IIT Kanpur acquires a saffron hue

KANPUR: Drive through the well-laid road in the scenic IIT campus to the Nankari gate. Where the road drops to a narrow drive, the village of Nankari begins.

The sweep of landscape in front of a frail looking Tilakdhari, a shopkeeper in his 70s in the Nankari village, has changed significantly through his lifetime. Ask him about the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) shakha, and there is an air of authority to his reply: “Do you see that ground?” he points to an open ground inside the IIT campus.

“They used to have regular shakha every morning there. But for the last couple of weeks I have not seen much activity here. Maybe because of the police action following the blast.”

Tilakdhari is referring to the August 24 blast in which two alleged Bajrang Dal activists, including one from Nankari village, were killed in a makeshift hostel room in Rajeev Nagar area of Kanpur.

Those killed, Rajeev Mishra and Bhupinder from Nanakari and Shastri Nagar localities respectively, were active members of the RSS in this dusty, crowded Uttar Pradesh town.

Investigations reveal that the two were assembling bombs using ammonium nitrate, shrapnel, iron pipes, wires and timer devices. A half-assembled bomb was also found lying there. The hostel belongs to Rajeev’s father, Shiv Sharan Mishra who stays in Nankari.

The right wing’s deep network in Kanpur’s dust and din is an elaborate showcase of the intricacies of India’s Hindu fundamentalism itself: the genetic bonding between the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the BJP, and several other groups. And here in the IIT campus and elsewhere lie answers, or absence of them, to questions about how violent some of them are, especially the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the VHP.

Prof Vishwas N Kulkarni, an IIT faculty who specialises in applied nuclear physics, has another equally important passion, the Sangh Parivar. Kulkarni, who has worked with BARC in the past, scans us top-down as we step into his house. When told that the RSS had a good presence inside the IIT campus, he remarked, “There is presence and work is also being done to spread our message, but there is still a lot to be done. Jis tarah hum chahte hain us tarah prachar nahi ho raha (Things are not progressing way we want it to).”

When asked why, he says, “Media regularly portrays a negative image about the RSS and that doesn’t help much.”

Kulkarni has been actively involved in the activities of the RSS and the saffron brigade. He, in fact, proudly proclaims that he was in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was demolished.

“The biggest lie in this world is that all religions are equal. Although I don’t hate Muslims individually, several of my colleagues are Muslims. But yes, Mujhe ghrina hai Islam se (I hate Islam as a religion). See what is happening in Assam. Illegal Bangladeshi migrant Muslims have outnumbered the Hindus there in at least 8 districts.” He says the RSS’s mission is to awaken the youth and the people of India. “And in the process if somebody opposes us, we have to get rid of him.”

RSS and its various groups are thriving on the IIT campus. At the daily shakha meetings “there are discussions on swadeshi andolan. We discuss the lives of great people like Dr Hegdewar. There are also discussions on issues like nuclear agreement,” Kulkarni says.
VHP leaders like Praveen Togadia have given speeches at the campus here. “Praveen bhai doesn’t mince words,” says Kulkarni, smiling embarrassingly while talking of the communal discourses by Togadia.

How do they recruit youth and IIT students into their cadre? “We do not recruit students directly. You would not find any sort of register being maintained. But each individual RSS pracharak has got his own means by which he maintains a record of growth in membership.”

Like all other senior members of the Sangh Parivar here, Kulkarni doesn’t give out everything. “But why are you asking me such questions? I am now getting wary of your designs. I don’t know what is there in your mind. I cannot tell you anything more.”

aditya_k@dnaindia.net