as bad as his enemies painted him.
But Golwalkar did not want to draw attention to the existing regime in Germany as some kind of model to be emulated. On the contrary, elsewhere in the same book, he contrasts the militaristic barbarity displayed by the contemporaneous Germans with the Hindu ?spiritual giants? who ?stalk the world in serene majesty? and serve as the homegrown role models for modern India (1939:32, 1947:39-40). He concludes the booklet with the un-Nazi vision of ?one glorious splendrous Hindu Nation benignly shedding peace and plenty over the world? (1939:67, 1947:76). He also supports the Czech position against Germany on the disputed Sudetenland and deplores the Czechs? failure to assimilate the Sudeten Germans (1939:38, 49; 1947:46, 57), clearly favouring the typical homogenization policy of nation-states pioneered by the French Revolutionaries in non-French parts of France. He holds the Czechs? failure to assimilate their minorities up as a warning to the Hindus. What he focuses on is the incompatibility of two nations forced to co-exist within one state, any two nations, and that is the ?lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by?.
Many examples of ethnic conflict within multi-ethnic states could be given, but the example then in the eye of the world was Germany, where the Nuremberg laws of 1935 had defined the Jews as a separate nation. German-Jewish intermarriage got prohibited, a move actually welcomed by the orthodox in the Jewish community, who frowned upon the ongoing cultural and biological assimilation of the Jews into German society. The participation of Jews in a number of prestigious professions was either ended or reduced to their percentage of the total population (a leftist move otherwise applauded as ?affirmative action? in favour of an ?underrepresented? group, i.c. the Gentile Germans), and Jewish emigration was encouraged and facilitated.
But surely this meant that Golwalkar supported the German hatred for ?the Semitic races, the Jews?? Not at all. In his survey of nations whose experience and nationalism are to ?serve as a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to profit by?, the very first one is the Jewish nation (1939:19, 30; 1947:25, 37). This was and is standard fare in Hindutva writings, starting with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar?s trail-blazing book Hindutva (1923), which speaks out in favour of the Zionist project. Hindu nationalists have always looked up to the mettle of the Jews, who managed to maintain their identity for two thousand years under adverse circumstances, and who even managed to revive Hebrew as their mother tongue and national first language, where Hindus aren?t even able to promote Sanskrit to the status of national link language or pan-Indian second language. Hindu nationalist parties have always advocated diplomatic recognition of Israel when Congress (until 1992) and the Communist parties opposed it.
This, incidentally, explains the sudden popularity of this Golwalkar quote in anti-Hindutva writings. The main exploiters of this quote, the Indian Marxists, have seen their intellectual power centre expand from India to North America. In the US media and academe, they have cornered the same power position that they have enjoyed in India for decades, and they largely control the information flow from India to the American public including the professional India-watchers in academe and the government. From there, they exercise a lot of influence on public political discourse back in India. However, to secure their position in the US, they have to deal with the powerful Jewish influence there.
The Jews are not stupid and they know that in the Indian ideological spectrum, it has always been the Hindu nationalists who supported the Zionist project while the leftists opposed it. Just as it was always Hindus who let Jews live in peace in their own country, while Hinduism?s Christian, Muslim and Communist enemies have a rather darker track record in this regard. Indeed, some US Zionist groups co-operate with Hindu nationalists, teaching them the ways of modern communication and lobbying. So, in order to gain the upper hand over the Hindus in winning over Jewish opinion, the Marxists have to divert attention from today?s Middle East politics to other issues in order to paint their opponents as somehow even more anti-Jewish than themselves, or at least tainted by association with an even more anti-Jewish movement, viz. National-Socialism. Hence their hyperfocus on this seemingly pro-Nazi quote of Golwalkar?s.
Very often, the Marxists even add their own explicitation to this quote: ?Here, Golwalkar is applauding the genocide of six million Jews.? That, of course, is a lie. Those who put forth this claim are either ignorant of history or shamelessly speculate on their readers' ignorance. The ?purge? to which Golwalkar referred, was the progressive exclusion of the Jews from public life and the policy of promoting their emigration. The Holocaust only took place in 1941-44 under specific and largely unforeseen war circumstances. In 1938 and until 1940, Nazi policy was still one of Jewish emigration. That?s not so nice either, but given their history, the Jews know better than most people that migration is a preferable alternative to persecution and death. In 1938, Hitler?s mortal victims were still counted in hundreds, Stalin?s in millions (which didn't prevent Jawaharlal Nehru from visiting the Soviet Union, guzzling down all the propaganda fed to him on a guided tour, and praising it for the rest of his days). In that light, if anything is shocking in Golwalkar?s book, it is his innocent and highly uninformed inclusion of the Soviet Union in his list of examples of nation-building.
Conspicuous by its absence is most of all the entire Nazi policy vis-à¶is the Jews as a possible model for the Hindu treatment of the Muslims. Not just extermination but even expulsion doesn?t figure in Golwalkar?s plans. On the contrary, whereas Hitler first of all wanted to dissimilate the largely assimilated Jewish minority, Golwalkar favoured the assimilation of the Indian Muslims into the ?Hindu nation? from which their ancestors had been estranged by conversion.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dr. Koenraad Elst
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti...iWithdrawn.html