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SOUTHERN SAFFRON

The VHP's grand foray into Tamil Nadu begins with more just rhetoric. The huge following it has already managed to build up shows that it is well on its way to striking deeper roots, writes India Today's Arun Ram.

The sunrise of February 8 cast an unusually deep saffron at least in parts of Tiruchchirapalli. In and around Chattram, saffron flags fluttered along the roadsides. Young people wearing saffron T- shirts and saffron headbands walked, rather marched, towards the National High School Ground, as if they were listening to an invisible commander. And when they reached the grounds, they realized it was "Kurukshetra", and there were two, not one, commanders with crown and trishul.Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia commandeered, for the next 12 hours, the imagination of a 40,000-strong crowd, which might have never thought Hindu Rashtra should be their salvation and Muslim-bashing their vocation. Emerging now and then from the shadows of the stormy petrels of the Parivar, was R.R. Gopalji, the state leader of VHP's youth wing.

Singhal triggered the thunder. "There are three kinds of Hindus," he said. "Hindus with self respect, secular Hindus and Hindus who have joined hands with our enemies. Time has come for a battle to finish off the last two varieties, which harm us more than our enemies do. We declare another Mahabharath (war) from this Kurukshetra."Singhal's Hindi did not convey anything to a majority of the crowd, but the intensity of his voice and the ferocity of his posture left no doubt in any mind. And the gathering went up shouting: "Jai Shri Ram! Jai Shri Ram! We will build the temple again."

Singhal scanned the audience from left to right and shouted: "Louder, brothers, louder!" It was only a couple of hours earlier, when the crowd applauded appreciating a music troop's popular songs praising Lords Krishna (Alaipayuthe) and Ram, a local leader advised: "We are not like other people who yell and applaud. We are Hindus. We say `Ohm.' The crowd - not just youngsters, as half the number had left their youth long back - tried best to comply, chanting `Ohms', but Singhal's war cry was too much for the audience to reciprocate with the `aadi mantra' of peace and omnipotence.

For 23-year-old Govindaraj from the back row, it it was time for a calling. "I badly wanted to be part of such a struggle," says the tailor from Keelkondayar village. For others like Karuppusamy, an elderly man, it was a fair-like experience. "Fifty three of us came from Usilampatti and I can't find the 52 others. Can you help me?" he requests as he comes out of the lunch hall, where "sambar saadam" was served for the Tamil warriors of Hindutva. The conference stood out for its planning. With a 50-feet wide stage in the shape of a golden-wheeled rath with Lord Krishna blowing the conch as the backdrop, a sprawling ground covered entirely by thatched roof and an exhibition of paintings praising such yesteryear warriors as Subhash Chandra Bose and Sukhdev made a perfect setting for Kurukshetra. And the speakers were a strategic mix of the vociferous, articulate and the spiritual. To throw more light on the finer aspects of the fine religion, there were Sri Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi of the Kanchi Kamakoti, Sriranga Ramanuja Mahadesikan. Gopalji and VHP deputy leader in the state RPVS Manian kept the spirit alive.

"Hindus should be Hindus," said Jayendra Saraswathy. "There is no Muslim who doesn't know Koran. There is no Christian who has not read the Bible. But no Hindu knows his culture and religion. Let's think as "we" the Hindus. Like model institutions of science and education, Hinduism should make the model man. It was clear from the beginning that the primary aim of the conference was to ignite the new recruits of Kurukshetra to the maximum. And the hottest of issues - Ramjanmabhoomi, conversion, Pakistan, Kashmir, terrorism - where kept boiling all through." Will the United States allow a mosque for Osama bin Laden to come up where the Twin Towers stood?" asked Togadia. "Similarly, we cannot allow anything else other than the Ram temple at the Lord's birthplace." Togadia, who was introduced as "the man who made Narendra Modi the chief minister of Gujarat," said, "The VHP is not here to make chief ministers and prime ministers. The VHP is here for fulfilling the aspirations of the 85 crore Hindus." His arguments were simple, direct and appealing: There are 85 crore Hindus and 12 crore Muslims. So it is unfair on the part of the governments to favour Muslims and treat Hindus as second-class citizens. "Muslim invaders have destroyed 30,000 temples and built 3,000 mosques. Hindus need to get back at least three places - Ayodhya, Madura and Kasi." "Three lakh Hindus have fled Kashmir because of Islamic terrorism; but the government gives protection to a few thousand Muslims in Gujarat."

There is more to the show than the rhetoric. It is all too apparent that the VHP plans to begin with the temples in the state. Sri Jayendra Saraswathi's words at the conference gain significance here: "We have to protect our temples. We can't rely only on the government and sit back." Gopalji gave a more specific instruction to the young cadre. "Go and get the details of the assets of every temple in your village. See to it that no conversion happens."If the two-day conference of the Tamil Nadu VHP youth wing was a loud statement of its potential in the state, the coming days will mark its silent strategies to strike deeper roots in the South. The battle lines are clearly being drawn.

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