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STRENGTHENING THE NATION'S MORALE
THE MAMMOTH
Hindu Conferences that have been going on from the deep South in Nagercoil up to Amritsar and Jammu in the North and from Bombay in the West up to Patna and Guwahati in the East due to the efforts of Swayamsevaks and other devoted Hindu workers have signalled that the present Hindu upsurge is not a fleeting wave nor limited to any particular region.A striking aspect of this great awakening is with regard to the word 'Hindu' itself. Over the last hundred years and more, that word was sought to be despised and banished from the nation's mind. The Hindu was taught by the British to consider everything associated with 'Hindu' as parochial, communal, superstitious and obscurantist. Giving up the Hindu identity was even made a condition precedent for Hindu-Muslim unity which in turn was considered the precondition for the quitting of the British. The British, more than ourselves, knew that in that word Hindu lay the spark of real national pride and unity. If ignited, it could blaze forth and spell the death-knell of their Empire here. All the great leaders of national renaissance in the recent past like Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda, Shri Aurobindo, Lokamanya Tilak and Gandhi had fought against this psychological onslaught.
It is this soul of Hindusthan—the Hindu consciousness— which has now begun to articulate and re-manifest itself.
The deathless message of its ancient heroes and martyrs, of its seers and sages, has begun to echo and re-echo from one corner of the land to the other. No part of the country, no section of the society, is left untouched. All castes, sects, linguistic groups, the urban, the rural and the tribal masses, are becoming exposed to this fresh Hindu breeze of unity. It can safely be said without exaggeration, that the present Hindu upsurge is unsurpassed in the history of Bharat for its sheer extent and depth.
The eminent acharyas of peethas founded by Shankara, Madhwa, Ramanuja, Vallabha and other Vedic philosophers and spiritual masters have started coming together on a common platform with the dharma gurus of Sikhs, Veerashaivas, Jains and Bouddhas. The orthodox peethadhipatis have started rubbing shoulders with other mathadhipatis in a spirit of absolute equality and brotherhood.
The coming together of reputed sadhus and luminaries in every field of national life on a common Hindu platform has indeed given it an authentic religious and social sanction and seal.
A bird's-eye view of some of the more important conferences is sufficient to give one a glimpse of the magnitude and message of the new Hindu awakening.
The Hindu Samajotsavas at Shimoga and Mangalore in Karnataka, the inaugural ones in the series held in March 1981, were described by leading Kannada dailies as the biggest those cities had ever witnessed.
The Virat Hindu Samaj in October 1981 at Delhi—a city of rallies—was so huge that the like of it had not been seen there before for its sheer size, discipline and sense of national purpose. A million hearts responded as Swami Satyamitrananda declared: "Virat Hindu Samaj is the avatar of this age to redeem the Hindu Nation." Dr. Karan Singh thundered, "This is a mahayajna in which millions will participate and take our Hindu society to new heights in this age."
The Kanyakumari District Conference held in early 1982 at Nagercoil, the southernmost district of our country, made history. The province, accustomed to seeing only the 'Dravidian' rallies, now found the people responding more massively to the Hindu appeal. The entire district wore a festive look and people streamed from 350 out of the 420 revenue villages to join the procession which the newspapers described as 100,000 strong. Shivan Pillai, the grand old freedom fighter and president of Tamil Nadu Sarvodaya Sangh, exclaimed that he had never seen such a vast multitude even when Gandhiji visited the province and that such spontaneous enthusiasm and initiative were not in evidence even during the days of freedom struggle. The presence of a senior officer of Hindu Religious Endowments Department and leaders of religious, political and social standing signified a welcome change in the social climate of Tamil Nadu.
During the same period the North-East also witnessed a momentous Poorvanchal Hindu Conference at Jorhat. The assembly of 6,000 delegates belonging to all Hindu sects and several tribes in the North-Eastern States made it the first of its kind in the history of that region. The inaugural session presided over by two eminent satradhikars began with the hoisting of the OM flag by Basha Singh, an elderly Harijan. The galaxy of personages like the Khasi leader Hipshon Roy, Naga leader Rani Gaidinliu, Neel Vir Shastri of Imphal, Kumbha Hojai Dimasa the Kachari leader from Haflong, Rumkui Wang the Naga leader, Avinash Brahma the Boro leader, Maharana Bhagwat Singh, President of VHP, Balasaheb Deoras, and Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia bore eloquent witness to its singular national significance.
The series of 27 district and tehsil level Hindu conferences, big and small, conducted by the VHP in Assam during 1980-82, proved crucial in one particular aspect. During that period, Assam was sitting on the volcano of the anti-infiltration agitation launched by the AASU; Manipur was caught in the turmoil of insurgency by separatist forces. The conferences attracted, in all, more than 200,000 delegates, who came from far and near, including thousands from the deep hilly interiors, forgetting their age-old differences of caste, tribe and language. At Dibrugarh, Dhubri and Silchar conferences a new slogan, 'Na Hindur videshi bhavet'—No Hindu is ever a foreigner in this land - was made popular. This helped, to some extent at least, in overcoming the mutual mistrust and rancour between the Assamese and Bengalis in Assam.
The Vishal Hindu Sammelan of Ernakulam in 1982 drew half a million Hindus of all castes and classes. 95 socio-religious organisations in Kerala had joined in a stupendous move closing their ranks and standing up as one colossal Hindu personality. The public meeting was followed by a gathering of representatives of 500 various Hindu organisations under the guidance of Swami Chinmayananda to finalise the follow-up measures.
The upsurge sweeping across the North touched Patna in November 1982. A sea of humanity seemed to "usher in a new epoch of Hindu Renaissance, " as Bhikshu Jnana Jagat of Mahabodhi Society put it, into which had streamed Hindus of all faiths, castes and denominations from even the neighbouring areas including Nepal.
Sardar Harbhajan Singh Sachdev, General Secretary, Takhat Harmandir (also known as Patna Sahib - the famous gurudwara built at the birthplace of Guru Govind Singh) said that Guru Nanak was born to reform Hindu Dharma. He recalled how Guru Tegh Bahadur had offered the supreme sacrifice when Kashmir pandits came to him for help against forcible conversions to Islam.
The Santhali leader, Shiv Murmu, said that all concessions to Christian converts from Hinduism in the Santhal Parganas should be withdrawn.
Jain Sadhvi Chandanaji said: "Hindu philosophy is a universal philosophy and every person living in Bharat is a Hindu."
The Virat Hindu Samaj Sammelan at Mathura, in early 1983, was sanctified by the presence of Mahanta Avaidyanath of Goraksha Peetha. The local Lok Dal MP, Digambar Singh, tpe Harijan leader Chintamani and others spoke as powerful Hindu votaries. Then followed another mammoth conference in March 1983 at Muzaffaranagar.
Soon the wave reached distant Andamans too. A highlight of the Hindu Sammelan at Port Blair in April 1983 was the presence of the local vanavasis, both men and women, in large numbers. Besides several religious heads, the presence of Somdadutt Dikshit, Director of Education, Andaman-Nicobar, and Manoranjan Bhakta, MP, made it a unique manifestation of the nation's will to face the many-sided challenges.
The 3-day Provincial Hindu Sammelan of Karnataka, organised by VHP at Ujire-Dharmasthala in December 1983, had as its Reception Committee Chairman Veerendra Heggade of Dharmasthala and was inaugurated by Maharana Bhagwat Singh, VHP president. The conference, attended by more than fifty thousand delegates, was described as 'Hindu Mahasagar' by leading Kannada newspapers. Two new mantras Mama deeksha Hindu raksha (My mission is protection of Hindus) and Mama mantrah samanata (My motto is equality) were administered by Shri Vishwesha Tirtha Swamiji of Pejawar Math, Udupi. The Hindu of Madras (23rd December 1983) summed up the outcome of the historic conference thus:
"The significant outcome of the Ujire conference was the unanimous call of nearly 170 heads of Hindu religious maths to end untouchability and strive for Hindu unity. Many of them decried caste differences.
"However, the dominant concern of those who participated in the conference was the continuing conversion of Harijans and other weaker sections to Islam and Christianity. Demanding that the Government ban conversions by law, the conference observed that proselytisation was going on by holding out allurements like money and jobs in Gulf countries."
More recent in the series were the two big Provincial Hindu Conferences—that of Andhra Pradesh at Tirupati attended by forty thousand delegates and that of Maharashtra (excluding Vidarbha region) at Alandi where the number crossed a hundred and fifty thousand. It was significant that at both the places eminent sannyasins sought to bring home to the Hindus the crucial importance of understanding the power of vote in securing their legitimate rights and setting right the present minority-mania of politicians. While at Tirupati Swami Chinmayananda gave a call to create a Hindu vote-bank, at Alandi Shri Dhondu Maharaj, the great Vaishnava saint of Warakari sampraday, advised the Hindus to exercise caution while using their votes.
It was very imaginative on the part of the Swayamsevaks in Kashmir Valley to have clubbed the celebration of MahaShivaratri in March 1988, with the offering of homage to the hallowed memory of Shribhat, who is revered alike by the Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims. Centuries ago, Shribhat, a Kashmiri vaidya, had cured a chronic ailment of Jaibdin, the Sultan of Kashmir. In response to the Sultan's desire to suitably reward Shribhat, the latter requested the Sultan that all the Kashmiri Hindus externed by him be permitted to resettle in the Valley. The request was granted.
The celebration at Srinagar on that day was unique, with day-long sankirtan and religious discourses. For the first time in recent history, thousands of Hindus had assembled in a public programme. This acted as a much-needed morale-booster for the Hindus to come out openly in public and carry on their religious and cultural programmes.
Earlier, in February 1988, Hindus of Jammu region organised a ten-day Maharudra-yajna and Rashtriya Jagaran Sammelan which proved to be a tremendous success. In the Shobhayatra on the tenth day, 20,000 people including men and women, youth and school-children marched the 5-kilometre route with thousands of people lining all along. Inauguration of the Jagaran Sammelan by Mula Ram, a Harijan leader, was yet another significant event which reflected the growing awareness of Hindu unity in that region.
The two mammoth youth camps of RSS, the one of Karnataka at Bangalore in January 1982 and the other of Maharashtra at Pune in January 1983, could rank as the biggest in the annals of disciplined, youth camps anywhere in the world. The Kannada Prabha of Bangalore (4th January 1982) described the Bangalore route march as the "personification of discipline and tidiness" and the spontaneous public response as "the rousing welcome to the mighty flow of Hindu power." The Hindu (5th January 1982) reported that the march was "so orderly that the policemen had no work except to admire the march past. There was also an air of spontaneity about the turnout of the people to witness the route march."
The electrifying impact of the Pune camp was aptly described by The Times of India, Bombay (28th January 1983), as "a massive show of strength and discipline." It also wrote: "The enthusiasm of the Pune housewives was so great then response to a call from the Sangh leaders, over 300,000 sweet chapatis were collected and distributed to the volunteers on the first day of the camp, which happened to be Makara Sankranti Day."
The Lok Satta, Bombay (18th January 1983), Marathi daily, observed: "There is growing realisation that cultural organisation is the only answer to divisions caused by political differences. The sight of young men engaged in different aspects of social service, ignoring partisan politics, is like a silver lining in the dark clouds."
Maharashtra Times, Bombay (18th January 1983) commented: "Many are perplexed by the growth of the Sangh when other voluntary organisations are thinning out and withering away. That the Sangh has not bound itself to any political party is one reason for its growth, the other being the dedication of hundreds of highly educated men who have devoted themselves to Sangh work."
At both the camps, the inspiring address of Balasaheb Deoras reflected the Hindu thought basis of this onward movement of Hindu resurgence spearheaded by the Sangh Swayamsevaks.
Urge for defending one's integrity, freedom and honour constitutes the foremost sign of any living and virile society. It was to be expected therefore that as the Shakhas—the centres of awakened and organised social power—grew in strength, the Swayamsevaks should have stood up as the sentinels of security and self-respect of Hindu society.
In Jammu, by 1940, because of Muslim onslaughts, panic and insecurity had gripped the Hindus. Harassing of Hindu girls and stabbing of Hindu youths was the order of the day. The Muslim festivals afforded occasions for looting and killing sprees by frenzied Muslim mobs. But the coming up of Shakhas since 1940 quickly changed the situation. The demoralised Hindu ranks now began putting up a heroic defence. Soon, the Muslims came to realise that trifling with the interests and sentiments of Hindus would be like playing with fire.
In 1980-81, the Jammu and Kashmir Government came up with a plan to take over the control and management of Hindu shrines in the State. A Hindu Shrine Endowment Bill was also introduced in the State Assembly for this purpose. The dangers implied in the transfer of Hindu temples into the hands of a plainly Muslim regime were clear as daylight. The Sangh-inspired citizens of Jammu immediately launched a powerful agitation in the name of Hindu Raksha Samiti demanding the withdrawal of the Bill. The stiff and sustained fight put up by the Samiti made the Government retrace its steps.
Again, in the summer of 1985; another occasion arose necessitating a Hindu resistance movement in that State. A mosque was surreptitiously established inside the premises of the Government Secretariat in Srinagar. When the Government was shifted to the winter capital, Jammu, a mosque was raised in the Jammu Secretariat premises also by converting an old Hindu shrine that had existed there long before the new Secretariat was built. The Hindu Raksha Samiti took up cudgels and launched an agitation, one of its senior workers going on a fast unto death. The Government resorted to diversionary and divisive tactics by offering an alternative site for the Hindu temple in the Jammu Secretariat premises. But the Samiti stood firm. Ultimately, the Government yielded and both the mosques were dispensed with.
In Kerala, the Mopla riots of 1920-21 accompanied by horrible atrocities on the Hindus in general and womenfolk in particular and over 20,000 conversions to Islam, had left the Hindus there terribly shaken. The wave of Hindu awakening under Hindu Mahamandaiam in the early fifties proved fleeting, leaving the Hindus frustrated. The Swayamsevaks, right from the infant stages of the Shakha, decided to pick up the gauntlet. Lawless conventions—like 'no passage' to Hindu processions before mosque—were challenged at great risk to the life and limbs of the Swayamsevaks. As a result, the spark of pride and honour began glowing in the Hindu heart which brought together all castes and sects. Leading Hindu dignitaries volunteered to face the Muslim onslaughts, arrests and harassments by the police. Other monstrous practices at several places, like the Muslims restricting the Hindu fishermen from going out to sea on Fridays, demanding respect by every passing 'Hindu whenever he had to pass before a Muslim shop, taking for granted that fair Hindu girls of the place were the property of Muslims—all these were successfully fought and thrown overboard. The fanatic Muslim elements who were indulging in such atrocities have now found that insulting the Hindus would prove very costly.
Conversions and destruction of temples have, for long, been a pastime of Christian missionaries in Kerala. Establishing their conversion centres at strategic points has been part of their regular offensive all these years. More than 106 temples including the hallowed Shabarimalai shrine were destroyed by Christian vandals in May 1950. But the awakened Hindu has now started challenging such tactics and successfully too.
Nilackal is an instance in point. It is a small village nestling in the lap of dense hilly jungles of the Western Ghats. At such a place, one fine morning, in 1983, a cross followed by a small church-shed appeared from nowhere. In the normal course it was just a "non-event"—the setting up of illegal crosses and of churches having been quite a commmon occurrence in Kerala. Bu now, at the instance of the Swayamsevaks, Nilackal Action Committee came up immediately comprising twenty-three organisations representing the entire spectrum of diverse Hindu denominations. Its leaders warned the Hindus of the sinister plot behind the Nilackal church which lay right on the way to the holy Shabarimalai where the Hindu devotees in millions throng for the annual Ayyappan darshan. The missionary plot was clear as daylight. It was to disrupt the devotional upsurge of Hindus by engineering violent disturbances there.
' The Action Committee swung into action. Three thousand Swayamsevaks courted arrest and underwent harassment and torture in police lock-ups. Even sannyasins and respectable ladies, braving the police beating, arrests and prosecutions, marched to Nilackal to do purificatory penance and restore the spot to the Hindus. The movement began spreading fast and wide even in remote parts of Kerala. The Congress Government, under the thumb of the Christians, vowed to put down the movement with an iron hand. Even the obliging local press decided to black out all news about the agitation. A hue and cry was raised that Kerala, an 'island of communal peace', had overnight turned into a 'communal inferno', because of Hindu Munnani and the RSS.
But nothing could slow down the growing volume of the Hindu protest. Ultimately, the Government came to its senses. It allotted to the church another site as agreed upon in the talks between the Action Committee leaders and the bishops. Accordingly, bishops of Kerala, at a specially convened meeting, decided to shift the church from Nilackal, and they removed it by their own hands.
In this connection it is well to remember that the burning of the entire Shabarimalai temple some forty years ago by the Christian vandals had ended with just a few ripples of Hindu protest. But, four decades of continuous and silent plodding by the Sangh workers has now changed the scene. No amount of blackmailing with the false cries of 'communal harmony in danger' and threats and violence by the Government can now suppress the rising Hindu voice. The Hindus of Kerala have once and for all time taught the Government that 'communal harmony' and all such nice things cannot hereafter be a one-way affair, with the Hindus always at the receiving end. It has to be a reciprocal one.
The Pope's visit to Kerala in February 1986 became another occasion when attempts by the Christian Church to usurp vast public lands was foiled. Imposing podiums costing several lakhs of rupees had been constructed in four prominent cities on prestigious and spacious sites for the Pope's address. The taken for granted plan was to retain them subsequently as mementos under the Christian control. But the strong Hindu protest gave short shrift to that design. Both the Government and the Christian Church had burnt their fingers and learnt a costly lesson in the Nilackal affair. At all the places—Trivandrum, Trichur, Kottayam and Ernakulam—on the very next day after the Pope's visit, the cement concrete podiums were demolished by the Church authorities themselves.
A look at the most backward and illiterate areas of vanavasis in Bihar also presents an equally inspiring picture. The occasion was the Pope's visit to Ranchi on 1st February 1986. Ranchi, it must be remembered, is the nerve-centre of the Christian missionary machinations for the whole vanavasi belt extending from Madhya Pradesh to the North-East. News had spread~like wild fire that the visit would be a grand gala affair to impress the innocent vanavasis with the might and glory of Christianity. That would also mark the conversion of 10,000 vanavasis to Christianity.
The VKA workers decided to pick up the gauntlet. They toured hundreds of villages and woke up the vanavasis. They, in turn, marched to Ranchi in thousands defying police restrictions, protesting against the Pope's visit. The sight of the massive vanavasi strength armed with their traditional weapons made the Government see the folly of permitting the Pope's programme at Ranchi. Promptly, the Central Government informed the Christian outfits of the security risk involved. Accordingly, a dais was put up inside the aerodrome from where the Pope addressed his flock, and left by the same plane without entering Ranchi.
More recently, in 1986, the Christian missionaries unleashed a propaganda war against the Sangh in the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Their journal Nishkalanka carried a canard that the Sangh people and the Government agencies had poisoned the drinking water wells in vanavasi areas, that Hindu merchants were giving harmful medicines to the tribal boys making them impotent, and were luring the vanavasi girls into brothels. However, the Sangh and the Ashram workers moved swiftly from village to village. They took the police and government officers along with them, and in the presence of the local villagers affected by the propaganda, drank the water from the wells. Cases were also filed against the journal for spreading communal venom. The police carried out independent inquiries and exposed the mischievous moves of the Christian missionaries. The missionary editor and publisher- of the journal had to apologise. But the venom they had spread did take its toll. Nine Hindu tribals were killed in attacks by the Christian converts. One of them, Shukh Ramdhan Munda, an active worker of the Sangh, was waylaid and assassinated. His crime? He had persuaded an entire vanavasi village, which had been Christianised, to return to the Hindu fold. Such attacks have continued till today.
The reasons behind these violent outbursts against the Hindu workers are also clear. The growing Hindu pride among the vanavasis in those belts due to the efforts of VKA has caused a serious setback to the conversion activities of the missionaries. And because of the pressure of this new awakening among the Hindu vanavasis, Government was forced to expel Willy von Kharkove, a noted Belgian Christian missionary, out of the country. Intelligence reports have already reached the Centre against a few more missionaries. All this has naturally unnerved the Christian missions and made them desperate. The upshot of all these developments, however, is welcome; for, it has totally unmasked the motives hidden beneath their 'humanitarian' activities like running schools, colleges, destitute homes for women and children, hospitals, etc.
In the wake of massive Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh, the Hindus in the border districts of Malda and Murshidabad in West Bengal felt greatly demoralised. They had become victims of the combined onslaught of the infiltrators and the local Muslims.
In order to contain this growing menace, VHP has deployed in those areas scores of full-time workers who have started systematically organising Hindus through bhaian rnandalis, samskar kendras and other programmes. Huge dharma-sabhas (religious congregations) were conducted in many parts of the vulnerable areas where the Hindus began thronging in thousands. Reassured by the spirit of Hindu unity thus generated, they have begun resisting the Muslim attacks and even succeeded in pushing back over a thousand infiltrators. The growing spirit of self confidence among the Hindus has also started attracting some Christian families into their fold.
The incident at Nagercoil proved a turning-point in giving a new thrust to the spirit of calf-assertion among the Hindus of Tamil Nadu. It has established beyond doubt that the Hindus there are no longer in a mood to stomach insults, or suppression of their legitimate rights. On 13th February 1983, there was to be a huge Hindu Resurgence Conference at Nagercoil in the Kanyakumari district. On the 8th, the Christian Democratic Front (CDF) leaders had met the Kanyakumari Collector and urged him to ban the conference. But the latter flatly refused to oblige them. In fact, in accordance with the requirement of law enforcement, the District Collector and the Deputy Superintendent of Police themselves sat with the organisers of the Hindu conference to give final touches to the details of the procession and conference. Even the slogans were approved by the officials; the atmosphere was cordial. There was no sign of any ban anywhere.
But, all of a sudden, on the midnight of 11th February, Sec. 144 was clamped througout the district and a reign of terror was let loose .
On the 12th, in a pre-emptive swoop, 59 Hindu leaders, including the Hindu Munnani President Thanulinga Nadar, were arrested. Nagercoil was cordoned off by a police ring and every incoming vehicle was stopped 10 kilometres away. However, the people streamed in thousands. On the 13th, they defied the ban. About 1,500 people were arrested. When the police found themselves unable to arrest all the surging multitude of 30,000, they requested the Hindu Munnani leaders to persuade the people to disperse. But before they could do so, the police struck with fiendish fury. They lathi-charged and fired indiscriminately. Even those who had taken shelter in the adjoining Nagaraja temple were not spared. Hundreds were injured and maimed. When a young autorickshaw driver, Kumar, challenged the police to either arrest him or shoot him, he was shot at point-blank range. He fell down dead with the shout of "Om Kali Jai Kali" playing on his lips.
It was to be expected that the rising Hindu awareness would not leave the political field unaffected. Now, slowly, the Hindus have begun to comprehend the threats being posed by the hankering of political parties after the Muslim and Christian blocvotes which is seriously jeopardising the integrity of the nation. The irony of the situation in which the so-called minorities enjoy more rights in educational and religious affairs than the majority Hindus has now dawned upon them. The Hindus have also begun to recognise that the chief reason behind this perversion lies in their own disunity. Their splintered vote had left them voiceless orphans in the political arena.
The first attempt to set things right in this direction was made by the Hindu Munnani of Tamil Nadu. During the 1984 December election to the State Assembly, the Munnani launched a propaganda campaign against DMK which had all along aligned itself with anti-Hindu forces like the Muslim League, the Christian Church, the Communists and the DK and had been maligning Hindu Dharma and the Hindu gods and goddesses. Hindu Munnani gave a call to the people to defeat the anti-Hindu parties.
A guideline in this regard was the call to the Hindus given by Balasaheb Deoras on the Vijayadashami day of 1984 to vote for those who uphold Hindu interests. The stirring call for building a Hindu vote-bank being repeatedly given by Swami Chinmayananda gave a further fillip to the Munnani's campaign. The press in Tamil Nadu too took note of the new mood of Hindus and wrote that no political party would now dare criticise Hindu religion and culture, since they no longer remained meek to take such things lying down. The common man in the street and even the unlettered women in villages now began confronting Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) candidates and workers and castigating them for their anti-Hindu stance. The DMK had to change its tune. Soon the sporting of pictures of Ganesha, Murugan and OM and processions to Hindu temples by its candidates started taking place. The ruling AIADMK leaders picked up the tune and began criticising the DMK for its pro-Muslim and pro-Christian and anti-Hindu stand! Now 'Hindu' loyalty had replaced 'Tamil' loyalty. The sight of the DMK and AIADMK vying with each other claiming to be the real protectors of 'Tamil' interests was conspicuous by its absence. For the first time, an independent Hindu candidate backed by Hindu Munnani in the Padmanabhapuram constituency of Kanyakurnari District was elected on the strength of the Hindu votes' defeating two nonHindu candidates backed by the two powerful political fronts. The result of the election left the DMK badly mauled, their strength in the Assembly having slumped to a mere 22 in a house of 237 seats.
Having learnt the costly lesson, the DMK sobered down. During the following local body elections, DMK speakers were strictly instructed not to utter a single word against Hindu Dharma or even Hindu Munnani and RSS. The virulent anti Hindu Dravida Kazhagam (DK) leaders were prohibited from addressing from DMK platforms. The DMK's new posture gave it good dividends. Soon after his party's electoral success, M. Karunanidhi announced that his party would strive to remove liquor shops from the vicinity of temples—evidently as a mark of his gratitude to the Hindu voter! Now, the DK leader, Veeramani, has begun to wail. In his daily, Vidudalai, he wrote that the DMK had forsaken the principles of Annadurai (founder of DMK) for the sake of Hindu votes, and broken away from DK.
In Kerala, there are sizable and well-organised Muslim and Christian political groups banking upon 42 per cent of their population, while the rest 58 per cent Hindus have been in total disarray, being divided caste-wise and party-wise. As such Kerala's politics has, been a happy hunting-ground all these years for the non-Hindus at the cost of Hindus. Events over the past several decades have shown how much Hindus have suffered there at the hands of non-Hindus on all fronts—religious, economic, social, political and educational.
But now with Sangh Shakhas in over 3,000 out of 9,200 places in the province, the common Hindu has begun to open his eyes to the reality of Kerala politics. Hindu Munnani which made its debut in Kerala, with 6.8 per cent of polled votes during elections to Lok Sabha in 1984, made both the Congress and Communist fronts realise the birth of an altogether new factor—the Hindu factor—in Kerala politics. Poll analysts pointed out that in about 50 constituencies, the Hindu factor had played a crucial role in deciding the outcome.
When the elections to the Assembly neared in 1986, the CPI(M), taking the cue from the Hindu Munnani, broke away from the Muslim League faction and the Kerala Congress and donned an intensely nationalist and pro-Hindu cap. Its new image worked; and it could sweep the Congress out of power. At the same time, independents, supported by Hindu Munnani and BJP, succeeded in enlarging their Hindu vote-base. But, once in power, the Communist-Front Government began indulging once again in its old pastime of murder-politics against the Sangh and allied organisations, with the result that the Hindu vote took a decisive swing against them in the later elections to the local bodies.