The Arya Samaj Roots of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

THE ARYA SAMAJ ROOTS OF ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE
Dr.J.Kuruvachira
There is an appalling ignorance both in India and abroad concerning the real identity of
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the former Prime Minister of India. Consequently, he is often
projected as a moderate and liberal. BJP frequently makes use of this largely deceptive
image of Vajpayee for political mileage. In the general elections of April-May 2004 too,
BJP projected Vajpayee’s misleadingly ‘soft’ image by promoting a personality cult
around him.
However, a closer look at Vajpayee’s profile and political strategies will reveal many
facts concerning his Hindutva hard-liner identity. Vajpayee’s ideological roots are to be
traced in four major Hindu fundamentalist and nationalist organisations, namely, the Arya
Samaj, RSS, Jan Sangh and BJP. Unfortunately, one seldom hears about Vajpayee’s Arya
Samaj roots.
Vajpayee is one of the political leaders whose commitment to Hindu nationalism was
derived, first of all, from the Arya Samaj. Vajpayee himself admits that he was closely
associated with this organisation right from his early days. On 31 March 1998 Vajpayee
said: “During my childhood, I came into contact with the Arya Samaj first”. He was the
general secretary of the Arya Kumar Sabha, a youth branch of the Arya Samaj, in
Gwalior.
Arya Samaj, founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 1875, was one of the foremost
aggressive Hindu organisations in the late 19 th and early 20th centuries. The Samaj was a
crusading reform movement in Hinduism based on the slogan ‘back to the Vedas’. This
idea is systematically presented in Dayananda Saraswati’s controversial work Satyartha
Prakash (Light of Truth). In addition to this, the work also demonstrated his intolerance
towards all non-Vedic religions and philosophies such as the Carvacas, Buddhists, Jains,
Muslims and Christians, including popular Hinduism.
Arya Samaj sought to ‘strengthen’ Hinduism especially by opposing Islam and
Christianity and introducing proselytisation and re-conversion (shuddhi) into Hinduism.
While it opposed caste system, idolatry, untouchability and animal sacrifice and
promoted female education and inter-caste marriages, it also upheld the sacredness of the
cow, infallibility of the Vedas, doctrines of karma and rebirth.
Arya Samaj propagated Hindi as the Aryabhasa (the language of the Aryas) in the Arya
Samaj parlance. It considered Muslims and Christians as aggressors and foreigners and
fought tooth and nail against them. It was often said: “in the Arya Samaj the Christian
Missionary has an avowed enemy”. The shuddhi or re-conversion movement and the
relentless ‘war’ against the Muslims and Christian missionaries spearheaded by it
inspired several other Hindu organisations to follow its example.
Speaking about the nature of Arya Samaj, C.F. Andrews, a freedom fighter of India,
observed that the Arya Samaj has been from the first ‘decidedly militant in spirit and
policy’. Koenraad Elst, a contemporary pro-Hindutva writer, admits that the first truly
public and sustained polemical attack on Christianity and Islam was mounted by Swami
Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj. He considers Arya Samaj as a
fundamentalist movement in the true sense of the word. Elst further says that the shuddhi
(re-conversion) movement it spearheaded undeniably contributed to the present-day
Hindu-Muslims polarisation. In 1927 Arya Samaj created the Arya Vir Dal (‘Arya
Heroes’ Organisation’) which took up training in physical self-defence in an exact
parallel with the contemporaneous RSS.
Tampering with the educational system, curricula and textbooks of India is an old
strategy of the Hindu nationalists in order to indoctrinate the masses with its nationalist
and sectarian ideology. The Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) schools and colleges – all of
them Arya Samaj-affiliated educational institutions – were established for this purpose.
The Dayanand Anglo-Vedic college, Kanpur, where Vajpayee received higher education
(Masters degree in Political Science) was the nerve centre of the Arya Samaj when he
was a student.
Krishna Kumar, a leading analyst of Hindu nationalism in India, observes that the DAV
schools provided education to children in line with the syllabus and examination pattern
of the State system but in an ethos featuring Vedic rituals and a yearning for the revival of
India’s ancient glory. This latter feature expresses a specific view of history in which the
conquests of India by the Mughals and the English are seen as causes of India’s cultural
and moral decline. Large pictures of medieval heroes like Rana Pratap and Shivaji and
modern ones who symbolise Hindu revival are commonly used in DAV schools to
decorate assembly halls and corridors. In this regard, at least, it is difficult to distinguish a
DAV school from a school affiliated with the RSS.
Mahatma Gandhi repeatedly denounced the Arya Samaj as fanatical. Krishna Kumar
observes that the Arya Samaj looms so large on the intellectual and social scene of the
late nineteenth century northern India that it is unnecessary to establish linkages between
the major tenets and concerns of the Arya Samaj and discrete currents of militant,
fundamentalist and communal thoughts and expressions available to individuals growing
up during that period.
The Arya Samaj produced many aggressive and militant Hindu nationalists like Bal
Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), Swami Shraddhannda (1856-1926) and Lala Lajpat Rai
(1865-1928). It influenced Hindutva ideologues like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-
1966) and Madhav Sadhashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973), and inspired Hindu nationalist
organisations like the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Jan Sangh and Vishva Hindu Parishad.
O.P. Tyagi who proposed the anti-missionary ‘Freedom of Religion Bill’ as a Jana Sangh
politician under the Janata Government in 1978 was an Arya Samaji. Vajpayee too is
greatly indebted to Arya Samaj for his notorious legacy of anti-secularism, anti-
minoritysm, conservative views on Hindu life and practices and Hindu nationalist
ideology. Hence in assessing the real identity of Vajpayee one must also take into
consideration his ideological upbringing in Arya Samaj.
END
(The author is a senior lecturer in Philosophy of religion, Phenomenology of religion and
Indian culture. He can be contacted at [email protected])

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