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‘Tapasvi vs Pujari’ comment by Rahul Gandhi is signalling to his secular-liberal ecosystem: This is how

While most statements of Rahul Gandhi are seen as meme material, Rahul Gandhi does come up with them with an intention. Decoding the intention behind the "Tapasvi, not Pujaris" comment.

This is a country of Tapasvi, not Pujaris – is the latest gem from Rahul Gandhi, who is being relaunched for the umpteenth time by his party and a friendly ecosystem. In his latest avatar, Rahul Gandhi has come up as a 52-year-old young man who does not feel cold in the unforgiving Delhi winters, but who is also old enough to sport a graying long beard, dropping pearls of wisdom.

While one can laugh off this latest gem of Rahul Gandhi – Tapasvi vs Pujari – as being another sentence whose true meaning only Rahul Gandhi or God knows, it is not something the Congress scion has said without consideration. In fact, he hardly says anything without thinking things through. That might come across as a shock to most people who mock him, but that’s the truth. He thinks, albeit his thinking process is screwed, but he thinks. He thinks because his advisers feed him with things to think about.

And his advisers are a motley bunch of people – folks passed out of JNU who were card-carrying communists, people like Sudheendra Kulkarni (the Pakistan-loving guy who was with Atal Bihari Vajpayee once and who originally called Rahul Gandhi a ‘tapasvi’) people like Yogendra Yadav (the farmer, the psephologist, the economist, the sociologist, the ichhadhaari expert), and obviously Congress loyalists who will do anything for the family, say someone like Digvijaya Singh.

There is one thing common among all such folks – they all believe that to be seen as a hero, RSS has to be shown as a villain. Now it doesn’t matter to them at all what RSS actually thinks or believes in, but they have painted a villainous image of RSS that they must maintain and proclaim to fight that image. The RSS of their dream is ‘Brahminical’, which, again, as per their own definition, means anti-lower caste, anti-woman, anti-<insert any woke buzzword>.

Essentially, the grand evil is Brahminism, which they further go on to claim, inaccurately as always, is the basis of “Hindutva”. That’s why for a long time now, Rahul Gandhi has been spouting these “Gandhi vs Godse” and “Hinduism vs Hindutva” buzzwords in his own imperfect philosophical style. That is what he thinks, because his advisers have been asking him to think about all this, but can’t express, for reasons worth not commenting upon.

Now there is enough literature that was written under the patronship of the British, and then recently too aligning it with the Critical Race Theory of the West, which defines Brahminism as the worst possible evil, and the same is then used to attack Hinduism. The latter is by design. That was always the original purpose – to finish off Hinduism without using swords – a potent tool the British designed, in contrast with the tricks employed by Islamic invaders. This tool is so potent that even the RSS and BJP leaders end up using some of them to look socially advanced and liberal.

The use of that tool was also witnessed during the so-called “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference recently. The organizers kept lying that the event was not against Hinduism or Hindus and dismissed all criticism of them being anti-Hindu. But when the event did take place, almost all of them talked about why Hinduism is a problem indeed. In their hearts, the proponents of this theory know that their real target is Hinduism, but they use code words like “Hindutva” and “Brahminism” to fool the gullible Hindus.

While coming up with such word salads to hide their hate for Hinduism, one hate they can’t hide is the hate for Brahmins. While some too-clever-by-half folks try to come up with the sham that “we are not against Brahmins but Brahminism”, others proudly use the anti-Brahmin hate as garnishing. Hate against Brahmins is blatant and mainstream, even ‘intellectualized’. One of the ugliest manifestations of the same is seen in Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu, but some variant of it is visible in almost every part of India.

In places or situations where you can’t explicitly express your hate against Brahmins – or the ‘priestly class as the history books would say – the least that is expected from you by this “anti-RSS” “anti-caste” “anti-Brahminical” lobby is that you shouldn’t do or say anything that looks like giving respect or authority to the Brahmins. You are surely going to be “cancelled” for doing that. Rahul Gandhi was faltering on this aspect by prostrating at temples, attending pujas solemnized by Brahmins, accepting blessings from them et al.

And that’s why Rahul Gandhi has now said India is not a country of “pujaris” – the priests, the Brahmins – as a soft-signalling to his ecosystem. It is to save himself from being cancelled. “Dude, see, while I might move around in rudraksha mala around my neck and tripund on my forehead, I’m with you, I’m with your anti-Brahminism project. Don’t doubt me” – that is what Rahul Gandhi is saying.

Recently in an interview with YouTuber Ajit Anjum, JNU-student-turned-revolutionary-turned-Congress-leader Kanhaiya Kumar tried to argue the same. “Rahul Gandhi goes to temples because people go to temples,” he explained when asked why Rahul Gandhi was doing something that is associated with “Hindu politics” and by extension “communal politics” in the secular-liberal lexicon.

Kanhaiya Kumar tried his best to signal to the secular-liberal ecosystem that Rahul Gandhi has not junked their anti-Brahminical agenda even if he is seen doing “Hindu things”. That in his heart, he doesn’t really believe in all these things. Rahul Gandhi has done the same himself now by coming up with his Tapasvi vs Pujari statement. The statement is smart because the average Hindu is still fooled by the “Hindutva vs Hinduism” smokescreen because it will be presented in the same breath by party folks.

It will be easy for the backroom movers and shakers in Congress to convince this secular-liberal ecosystem not to be spooked by Rahul Gandhi doing temple runs and quoting Bhagwad Gita. Also, there is a precedence in Indira Gandhi. Indira was very Hindu in her appearance, sporting rudraksha mala, and undertaking events like her famous puja at Sringeri Math. She was in fact abused as ‘Baaman’ (Brahmin) lady by Bhindranwale during the Punjab crisis. While all that was happening, all educational and cultural institutions were stuffed with leftists under her premiership.

“Those were the best days of my life,” a leftist would coon thinking about summer of 69, when Indira Gandhi broke away her own party and entered into a Faustian bargain with the communists. “I can bring you back those achche din” Rahul Gandhi is promising that ecosystem now.

Ayodhra Ram Mandir special coverage by OpIndia

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Rahul Roushan
Rahul Roushanhttp://www.rahulroushan.com
A well known expert on nothing. Opinions totally personal. RTs, sometimes even my own tweets, not endorsement. #Sarcasm. As unbiased as any popular journalist.

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