New Delhi: Yashwant Shinde, a Pracharak (worker, member or activist) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has appealed the Hindus, especially those who are the followers of RSS and BJP, to introspect and save the country from looming disaster.
"This is the high time for the Hindu society, especially the supporters and followers of RSS, BJP and VHP, to introspect so that what's going on in the country right now is stopped”, he said while participating in Congressional Briefing in the United States Wednesday.
The Congressional Briefing was co-organized by a coalition of human rights organizations, including Genocide Watch, World Without Genocide, Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, International Christian Concern, Jubilee Campaign, 21Wilberforce, Dalit Solidarity Forum, New York State Council of Churches, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America, India Civil Watch International, International Commission for Dalit Rights, Center for Pluralism, American Muslim Institution, Students Against Hindutva Ideology, International Society for Peace and Justice, The Humanism Project and Association of Indian Muslims of America.
RSS Prachark Yashwant Shinde came into the media limelight when in a sworn affidavit filed on August 29, 2022 he asked the Nanded Sessions Court to make him a witness in the Nanded bomb blast case.
Two people, including a worker of the Bajrang Dal – the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – were killed in Maharashtra’s Nanded district when a bomb they were allegedly trying to assemble exploded. Fake beards and the kurta, pyjama and cap – outfits normally used by Muslims, were also seized by the investigating agencies after the incident. (Read complete details here: Inside Narrative of Nanded Blast).
Shinde said the soul aim of his filing the affidavit is to expose how using organisational network, cadre and society some leaders associated with RSS, VHP and BJP are involved in anti-national and terrorist activities, and in the act of treason against India.
“The Hindus must now see the real face of these people, something which has been kept hidden from the wider society by using the state machinery and media", he said.
"I have worked with these people for years. Who will have a better knowledge of their ugly game plan and conspiracies than someone who is an insider?" he asked.
"Using media and the state machinery under the tacit support from the Narendra Modi government, these people of criminal mind-set are misusing Hindutva to mislead the people not only in India but also in abroad, including the United States”, he said.
“To gain political mileage, they are misleading crores of their followers. They are portraying a totally different face of Hindutva whose core basis is to hate Muslims”, he said.
"This is not part of the Hindu culture to hate Muslims. But RSS, VHP and BJP are misusing Hindu Culture to mislead the entire Hindu community against Muslims. This is treason against the country and the Hindus", he said.
In an affidavit filed in Nanded Session Court on August 29, 2022, and sharing more details during the Congressional Briefing in the United States Wednesday, Yashwant Shinde claimed that India’s ruling Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had collaborated with the RSS to carry out terror attacks across India for political and electoral gain in the 2000s.
Shind, who claimed he is still a member of RSS, also said India’s investigative agencies only ever arrested foot soldiers but never the mastermind from among the RSS leadership who were the brain behind the expansive plot to carry out the terror bombings.
A member of the paramilitary Hindu supremacist group for 25 years, Shinde said that in 2003, a year before India’s federal elections of 2004, a Hindu extremist named Milind Parande had emerged as the key RSS official to lead the plan for the bombings.
“Parande had taken a contract from the BJP to carry out the bombings. He was keen to involve me in this planning to carry out bombings across India as I have deep connections and networks across the country. Had I agreed, there would have been hundreds of bombings across India.”
“If I had wanted, I could have involved many organizations such as in Assam and Pramod Muthallik’s Shri Ram Sena in Karnataka. I could have used my connections with them and there could have been a lot of bombings across India,” Shinde said.
Despite Shinde’s lack of involvement, bombings were still carried out in Jalna and Parbhani [districts] by a man named Himanshu Panse, a member of the Hindu extremist group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is allied with the RSS. Bombings were also planned in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city, but Panse died while assembling bombs in Maharashtra’s Nanend city before the attacks could be carried out.
“I met Panse several times and I tried explaining to him not to get into this plan because this was a conspiracy to bring electoral reward to the BJP,” Shinde said.
Shinde also reported that he participated in a bomb-making workshop organized by the RSS in the city of Pune in Maharashtra state. He revealed that this workshop was hosted by Rakesh Dhawde, who was later a key accused in a bombing that occurred in the city of Malaegon in 2008. Dhawde was acquitted in that case.
“For about three-to-four days we were at the bomb-making workshop. Every day, Rakesh Dhawde would bring a man named Mithun Chakraborty on his motorcycle. It was this man who trained us in making bombs at the workshop,” said Shinde.
Shinde revealed that Chakraborty’s real name was Ravi Dev, who at the time was the coordinator of the Bajrang Dal, another violent Hindu supremacist group and an offshoot of the RSS. Other workshops to train people in bomb-making were “held across the country.”
As a result, Shinde said, there were bomb blasts in Telangana state’s Hyderabad city, in Maharashtra’s Malegaon City, and on a train named “Samjhauta Express” that ran between India and Pakistan in that period.
“People like Sadhvi Pragya, [a current parliamentarian in Bhopal state] from the BJP, and Rakesh Dhawde were all involved in these bombings,” Shinde said.
“The masterminds of these bombings were Milind Parande and others from the RSS and BJP. But the investigative agencies never arrested them; they only arrested the foot soldiers. Had they arrested the masterminds and the big officials of the RSS and VHP who were coordinating and leading these bombings, the truth would have come out.”
While the involved Hindu supremacists were often arrested during the tenure of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2004-2014, “after 2014 [when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister], these people came back and got back to the same task of bomb-making.”
Shinde attributed the BJP’s involvement in the bombings as part of their political weakness from 2003 to 2006.
Shinde also said the RSS and other Hindu supremacist organizations have actually grown weaker while the BJP had grown stronger since Modi became prime minister.
“They [the RSS] have become slaves of whatever the BJP demands from them. Whenever it’s election time, [all these organizations] work for the BJP, campaign for the BJP, raise funds for the BJP. But otherwise, the existence of these organizations as independent organizations has almost ceased to exist,” he said.
During the briefing, Shinde also talked about threat to his life.
“There is a clear threat to my life. But someone has to take the risk (to expose the dirty game and save the nation)”, he said.
In the context of deteriorating situation in India ever since the BJP came to power in New Delhi he highlighted the importance of creation of an atmosphere of trust.
"To end the atmosphere of hatred that has now become dominant in the Indian society, it is essentially important to create trust among the various sections of the society. The atmosphere of trust can be created if and only if the law of the land works imperially and without bias”, he said.
"There should not be two laws and ground for punishment - one for the majority and the other for minorities. Unfortunately people today are being discriminated because of their caste and religion", he said.
"This must be stopped if we want to create atmosphere of trust", he added.
ummid.com is unable to independently verify the affidavit and the allegations raised by Yashwant Shinde. Meanwhile, neither the RSS nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has commented on the allegation at the time of writing this.
However many of the allegations levelled by Shinde were in public domain and part of the chargesheet filed in the 2008 Malegaon Blast case and 2006 Nanded Blast case.
There also were the arrests of those indicted in the chargesheet, including Lt. Col. Shrikant Prasad Purohit and Pragya Singh Thakur. Purohit is a serving military officer whereas Pragya Singh Thakur is a Sadhvi. The motorcycle used in the 2008 Malegaon blast was registered in her name and she is still an accused and facing trial. Yet the present dispensation rewarded her with a MP seat.
It is pertinent to mention here that Rohini Salian, the Public Prosecutor handling the NIA case of 2008 Malegaon blasts was removed after the BJP came to power in New Delhi and Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014.
Salian had alleged pressure and claimed that she had been asked to go “soft” on the right-wing Hindu accused but removed from the case after she refused to oblige. A petition was also filed in the Supreme Court to reinstate Rohini Salian as Public Prosecutor.
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