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It's an incredible win, but victors must show humility

May 16, 2014 18:38 IST

A Modi supporter celebrates'They must bow their head before the people's might and start their work immediately. Now nothing can help them, but a show of sincerity and a life without cosmetic frills.'

'They don't have any option, but to succeed and prove themselves worthy of this massive victory,' says BJP MP Tarun Vijay.

It's 1857 again.

It is difficult for us, born and brought up in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to describe how we feel today.

Should the word like 'Indescribable' be used? Looks too modest.

'Unprecedented' and 'Extraordinary' too pale away before the results.

Those of us, who had to live like outcasts, unlisted citizens, barred to enter the holy precincts of secular citadels of intellectual discourse, awards, celebrations, fellowships, will take some time to adjust to the new realities.

Our parents worked for the Jan Sangh and then the Bharatiya Janata Party. The area we lived was full of Congress people, and we faced a lot of resistance. We were told; we are bad, petty, bullock cart-era people who spread hatred.

We had the best of young software engineers, scientists, IIT-ians, ex-Harvard, Wharton and Cambridge stars, who were totally committed to the RSS ideology. Yet we were shown as the most retrogressive, backward lot.

We were so hated that we felt cornered. Our relatives, RSS supporters, told us, don't tell an officer that I go to a shakha. It was like an offence.

RSS leaders were never invited to Presidential banquets and Republic Day or Independence Day celebrations though the Muslim League, the party responsible for the partition of India, was invited to join the Union government and was privileged to be seated next to the high and the mighty. But those who swore on the tricolour, worshipped Mother India, were declared pariahs.

Day in and day out, the State-controlled media and secular mediahouses spread lies about us, twisted facts. Anti-Hindu professional liars were their star performers, they told the world that Hindutva forces and Hindutva are synonymous with hatred and against the very fabric of the nation's civil life.

English language newspapers refused to publish our columns and even if someone somewhere would sometimes oblige and have our views, that would be once in a blue moon, so that they could tell the world about their objective, independent, editorial policy. Though the opportunist in some of these mediahouses very soon sensed the new wind and had started giving space to the 'previously hated' leaders.

Doors were shut on us, the government would threaten us every now and then scan who are the RSS employees in their fold, anyone who had anything to do with the soul of this nation -- the Hindu dharma and civilisation -- was kept at a safe distance.

The British mindset and the hateful attitude of the invaders who came from beyond the Khyber Pass was in full swing.

They not only edited the Modi interview, every single media of the State-run Prasar Bharati was mortgaged to the secular sirens of the big mediahouses, who masqueraded in these forums as 'journalists' and used choicest abuses. I was once on Doordarshan, and the programme producer, a highly-respected editor, ex-BBC, was immediately de-commissioned. So much for the freedom of the press of these secular hate-bags.

They called Modi 'Hero of Hate', a 'merciless bigot', napunsak (impotent), a chaiwallah who could sell tea at a Congress conclave. They ran front-page columns describing his 'murderous spree'. Every single institution in Gujarat was dubbed 'untrustworthy'.

The Gujarat model of development was a sham, it was falsehood packaged to a pliable media. The rise of Modi was a creation of social media. In fact, the people are against him!

Even till the last moment it was difficult for them to swallow defeat. The exit polls are wrong, one such embedded 'journalist' said on May 16 morning -- the role of the television channels has been 'reprehensible'. Another Congress friend said it is 'money power hijacking democracy' -- all on record, on the television channels.

The Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha television channels turned into unashamedly Congress platforms, with anchors and producers joining the anti-Modi chorus. If the Congress wins, it is the people's mandate. If the BJP wins, it is because of the money power and because they had purchased the media.

Now, in an interesting colour change, these will be the first to crave for the Modi interview, praising his 'untiring and indefatigable' personality who mesmerised the people with a development chant.

They had become maulanas of educational institutions, creating hate machines against Hindutva. Their behaviour was revengeful and brazenly pro-Naxal, pro-separatist. Everyone who attacked Indian soldiers, Indian sovereignty, Indian borders, was their pal, their 'blue eyed revolutionary' buddy, who needed a Planning Commission cushion for a siesta.

Just those who proclaimed they are Hindutva had to be 'taken care of'. So coin words like 'Hindu terrorism', announce that the 26/11 attacks was a Jewish-Hindu conspiracy to malign poor Muslims. Declare they, the 'seculars' are the only caretakers of the Muslim vote bank.

It is a long journey we have passed through. Turbulence and turmoil became part of our life. The first great opening was to see Atal Bihari Vajpayee becoming prime minister. He broke the glass wall of ostracisation. Still the Gulags and Siberias on the newsdesks remained.

He was at his commanding height, the best we have ever had. But the pressures of the 26 coalition partners made the BJP look different. Vajpayee stood firm on coalition dharma and proved one of the best prime ministers.

In fact, the RSS has produced two prime ministers, distinctly non-Congress and ideologically deeply rooted in the colour of the Indian soul.

Both Modi and Vajpayee are full-time pracharakss of the RSS, trained and cultured in their pathshala. It is an achievement no other organisation in the world can boast of. Established in 1925 in Nagpur by Dr K B Hedgewar, the RSS has remained the target of all so-called secular modules of activists.

Like Modi, the RSS has always been assaulted, banned, and spoken against at every State-run forum of the Congress-Left variety.

But it continued working at the grassroots level, through more than 170,000 projects that span from Leh in the north to Tawang in the northeast, from Port Blair to Mangalore and Rajasthan's deserts to Sikkim and the Sunderbans.

These include the best hospitals, eye banks, schools, hostels, tribal welfare centres, colleges, technological centres, think-tanks. But the hate bags simply criticised the RSS without ever trying to know its functioning, reach and the message.

Thousands of those young highly accomplished RSS workers who left their families, careers and lived ascetic lives were inspired with an urge to serve Mother India. Hate could not have made them run schools!

The millions who became a part of the RSS movement couldn't have been wronged for so long.

The arrogance of the Congress burnt the skin and hurt the masses. Their leaders behaved like British sergeants. Rude, reckless, stinking rich and insultingly insensitive.

The rampant corruption in all government offices didn't bother them. The insults of a young prince to an octogenarian prime minister didn't shake them. The growing unrest on the streets didn't make them anxious. The daily uproar in Parliament over irregularities didn't move them, they thought announcing the Food Security Bill will delight the people and make them indebted.

They seriously took a billion people for granted as their serfs and thought good media management and propaganda would take care of the few wayward communal Modis.

The change hasn't come nimble footed. It has come with a big bang.

The Nehru-Gandhi stink of dynasty rule must finally come to an end. India is freed from a corrupt family fiefdom. It is a new avatar of 1857, and victory has embraced the sepoys of the people's war.

Modi, even before the government has been formed, has unquestioningly ensured his place in history as the tallest leader post Independence.

It is incredible. It is the time the victors must show humility, bow their head before the people's might and start their work immediately.

Now nothing can help them, but a show of sincerity and a life without cosmetic frills.

They don't have any option, but to succeed and prove themselves worthy of this massive victory.

Image: A Modi supporter celebrates in Mumbai. Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com

Tarun Vijay is a Bharatiya Janata Party member of the Rajya Sabha.

Tarun Vijay