Sanatan Sanstha: On a mission to revive Hindu right-wing ideology

The religious-spiritual discourse of the Sanatan Sanstha, the organisation under scanner over links with the arrested accused in the murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare is at best eccentric.

From why men need to keep their hair short, while women need to keep it long, to which Hindus will be saved during the Third World War — the religious-spiritual discourse of the Sanatan Sanstha, the organisation under scanner over links with the arrested accused in the murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare is at best eccentric. Given its diatribe, it is easy to relegate the organisation to a fringe player on the Hindu right-wing platform.

But this is not a one-off case, where the organisation, which has its base in Goa and Maharashtra has found itself in a controversy over violence. In 2008, its members, along with members of the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS), were arrested for detonating low-intensity bombs in Thane outside an auditorium where a play, Amhi Pachpute (which parodied Mahabharat) was being staged. Two other blasts took place at Navi Mumbai and Panvel outside theatres where ‘Jodha Akbar’ was being staged. In 2009, the organisation’s members were alleged to have planted a bomb in Madgaon to protest against mythological demon Narkasur’s effigy competition held during Diwali in the area. (Since then the accused were acquitted by the court in the Madgaon blasts.) In the backdrop of these allegations, the Sanstha with its religious-spiritual agenda seen along with its affiliated organisation, Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, which aims at setting up a Hindu Rashtra by 2023 through religious revolution, points to a systematic attempt to revive aggressive Hindu right wing agenda.

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The revival coincided with the increasing intolerance and violence in the state seen last in the murders of Dr Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, but also through protests against plays, films, books that are seen as ‘anti Hindu’. The two outfits are also organising All India Hindu conventions for the past couple of years, bringing together as many as 70 Hindu right wing organisations on the same platform, publishing a mouthpiece Sanathan Prabhat, organising lectures, discourses, staging protests and training seekers on the path to Hindu spiritualism. Sameer Gaikwad, a suspect arrested in Pansare murder case, happened to be one such seeker. But the organisation has repeatedly distanced itself from allegations connecting them to any kind of a violent crime.

"There is a high-level conspiracy to shut us down and to implicate us in violence. The demand for banning our organisation as well as slanted media coverage points to this. I did not know the accused Gaikwad, but he was an active member and his arrest is an attempt to malign us. We have never propagated violence and we will defend him," said Abhay Vartak, spokesperson of the Sanstha. Vartak also distanced his organisation from HJS saying while they came under the same umbrella body, they were not sister organisations. “We believe Hindus should defend themselves and not rely on the police to protect religion. But we believe in challenging the status quo through legitimate ways. We do not believe in militancy," said advocate Sanjiv Punalekar, national secretary of the Hindu Vidhidnya Parishad, who has sent 20 lawyers associated with the Parishad to legally defend Gaikwad in Kolhapur.

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