RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat thinks he speaks for the Hindus of India, and AIMIM solo head Asaduddin Owaisi wouldn’t be given a chair to sit by the vast majority of Muslims. But Bhagwat can’t get it around his head, and the AIMIM head refuses to heed his head that Muslims look on him as a maverick best left to his own devices. So, Bhagwat has asked Hindus to not go looking for a ‘Shiva Linga’ under every mosque, and Owaisi has termed Bhagwat’s intervention ‘incendiary’, and totally ‘unacceptable’. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party scoffed at Owaisi, calling him a barrister without a case, and Bhagwat’s intervention was nothing short of genius, the ‘masterstroke’ reserved for the longest time to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Hindu bloc considers Mohan Bhagwat’s comments on ‘Mandir and Masjid’ blatantly out of context, especially the “don’t go looking for a Shiva Linga under every mosque” part. Bhagwat’s fatherly advice hasn’t found takers among the saffron-clad “Sant Samagam”.
Yes, talk that the RSS will not be the face of future places of worship acts of the Sangh Parivar is drawing laughs. If that’s what it’s going to be, won’t the VHP and Bajrang Dal join the ranks of the unemployed? Asaduddin Owaisi refuses to agree. The AIMIM think-tank is all over TV comparing the Bhagwat’s invitation to reconciliation to an attempt at snatching victory from the jaws of deceit! Owaisi doesn’t trust the forked tongue of the fascist RSS. He is 100 percent sure the VHP and the Bajrang Dal have outsourced the task of finding Shiva Lingas under mosques. His disapproval is that Bhagwat keeps referring to Indian Muslims as belonging to the same Hindu stock. Owaisi is livid that Bhagwat refuses to stop spreading the ‘canard’ that Islam came to India from outside the subcontinent. This goes against Owaisi’s pet theory that Muslims and Islam are indigenous to the subcontinent. He maintains that “Adam, who was Muslim does not find mention in Hindu religious books.” Owaisi is intransigent, like the religion he belongs to. He doesn’t want reconciliation, not until Bhagwat declares that Indian Muslims do not have Hindu DNA.
Interestingly, Bhagwat’s let’s not dig up the 30,000 mosques said to be built over demolished temples doesn’t include Gyanvapi and the Idgah mosque in Mathura. The too-clever half-man that he is, the RSS chief is a master of the unspecific, leaving that should be said unsaid. The Gyanvapi affair is in court, and nothing that Bhagwat preaches will affect the course of the “Gyanvapi Andolan”. Meanwhile, Owaisi’s rhetoric is finding resonance among more and more Muslims. The view always was that the RSS commands, and the BJP obeys. But two consecutive stints of Modi rule, both with brute majorities, had fostered talk that Prime Minister Narendra Modi held the upper hand, and Mohan Bhagwat was HMV. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is anything but a generous Hindu. He’s a politician, a keen one at that. Present him a skullcap, and he’ll ask for a 12-gallon Texas hat! It’s more than likely that RSS chieftain Mohan Bhagwat was talking through Modi’s hat when he said let’s put a stop to looking for ‘Shiva Lingas’ under mosques.
