BackMeet Rajesh Kunte, the RSS activist who took Rahul Gandhi to court
Rajesh Kunte, who filed a defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for blaming RSS for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, isn't surprised by his flip-flops in the case
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Mumbai: Apart from their first names starting with the same alphabet, Rahul Gandhi and Rajesh Kunte have little in common. But history—recorded, claimed and contested—and contemporary politics have put them on the same page.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist Rajesh Kunte, 45, is responsible for what could turn out to be the most important legal-political case so far in the political career of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Kunte, a resident of Bhiwandi, a town some 50km from Mumbai and a third-generation RSS volunteer, has filed a defamation case against Rahul for “blaming the RSS for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi". Rahul has, after initially playing safe, decided to fight this case.
Sitting in his Bhiwandi home some 1,400km away from Rahul’s 10 Janpath residence in New Delhi, Kunte says he is not surprised by the Congress scion’s flip-flops in this case.
“His latest decision to fight the case and face trial does not surprise me because he has frequently taken U-turns. Whether he actually fights the case or not, in either case, I have nothing to worry about as he has to prove his charge that RSS killed Gandhiji," Kunte says.
On 6 March 2014, Rahul addressed a public rally in Bhiwandi to campaign for Congress Lok Sabha nominee Vishwanath Patil. Kunte watched the speech on TV. “He said RSS ke logon ne Gandhiji ko goli maari (RSS people fired bullets at Gandhiji)", Kunte recalls. He said Rahul merely followed his great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru who “wanted to finish off the RSS and so implicated it in the Gandhi assassination conspiracy".
Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a former RSS member Nathuram Godse who had subsequently joined the Hindu Mahasabha. The dates of his exact membership of both are not clear although he ran a newspaper for the Mahasabha.
Interestingly, the RSS was founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who left the Hindu Mahasabha in 1925 to do so.
After Gandhi’s killing, several RSS leaders were arrested and the organization was banned on 4 February 1948. After the Supreme Court dismissed the charges against the RSS, the government agreed to lift the ban if it pledged allegiance to the Constitution, which it did. The ban was removed in July 1949.
In 1967, a commission set up by the home ministry said the “RSS was not responsible for the murder of Gandhi" and that it could not be proved that Godse and his accomplices “were members of the RSS". The commission pointed its finger at the Hindu Mahasabha and its leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The facts, it said “were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group".
Kunte filed a defamation case against Rahul 12 days after his speech. “I was personally offended by the charge and felt bad for the organization also. I discussed this with RSS’s Bhiwandi sanghchalak Lokchandji Jain and filed a defamation suit with his permission," says Kunte.
Kunte is convinced that Rahul has decided to face the trial with a political purpose, though he doubts how much political mileage his opponent can get by making “a baseless charge" without evidence. “Even after he had made the charge at the Bhiwandi rally, the Congress nominee lost by over a lakh votes. The irony is that the Congress candidate Vishwanath Patil was earlier with the BJP," Kunte adds.
Kunte’s home is an old flat in a building that he and his brother own. The walls are bare and in urgent need of repair and paint. Hung on one of the walls are portraits of Shivaji Maharaj, RSS founder Hedgewar, the second RSS chief Madhav Golwalkar or Guruji, and Bhimrao Ambedkar.
Kunte was an RSS pracharak (worker) for six years and has remained a bachelor. His elder brother is still an RSS pracharak in Goa. In fact, Kunte was a pracharak in Kheda district of Gujarat till 1997 and recalls a fraternal association with another former and famous pracharak, Prime minister Narendra Modi.
Kunte’s grandfather Govind Kunte was the sanghchalak (supervisor in the RSS) of Bhiwandi and a reputed lawyer. His grandfather and uncle were both arrested after Gandhi’s assassination. During the Emergency in 1975, his father was jailed under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act, like many other RSS volunteers.
“You could say I am a born swayamsevak. That is probably the reason why I felt like filing this case. Right from my grandfather’s time till today, the RSS has been bearing the brunt of this baseless charge that it killed Gandhiji even after the case was legally settled. I have heard this charge right from childhood and this case has given me an opportunity to end this canard once and for all," Kunte says.
However, he insists that he filed the case in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the RSS. “Of course, the RSS leadership and local volunteers are lending me moral support because each swayamsevak relates to this sentiment that the organization has been unfairly charged with Gandhiji’s assassination," he adds.
As per the 2011 Census, Bhiwandi has a population of 7,09,665 of which 56% are Muslims. This makes Bhiwandi one of India’s Muslim-majority towns. The town, famous for its power-loom cloth business, has a history of communal strife though there been relative calm since 2006.
A commerce graduate, Kunte runs a small construction business in Bhiwandi. Does he have the resources to fight this case given the slow judicial processes in India, especially when he himself says the case could go on for at least five years? “My lawyer Ganesh Dhargalkar is Dombivali RSS sanghchalak. I have resources of my own and other volunteers are supportive. I get several letters and phone calls each day expressing solidarity. But this isn’t about resources. It is about the organisation," he reminds this writer.
Kunte said the RSS had always endorsed Gandhian ideals of sanitation, Swadeshi, cow protection, and village self-reliance. “In fact, no other organisation including the Congress has done as much work on these Gandhian ideals as the RSS. We differed and still differ with some of Gandhiji’s views but we have never hated him. In our homes, we have differences with the father or grandfather. But do we hate them?" he asks.
Kunte said this issue “has been created purely with political objectives. I would ask Rahul Gandhi that if Godse, who once had some relationship with RSS before he killed Gandhiji, can be used to blame the entire RSS, would he accept if I say that it was the Congress which founded the RSS since Hedgewar was with Congress party before?"
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