Bhartiya Janta Party is a communalist party

Judges please note: This round is only for arguments, no rebuttals or counter arguments of any kind are to be made in this round, failure to comply by the rules would be infringement of conduct and would result in penalty of all 7 points. To understand what the BJP is, it is imperative first to understand the RSS (commonly referred to as the Sangh/an organized group of people with a shared aim or interest; an association or other organization) The Sangh Parivar (Family of Organisations) refers to the family of organisations of Hindu nationalists which have been started by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or are inspired by its ideas. The Sangh Parivar represents the Hindu nationalist movement.[1] It includes the RSS and several dozen smaller organisations, whose members' expressed opinions have been diverse over a range of topics.[2] Nominally, the different organizations within the Sangh Parivar run independently and have different policies and activities.. [1] Saha 2004:274 [2] Thakurta & Raghuraman, 2004:91 There are no qualms about the fact that the RSS is the forefather of the BJP. After all the BJP is nothing but a political wing of the RSS, one of its many affiliates. RSS BJP (Political Wing) VHP (Religious Wing) Seva Vibhag (Service Wing) Bajrang Dal (Militant Wing) Seva International Seva Bharati Vikas Bharati Sanskriti Bharati To prove what I have stated above I would quote an example to illustrate the example of the Sangh’s influence on the BJP. Eg: Advani’s downfall in the BJP, Advani was once a revered politician of the BJP and a star inspiration for RSS aspirants as he had made it to the top of the BJP. However during his visit to Pakistan he talked about how Jinnah was a secular figure and that he saluted him, this move was political suicide he was sidelines with the Sangh furious at him for making anti-national statements by praising the enemies of the country. The man served the BJP and RSS for more than 50 years and doesn't enjoy a single portfolio. That's what the you get for crossing RSS. Another way to demonstrate the same would be by quoting examples top-brass politicians of BJP who “just happen to be RSS members” Shivraj Singh Chouhan: Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state. He joined the RSS in 1972, as a 13-year-old. He has been a five-time Member of Parliament, representing Vidisha in the Lok Sabha since 1991. Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A hardliner Hindu nationalist and former Prime Minister of India. He was a lifelong member of RSS. Vajpayee was a full-time RSS worker before he was "released" for BJP (formerly Jana Sangh) activities. In one of his Hindi poems, Vajpayee proclaims: "Hindu Hindu mera parichay"-my only identity is Hindu. Harsh Vardhan: Union Health Minister and BJP’s CM candidate in Delhi elections is also a long-time RSS member. L.K Advani: He served as the Minister of Home Affairs; he additionally served as Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the 10th Lok Sabha and 14th Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament). He was the BJP’s PM candidate in the 2009 elections in the general elections. And yet again, I am afraid I will have to point out that it is strange that even Advani began his political career as a volunteer of RSS. Saving the best for the last, Narendra Modi: 15th and current Prime Minister of India who has lead the BJP to an unprecedented victory is also a member of RSS. Modi at the age of eight came in contact with RSS and he began attending its local shakhas (branches) where he came in contact with Lakshmanrao Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, who is known as his political guru and mentor. Inamdar inducted Modi as a balswayamsevak, a junior cadet in RSS and he went on to become a pracharak then eventually rising in the ranks of the BJP from Gujarat’s Chief Minister for 3 consecutive terms to the most coveted political office that the country has to offer. Mind you, these are only a handful of names, there is a whole list of politicians from BJP whose roots can be traced to the RSS. The basic guidelines of communalism and the communal approach of the RSS were laid down by Golwalkar in We (Golwalkar is one most respected figures in the BJP), where the Muslims were portrayed as a perpetually hostile and alien element within the Indian body politic and society, who must either accept total subordination to the Hindus or cease to be Muslim, as will be evident from the following quotation...``In Hindustan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu nation... So long, however, as they (Muslims and other non-Hindus) maintain their social, religious and cultural differences, they cannot but be only foreigners ... There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at the sweet will of the national race ... The non-Hindu peoples in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion ... in one word, they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen's rights ... in this country, Hindus alone are the Nation and the Muslims and others, if not actually anti-national, are at least outside the body of the Nation.' Babri Masjid Demolition: In 1990, BJP's president Advani started the ,rathyatra', a rally through the whole country to agitate for support for the Ayodhya campaign and to call anti-Muslim sentiments in the society. The BJP election manifesto from 1991 comprised the lines: “It [the BJP] seeks the restoration of Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya only by way of a symbolic righting of historic wrongs.” The Ayodhya campaign can not only be seen as “the most radical phase in the party's evolution in terms of ideological stridency, but also its most militant phase.”, Dr. Sebastian Schwecke, a scholar on Indian history states in his work “New cultural identitarian political movements in developing societies: the BharatiyaJanata Party” from 2011, that the BJP govt. in the state had made a commitment to the Supreme Court that the Babri Mosque would not be harmed, not only did the mob accompanying Advani demolish the mosque, after doing so there were rallies celebrating the victory of the ‘nationalists’ and communal riots which left 2000 dead, most of which were of course Muslims.You see the perks of being a minority in a democracy. Godhra Riots of 2002: Gujarat’s very own and special holocaust which accounts for 2000 corpses. Some independent scholars claim, the well-orchestrated, and premeditated communal riot had met the ‘legal definition of genocide’ One person to speak out was Harsh Mander, then an IAS officer, (civil servant) who wrote in Outlook (March 19, 2002) soon after the killings: “I force myself to write a small fraction of all that I heard and saw, because it is important that we all know or maybe also because I need to share my own burdens.” “What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared? Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes. What can you say about a family of nineteen being killed by flooding their house with water and then electrocuting them with high-tension electricity?” “What can you say? A small boy of six in Juhapara camp described how his mother and six brothers and sisters were battered to death before his eyes. He survived only because he fell unconscious, and was taken for dead.” 3[3] Outlook Magazine In 2007, Tehelka published a hidden-camera interview with Babu Bajrangi, a man known to be an aide of several BJP biggies, which showed the Bajrangi talking about how he organized the killings of Muslims during the Naroda Patiya massacre during the 2002 Gujarat riots: “We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire, we hacked, burned, set on fire, we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it, I have just one last wish, let me be sentenced to death, I don't care if I'm hanged, just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where [seven or eight hundred thousand] these people stay, will finish them off, let them die.” In the video Bajrangi claimed that after the killings, he called the home minister (BJP politician) and the VHP general secretary Jaideep Patel, and told them about the killings, he said they were happy to know that all of it had carried out smoothly. He also claimed Narendra Modi tried to subvert the judicial process.[5] [5] Tehelka.com It should be unstated that the relationship between BJP and RSS is integral in understanding the context which has been stated above. BJP has never in any of its election campaigns adopted the tag of secular in order to appease and form a Hindu vote bank on whose votes (as per data by election commission)they have come into power in 2014. Their ideology is that “the non Hindupeople..must adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of the Hindu nation,....they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation….” L.K Advani in his autobiography explains hindutva as a vision- the problem of non-Hindus was not the problem of faith, it transcends the barriers of faith and worship, and tends to create political tensions in the anti-national perspective. It is difficult to bring non-Hindus into mainstream politics and that hence the only answer is Hindutva which would serve common interests for all. Other sources include 1. The Lost Years of the RSS by Sanjeev Kelkar 2. RSS Constitution 3. BJP 2014 election manifesto