The abruptly arrest of Kalicharan Maharaj by Chhattisgarh Police from Khajurao its adjoining state Madhya Pradesh. Though, the MP police expresses anguish for Chhattisgarh police being violated interstate protocol without informing the local police.
Let’s face it. In India, such alacrity by the policy is only shown when the political ruling class takes special interest in a case. In this particular case, one is hardly surprised that the ruling class of Chhattisgarh had an insurmountable urge to see Kalicharan Maharaj behind bars because of alleged speech being called out as “hate” for Gandhi.
Keep the legality of the arrest aside, that the Chhattisgarh police sprang into action and almost desperately arrested Kalicharan Maharaj for alleged “hate speech” without even informing the local police, conceivably shows the sort of pressure it has been under from their political masters.
Kalicharan Maharaj, a priest popularly known for chanting toughest ‘Mantras and Shlokas’. Many of his videos are already floating around the social media. However, he came into limelight when he joined the Dharma Sansad and made some statements allegedly for Gandhi and Nehru, while he praises Nathuram Godse who had assassinated him.
In his speech at Dharma Sansad, Kalicharan Maharaj said, “India was cut into two parts in front of our eyes. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan were already separated. Bangladesh and Pakistan got separated in front of our eyes by them. They used politics to separate these parts from India. That Har*mi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi destroyed India. I bow down to Nathuram Godse Ji, who assassinated the Har*mi.”
“These carbuncles of the society need to be surgically removed else they become cancer. I am not telling you to start riots. There is no need. You are not even ready. Muslims are prepared, you are not. If the Police were not there, we would have already been finished. There are saviours of religion among them.” he added further.
In India, the political correctness requires one to hail the arrest and take a moral high ground saying that abusive language has to be condemned, and since the language was used for a Mahatma like Gandhi, the arrest is justified. In fact, many, from the non-left itself, have gone as far as to condemn in unequivocal terms the Dharma Sansads held in Chhattisgarh and Haridwar, not even talking about why such words were uttered in the first place – unbridled aggression by sections of the Muslim community and an outburst owing to decades of suppressed history.
The fundamental and internalised-Abrahamic need of Indians to create demi-Gods makes any honest discussion on Gandhi and his follies redundant, almost taboo and the deification of Gandhi has relegated many significant events, significant for Indians at large and Hindus specifically, to historical obscurity.
Mark 7:9 in the Bible says, “And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”. While Jesus called upon humans to reject Pagan Gods in an attempt to “establish their own tradition” and follow the word of Jesus, the only true God, a similar Jesus-Allah-fication is a norm for Indians, especially with leaders eulogised as a political project.
Likewise, the Bible calls the quest of pagans to establish their own tradition blasphemous, the political class has Jesus-Allah-fied Gandhi, to a point where the heathens are jailed if they dare to question the Demi-God. No leader, past or present, is beyond criticism, least of all MK Gandhi who can arguably be called a genocide enabler – standing by and letting Hindus be mercilessly massacred. When even Gods are questioned, false Gods have no right to be above scrutiny.
The apotheosis of Gandhi had political motivations. After 1947, Congress systematically propagandized the narrative that it was solely the Congress party that won India its freedom and it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi with his enigmatic leadership who magically bestowed India with freedom through the sheer power of non-violence alone.
Nehru’s Congress furthered this narrative because they chose to gain from it. Stalwarts like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose needed to be pushed aside, the memory of Veer Savarkar needed to be tarnished, the contributions of various other freedom fighters needed to be side-lined so that the Congress party with Gandhi as its face and Nehru as his ever-faithful disciple came to be regarded as the saviour of Indians.
Nehru and Gandhi committed several disastrous errors and embraced countless problematic notions. And Nehru sought to conceal all of them under the exaltation of Gandhi. If India and Hindus do not consciously decide to terminate the deification of Gandhi, India will see history repeated, mercilessly so, because there exists no honest evaluation of the sins of Gandhi that led India to decades of unrest that continues to this day.
One may not like Kalicharan Maharaj and the words he used for Gandhi. One may not like the overt aggression displayed by Hindus in the Dharma Sansads. One might even feel that such speeches must be made in private and that “hate speech” cannot be condoned even if it limits itself to calls for self-defence.
In fact, we might also feel that such elements are political pawns unleashed right before elections. However, making allowances for the state to arrest those who espouse political opinions that are converse to the popular narrative is a dangerous slope that can only lead to the society slipping down a dark abyss.
The edifice of our moral grandstanding might stand on the shoulders of Kalicharan Maharaj today, but when a society closes its eyes and refuses to evaluate history honestly, it is doomed to repeat it. The endorsement of imprisonment for a problematic political speech about the past is not the hill Hindus should choose to die on.
I don’t call him Mahatma, rather would like to follow what Dr. Ambedkar had called him in 1955 which he had said he is not ‘Mahatma’. History would certain for all his wrong doings in past sooner or later, we just need to wait and watch – there will be more like Kalicharan Maharaj.