Thread by @_Shams11

THREAD: Congress-RSS collaboration

The growth of the RSS has not been without the support of Congress.

In the 1950s, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant was not just the Chief Minister of the United Provinces but also a man close to Nehru.

The genesis of the mosque-temple controversy in Ayodhya is owed to Pant who, in 1949, did not take action when the idols of Lord Ram 'mysteriously' appeared beneath the central dome of the Babri.

Nehru directed Pant to have the idols removed but he expressed his helplessness.

The district magistrate of Ayodhya K.K. Nair, refused to remove the idols and resigned from the Indian Civil Service.

Now how does one explain Pant's sympathetic attitude towards the most important RSS leader to date- Guru Golwalkar?

Pandit G.B Pant was the Chief Minister from 1950-54 when the RSS drew up a plan to cleanse Muslims from the areas around Muzaffarnagar in Western UP.

By focusing on Muzaffarnagar as the point of ignition for communal polarization on the eve of 2014 elections which brought...

...Narendra Modi to power, Amit Shah was only following an old script.

According to Rajeshwar Dayal, the first Home Secretary of UP, RSS chief Golwalkar was directly involved in 'a diabolical plan to destroy Muslim economic power.'

Dayal records an episode of a very 'grave nature' about the UP Cabinet's indecision which resulted in dire consequences.

When communal tension was at fever pitch, Dayal records:

'the Deputy Inspector General of Police of the Western Range; a very seasoned and capable officer..

....B.B.L Jaitley, arrived at my house in great secrecy.'
He was accompanied by two of his officers.

They brought with them two large steel trunks, securely locked.

When the trunks were opened, 'they revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a...

...communal holocaust throughout the Western districts of the province.'

The trunks were 'crammed with blue prints of great accuracy and professionalism, of every town and village in that vast area.'

Worse, they prominently marked out Muslim localities and habitations.

There were detailed 'instructions regarding access to the various locations.'

It all pointed to a heinous conspiracy.

Alarmed by those revelations, Dayal immediately took the police party to the Chief Minister's house.

There, in a closed room, Jaitley gave a full report of his discovery, backed by all the evidence contained in the steel trunks.

Dayal notes that timely raids conducted on the "premises of RSS" had brought the massive conspiracy to light.

'The whole plot had been designed under the direction and supervision of the supremo of the organization himself. Both Jaitley and I pressed for the immediate arrest of the prime accused, Shri Golwalkar, who was still in the area.'

'Pantji' (the CM) couldn't doubt this evidence.

But even so, instead of agreeing to the immediate arrest of the 'ringleader as we had hoped', he asked for the matter to be placed for consideration before the Cabinet at its next meeting.

Dayal was under no illusion about what was going on.

He wrote:

'There was also other political compulsions, as RSS sympathizers... were to be found in the Congress party itself.
It was no secret that the presiding officer of the Upper House, Atma Govind Kher, was himself an adherent and his sons were openly members of RSS.'

At the Cabinet meeting which Pant had called to consider the evidence against Golwalkar, 'there was the usual procrastination and much irrelevant talk.'

The fact that 'the police had unearthed a conspiracy which could have set the whole province in flames and that the officers..

...concerned deserved warm commendation hardly seemed to figure in the discussion.'

And what was the outcome of the deep deliberations of these worthies?

A letter was to be written Golwalkar 'pointing out the contents and nature of the evidence demanding an explanation.'

In fact Pantji asked Dayal to prepare a draft.

He recalls with some irony:
'the letter was to be delivered forthwith and two police officers were assigned for the purpose.'

But in the meantime Golwalkar had been tipped off.
He escaped and was nowhere to be found.

'He was tracked down southwards bit he managed to elide the couriers in pursuit.'
This 'infructuous' chase continued from place to place and weeks passed.

Pant later became Union Minister in Nehru's Cabinet.

After Dayal's testimony, how does one explain Nehru's elevation of Govind Ballabh Pant as the Union Home Minister?

Was Nehru complicit?
Or are we to continue to grant him the benefit of doubt?

In the style of Congress' dynasties, Pant's son, K.C. Pant, rose to become the Union Defense Minister.

But, not inconsistently, he and his wife eventually joined the BJP.

Of such stuff was the Congress aversion to 'communalism' made!

Reference:
1. A Life of Our Times by Rajeshwar Dayal
2. Being the Other: The Muslim in India by Saeed Naqvi