The RSS, which claims to be a nationalist cultural organisation, and its frontal organisation, the BJP, also boasts of itself being the only true nationalists. Furthermore, after the BJP came to power in 2014, RSS/BJP have become the self- proclaimed agency for distributing certificates of true nationalism. They alone can certify who is nationalist and who is not!
The reality of these claims now stands exposed by the ex-LG of Jammu & Kashmir Satya Pal Malik in case of Pulwama attack. Yet, RSS/BJP pretend to be the only nationalists.
They have had to invest heavily in anti-corruption advertising and propaganda to stay honest! The Prime Minister himself gave a slogan ‘na khaoonga, na khane doonga’ (Neither will I take bribes, nor will allow anyone else to do so). He had to say this to mask the fact that those who looted lakhs or crores from the country's banks were his very own people, and now all the country’s resources are being handed over to the people who, again, are his very loved ones.
Many cases that came up during the last few years prove that all who divide and loot the nation, gnawing its wealth and democracy chunk by chunk, are their very own and beloved.
The latest in such cases is of DRDO scientist Pradip Kurulkar. He was arrested by Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) for supplying sensitive information to Pakistan. At the time of his arrest Pradip Kurulkar was the Director of R&D Establishment (Engineers) of DRDO. If it wasn’t for this arrest, he would have gone on to retire next November, as Scientist H (considered as outstanding scientist) from the second highest post in DRDO. We all know that the DRDO is not just any state organisation; it is a defence agency researching and developing new techniques and devices needed for the defence establishment. It is not an ordinary occurrence for a senior scientist to share the country’s defence secrets with another country.
Who is this Pradip Kurulkar sitting comfortably inside the country's most important defence research and development organisation and sharing defence information with another country? He hails from Pune, and is very actively associated with the RSS just like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. Despite holding an important government post in the top defence institute, he actively participated in various programmes organised by the RSS, and even shared stage with the topmost functionary, the Sar Sangh Chalak. After generations of indoctrination in the RSS, the veil is now lifted for us to see he actually was an important part of the self-proclaimed nationalist organisation!
A top scientist caught spying against the country, but the TV anchors, themselves self-certified nationalists and who otherwise are shrill on national security and nationalism issues, maintain a relative calm. Neither were there any prime time debates, nor special shows to run for days to ‘expose’ sensational information for the captive viewers. Why? Because the scientist arrested for spying belongs to the same self-proclaimed nationalist camp in front of which most of the media is already prostate!
But Pradip Kurulkar is not a lone or isolated incident. This year J&K police arrested a man named Kiran Patel who was “touring” Kashmir since October 2022 presenting himself as an officer associated with the Prime Minister’s Office. He was provided Z-plus security and VIP accommodations, and was not only touring sensitive areas in the state at the governmental expenses, also sharing videos of his ‘official’ visits on social media for many months. This raises serious questions on our security system as well as on the political patronage he had acquired. After his arrest many images came up in social media showing his and his family’s closeness with many BJP bigwigs including Home Minister Amit Shah. When those images were doing rounds in social media, neither Amit Shah nor the government of India ever bothered to issue any clarification refuting the truth revealed by those pictures. Interestingly, two more persons were arrested along with Kiran Patel and were set free without giving any reason. One of them is Amit Pandya, son of Gujarat CM’s Additional Public Relations Officer Hitesh Pandya who was working for Gujarat government since 2001. He resigned from PRO post after his son’s controversial arrest and release. The way Amit Pandya and his friend Jay Sitapara was released, and the arguments of their innocence put forth by J&K police as well as by Hitesh himself further deepens the doubts about this whole episode.
How was it possible for Kiran Patel to tour sensitive areas under Z-plus security? Can one believe that our security system is so innocent and pitiable that it will throw a red carpet for anybody claiming to be from the PMO without verifying the facts? Can a person who doesn’t even know the difference between IAS and IPS be able to fool them for months? Something is surely amiss here. Kiran Patel was seen in pictures with home minister Amit Shah and prime minister Narendra Modi. He has been very close to BJP and RSS and has organised many programmes, campaigns and rallies for them. If media reports are to be believed then RSS Rajasthan pracharak Trilok Singh helped him in building initial contacts in J&K.
This fraud too has indisputable connections with the RSS. The high voltage media choosing to remain relatively silent also indicates that the whole episode is related to those same people whom it worships. Hence keep mouths shut.
The Kiran Patel episode was still fresh in minds when one more similar incident cropped up. The new character in the new episode was Sanjay Sherpuria who came in prominence after his arrest by Uttar Pradesh STF. He is accused of extracting huge amounts of money from big industrialists as ‘donations’ for his NGO Youth Rural Entrepreneur Foundation after claiming to be close to PMO. The advisory board of this NGO includes retired IAS, IPS and ex-military officers. He also boasts of his closeness with PM Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat by showing his photos with them. He wrote columns in dailies like Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala. Pictures of him presenting his book to TV journalists went viral after his arrest. He authored a book ‘Divya Drishti Modi’ (Divine Vision of Modi) and was part of Narendra Modi’s election campaign in Varanasi in 2019! Even officers in CBI wanting favourable transfer-postings used to approach him for recommending their name before the ‘top leadership’ and as per claims he was always helpful! As per newspaper reports STF has said that this case is now investigated by IB and ED. Why an open and shut case of thuggery is not given to topmost agencies is beyond anybody’s comprehension. One thing is clear that RSS, BJP and PMO have some obvious connections with this case too!
People may have forgotten the name of J&K Police DSP Davinder Singh who was arrested in South Kashmir’s Kulgam area in 2020. At the time of arrest Davinder Singh was accompanied by two persons identified as terrorists and associated with Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizabul Mujahideen. Two AK-47 rifles were also recovered from the car of Davinder Singh. Davinder Singh’s name also came in the Parliament attack case. Afzal Guru, who was given capital punishment in this case, in a letter to his lawyer, wrote that a DSP posted at Humhuma in Badgam forced him to transport Mohammad, who was involved in the attack on the Parliament, to Delhi, and to buy a house and a car. Davinder Singh used different SIM numbers for communicating with the terrorists. At the time of his arrest he told the DIG who arrested him ‘Sir, this is a game. Do not spoil it.’ What was that game a DSP with terrorist links was playing under a self-professing extreme nationalist government? And why has that game not been made known to us? Why was the Davinder Singh episode slowly pushed outside the margins of memory? Whom do we ask this question if not to the self-proclaimed distributors of certificates of patriotism?
Besides scientists, police officers, fake administrative officers and power brokers here are also some insiders of BJP organisation caught spying for Pakistan. Madhya Pradesh ATS had arrested eleven people on 11 February 2017 accused of spying for the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI. One of them is Dhruv Saxena, Bhopal district coordinator of IT Cell of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Such party officials compromised national security by supplying sensitive information to other countries, and BJP continued to beat the drum of nationalism.
In 2021 when the news of arrest of Shahrukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan from a cruise ship Cordelia came to light the media spent no time in sensationalising it. The Zonal director of Narcotics Control Bureau Samir Vankhede was projected as a hero who can go to any extent to fight with the menace of drug use in the film industry.
Two years after the former Narcotics Bureau officer Wankhede was made an hero by the media, he is now in a soup. According to reports, Wankhede demanded a bribe of 25 crore rupees from Shahrukh Khan for the release of his son. With can of worms open, Wankhede is now facing CBI inquiry.
That’s not all! Wankhede is also accused of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, including land, apartments and jewellery. Also, his foreign trips to UK, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, and Maldives (the posh tourist destination where he stayed for 55 days) are under scanner. He claimed he had spent Rs. 8.75 lakhs in total for all these travels, but according reports the amount mentioned can barely cover the airfares to these destinations.
Wankhede, may be learning from Modi, has now put forward the shield of being a nationalist! He claimed he is being targeted because he is a true nationalist. The nation wants to know – why Modi ji has not yet given him the certificate of nationalism and saved him from law! But who is Sameer Wankhede when the certified nationalists like Pradeep Kurulkar are facing the music of the law!
The thriving anti-national activities of certified nationalists from the school of BJP-RSS i.e from Davinder Singh to Kurulkar, shows what really the certificate is for! The 2007 book The Kaoboys of R&AW by former RAW officer B Raman has some interesting stories on this. In 1989, when BJP was providing outside support to the VP Singh led Jan Morcha, the then cabinet secretary asked the RA&W to provide armed training to RSS members in Jammy and Kashmir. Though RA&W was hesitant initially, it relented under the severe pressure and held a meeting with RSS in Jammu to chalk out the training plan. The fall out between VP Singh and BJP later meant the plan was scrapped, but it shows the extent BJP can go to arming RSS even when it not in power.
Today, when BJP is in power, the stories by B Raman are warnings of a nightmare that can unfold. And if we look this in combination with the anti-national works of ‘certified nationalist’ like Davinder Singh and Kurulkar, we see the danger that is hanging over the country.
