Opinion | How Adityanath’s Slogan Could Have Become A Clarion Call For Unity Among All Indians
When Yogi Adityanath coined the slogan in the restricted sense of Hindus alone, he unintentionally articulated a truth about the survival of India as a whole
Yogi Adityanath’s recent slogan ‘Batenge toh katenge’, divided we will be decimated, was made in the specific context of the need of unity among Hindus, especially after what has transpired against them in Bangladesh. This slogan soon got the endorsement of the RSS, which has for long emphasised the importance of Hindu unity, cutting across caste and other divisions. The BJP is now using this naara for its campaigning for the coming state elections.
My view is that when Yogi coined the slogan in the restricted sense of Hindus alone, he unintentionally articulated a truth about the survival of India as a whole. I say this because overall unity is the need not only for one religion in our country, but for the nation as a whole. Our history is long and replete with the fatal consequences of disunity among us, with critically pivotal consequences in shaping the course of our history.
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In the 3rd century BCE, Ambhi Kumar, king of Taxila, welcomed the invader Alexander to India, and ceded his territory to him. His reason was to ensure that the rival kingdoms of the Pauravas and Abhisara face defeat. When Mohammad Ghori invaded India in the 12th century, the forces of the brave Prithviraj Chauhan were more than a match for him, and had defeated him in the past. But in the second battle of Tarain, Chauhan was betrayed by Jayachandra Rathod, the ruler of Kannauj, who provided aid to Ghori, and thus paved the way for the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. Some historians contest this version, but in Prithviraj’s biography, the author Chand Bardai, clearly mentions the alliance between Rathod and Ghori.
The British conquest of India began due to the treacherous betrayal of Mir Jaffar, the commander of the armed forces of Siraj-ud-Dulha, the last Nawab of Bengal. This happened during the 1757 battle of Plassey against Robert Clive. Clive would have lost the battle, but he had an ally in Jaffar, who surrendered his troops to him, leading to the British conquest of Bengal. Jaffar did this only for personal greed. There are innumerable other examples too. Raja Man Singh, the ruler of the kingdom of Narwar, treacherously handed over to the British the courageous Maratha freedom fighter Tatya Tope, who had taken refuge with him. Even Rani Lakshmi Bai was betrayed, it is said, by Jayajirao Scindia, the ruler of Gwalior. During the great revolt of 1857, the last Moghul king Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had become the symbol of opposition to the foreign rulers, was let down by largely Hindu merchants of the walled city who, at the risk of their lives, secretly supplied rations and other essential items to the beleaguered British troops marooned on the Ridge outside, merely for earning a little more money.
These examples clearly show that unity is not a question of Hindus versus the rest, but of Indians as a whole against hostile outsiders. India is, and has been for centuries now, a home to many religions, cultures, languages and distinct regions. As a civilisation and a nation, we have survived precisely because we have nurtured and protected this diversity and—in spite of occasional tensions which are but inevitable—reinforced our composite entity, setting an example for the rest of the world on how a multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural can not only exist but flourish. If we encourage, divisions to emerge and harden within us, especially on the basis of religion, we are sending an open invitation to hostile powers to intervene and take advantage. An India divided within itself, is a weak India, however theoretically united one part of it maybe.
Within this imperative pan-Indian binding, unity among Hindus is important too. But to achieve that goal, have we done the radical structural social and economic reform that is an essential prerequisite for it. The greatest proponent of Hindu unity, Veer Savarkar, was the one who stressed on this most. He spoke of the Hindu community being a victim of seven enduring fetters, saat bediyan. These included caste discrimination, gender disparity, untouchability, prohibition of inter-caste marriage, and food pollution issues. He wanted Hindus to eradicate these evils because he understood that unless that is done in a foundational way, unity would be an empty slogan.
We are still far from achieving what Savarkar wanted. One just needs to go a little outside the metropolises to see the level of gender discrimination and gender exploitation, not to speak of growing economic inequality and inequity. Real unity can only be achieved when there is genuinely a level playing field. When that does not exist, to articulate a slogan of unity appears to be facile or motivated.
Batenge toh katenge is fear mongering, unless in a statesmanlike manner it becomes a clarion call for unity among all Indians.
The author is a former diplomat, an author and a politician. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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