NEW DELHI: She’s an extremist dressed in saffron blazing with the flame of Hindutva seeing everything in black and white. She’s only 25 and she’s just been banned. After interviewing her for the two hours you know why. Sadhvi Ritambhara whose audio-cassette on Ayodhya was banned by the Delhi police recently addresses the tape recorder like she was addressing a public meeting (and lately she has been addressing a lot of these all over the place at the fate of three a day). Her guru Swami Parmanand presides over the meeting and pipes in now and then more excitable than his disciple. Here’s what the sanyasin has lo say:
“We want to teach the Muslims and the politicians a lesson either they come to heel and surrender to our will in Ayodhya or we shall take it by force.” Their game-plan they say is two-pronged. One to prepare the Hindus to shed their traditional tolerance and “diffidence” and be ready to fight whenever they are attacked in the pursuit of their “just cause”. And second to put fear in the hearts of the Muslims so that they are forced to yield to them. If these were just the ranting’s of a couple of extremists one could have ignored them. But the worrying this is that these two and other hardliners like them are currently embarked on a whirlwind tour of the country and are generating an increasingly enthusiastic response you quiz them on their frightening stand. What exactly is their problem? “The Hindus” they say “have been oppressed for the last 44 years.” How? “The Muslims have their personal code they don’t have to observe family planning Politicians appease them at every step while the Hindus are taken for granted. We can’t even teach our children our religion in schools” But this is a secular nation “We don’t believe in this kind of secularism” thunders Ritambhara “Where Jama Masjid is given Rs 50 Jakhs and the kar sevaks have to face bullets.”
Dalit voice
Article extracted from this publication >> February 8, 1991
