RSS Satyagraha and Government Reaction

 

The inspiring call given Golwalkar are as follow: “I therefore, request you to stand up for our great Cause. Truth and Justice are with us. And where Truth exists the Almighty showers His Blessings on it. With absolute faith in Him and unswerving devotion to our holy Motherland let us start on our peaceful campaign for vindicating the justice of our Cause. We stand for Truth. We stand for justice. We stand for our National Rights. With implicit faith in the Just God of Truth let us march on. This is a battle between Dharma and Adharma, justice and injustice, large hearts and small minds, love and hate. Victory is certain, because God is with Dharma and victory is with God. Let the skies reverberate with the call ‘victory to India’ and rest not till the goal is reached. Bharat Mata-ki Jai.”

The Government had already come to know that the Sangh Shakhas would start functioning again. The news had caused a turmoil among the top-ranking leaders of the Congress. In a public meeting in Gwalior on Dec. 5, 1948 Sardar Patel said, “Some people say the Sangh is going to start a Satyagraha. But these people can never conduct a Satyagraha, their Satyagraha can never succeed, because their minds are unclean. We had advised them to join the Congress and had tried to bring about a change of heart among them but they have chosen the path of confrontation. I warn them, we are ready to face such challenges.”

Even while the Government was issuing such threats the Sangh launched its Satyagraha on Dec. 9 under the Sarkaryawaha Shri Bhaiyaji Dani’s leadership by holding Shakhas all over the country. The ban was on holding Shakhas, so the Satyagraha consisted of holding the Shakhas, Shouting slogans like Bharat Mata-ki Jai and ‘Long live Sangh’. Batches of Swayamsevaks would come out to hold Shakha and the police would take them away into custody. The Shakha would continue with its routine programmes till the police intervened. Strict discipline would be observed even while peacefully courting arrest. At many places, thousands of people also assembled to watch the Satyagraha. The arrested Swayamsevaks would be dumped into police vans and sent to jail.

The Satyagraha led to the ban on Sangh becoming a hot topic of discussion all over country. Thousands of walls came to be plastered with the demand – ‘Prove the charges against the Sangh, or lift the ban’. At the same time, lakhs of copies of pamphlets refuting the charges against the Sangh and explaining its just and nationalist stand were distributed. There was also great enthusiasm among the Swayamsevaks for the movement. Ignoring every kind of difficulty on their way, Swayamsevaks jumped into the struggle in their thousands. Hundreds gave up their jobs and countless students suspended their studies. No one worried about this physical suffering or domestic problems. The Satyagraha which began on Dec. 9, showed no signs of abating. With every passing day, public support and sympathy for the Sangh went on growing.

The Government had surmised that this movement of inexperienced young men would peter out in a few days. Nor did it expect the number of Satyagrahis to cross a couple of thousands. The way Pt. Nehru viewed the Satyagraha became evident in his remarks at a meeting of Congressmen at Jaipur. He said, “This is a duragraha of the urchins of the Sangh. The Government will use all its might to crush this agitation. The Sangh will never be allowed to raise its head again.” In a way, Pt. Nehru was right when he talked of ‘urchins’ conducting the Satyagraha, for its conduction was indeed in the hands of youngmen just in their twenties. No leader or no established political party stood behind them. Golwalkar himself was quite young as compared to other well-known leaders. But the imagination, discipline, spirit of sacrifice and patriotism these ‘urchins’ displayed were something extraordinary. The Government even applied brute force to suppress the movement. In Punjab and Madras States, inhuman atrocities were committed on the Satyagrahis. In places like Madras, Howrah, Agra, Jodhpur, Bareili, Buxar, Gwalior, the Satyagrahis were severely lathi-charged within the confines of closed prison cells and their heads and limbs broken, while in Punjab they were thrown into rivers and canals in freezing cold.

The Government had never imagined even in their dreams that more than 70,000 Satyagrahis would have to be thrown behind the bars. It became virtually impossible for it to make arrangements for such a huge number. So at many places, the police adopted barbaric tactics to get over this difficulty. They would take the Satyagrahis miles away into a dense jungle and leave them there in the midnight in biting cold. Despite such atrocities, the Swayamsevaks suffered everything with matchless fortitude. At some places, they went on a hunger strike demanding just treatment. All in all, it was an exemplary Satyagraha beyond the imagination of Congressmen who swore day and night by Gandhiji. The inhuman lathi-charges on peaceful Satyagrahis in Madras was strongly condemned by eminent men like Shri T. R. Venkatarama Shastri of the Liberal Party and Swami Venkatachalam, a member of Parliament. Later it was Shri Venkatarama Shastri who mediated for getting the ban on the Sangh lifted. Public support and sympathy for the Sangh was on a sharp increase. At many places, morchas began to be taken out to demand justice for the Sangh and lifting of the ban.

There was no sign of the Satyagraha stopping and of the enthusiasm of the Swayamsevaks abating. Many prominent public spirited persons were naturally disturbed at the needless sufferings of such fine youngmen. Such leaders also began to think that some solution will have to be found out. They wrote to the Home Ministry expressing their willingness to mediate. In the beginning of January Shri G. V. Ketkar, Editor of the Pune-based daily ‘Kesari’, got permission to see Golwalkar in Sivani jail. Accordingly, Shri Ketkar met Golwalkar twice, on Jan. 12 and 16, acquainted him with the situation in the country, and suggested that if the Satyagraha was suspended it would pave the way for initiating some moves for getting the ban lifted.

Golwalkar agreed and gave Shri Ketkar a written directive for suspending the Satyagraha. The directive was taken to those conducting the Satyagraha outside and finally, on Jan. 22, 1949, the suspension was formally announced. The saga of the countrywide Satyagraha that began on Dec. 9, 1948 now came to a remarkably successful conclusion. In the meanwhile, many notable people had come to realise that all tall talk of easily crushing the Sangh by the Government was meaningless and that the Sangh’s forbearance was not a sign of its weakness but of pristine patriotism.