On 16th April, 2020, people received horrific videos on their phones and computers via the Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp. Two Sanyasis named Shri Chikane Maharaj Kalpavrikshgiri (70) and Shri Sushil Giri Maharaj (35) who belonged to the revered Varanasi based Shri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara were travelling (along with their driver Shri. Nilesh Telgade) to attend the funeral of Guru Shri Mahant Ram Giriji and they were lynched by a rowdy mob. The videos of the Sadhus and their driver being brutally lynched in Palghar, Maharashtra were the ones circulating on the Social Media. Even more upsetting was the video of the elderly Sadhu approaching a policeman and the policeman himself sending him back to the violent mob to be killed. One wonders what must have gone through the mind of the completely non-violent and Dharmic Sadhus when they lost hope in mankind and gave up their lives to a brutal mob.

When the Maharashtra Government and an independent fact-finding body tried to gather facts about the case, a few associations were on the suspect list. These included the Bhoomi Sena, the Kashtakari Sanghatana, the Adivasi Ekta Parishad and the CPM. Witnesses at the site of the lynching also mentioned that someone addressed as “Dada” which presumably referred to the NCP leader Jankya Borsya. As identified by local persons some of the other accused are Rajesh Rao, Vinod Rao and Ramdas Rao who are active members of CPM; Vishnu Bhavar ex-member of Grampanchayat; Jayaram Bhawar presently a member of Gram Panchayat and Jankya Borsya active member of NCP. More than 100 other Adivasis were also arrested as part of the mob which lynched the Sadhus and their driver.

To understand why the lynching took place, it is very important to understand the associations which have been suspected of instigating the mob.

A casual search on “Bhoomi Sena” on the net revealed that atleast 5 books had been written on the Bhoomi Sena and their “Struggles” by the ‘marginalised’ people of the soil. Even more surprising was that 4 of the 5 publishers of these books were based abroad – one in Pakistan, one in Geneva and one in Sweden.

One wonders about the interest of foreign publishers in publishing material about a relatively unknown organisation in rural India. One also wonders how many copies of these books have ever been sold and to whom and what was the income generated. As they always say, “follow the money trail”.

Even more surprising was when I looked for details of “Kashtakari Sanghatana“ … it lead me to a seemingly unrelated site called “COPASAH.net” where all the main members seemed to be only from India, South America and Africa.

Brian Lobo is one of the accused in the killing of the Sadhus in Palghar. If one sees the last sentence in the above photo, it says, “We also organise demonstrations.” Very interesting… Even more interesting is that in an article by Kannan Srinivasan of Economic and Political Weekly, it is reported that Godavari Parulekar, president of the Maharashtra Kisan Sabha and member of the Central Committee of the CPI (M), has recently charged that the Sanghatana is a Christian missionary organisation and that it receives “foreign and church funds”. (https://www.epw.in/journal/1980/40/our-correspondent-columns/maharashtra-organising-tribals-thane.html)

When a Marxist party complains about Conversions into Christianity, one knows that the problem is a very deep one. It is one of poaching on each other’s territory to gather more members into one’s fold. In the process, endless violence was perpetrated on the innocent tribals and villagers who were fed false information about their original religion (Hinduism), their Government and the Constitution. This coupled with corruption by government agencies and a division between haves and have-nots meant that the tribal people and villagers ended up going against their religion and their government. These rudderless people were then easy prey to all kinds of rumours and incitements and subsequently could be easily transformed into violent mobs as and when any leader incited them. One should note here that the bad blood between both these organisations was more in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, after which it seemed that they had decided on their common agenda – Hindu bashing and being Anti-Hindu.

Another organisation mentioned is the “Adivasi Ekta Parishad”. Their website seems harmless enough till you reach the above picture where there is death (skull) below the map of Bharat. The painting also shows the flag of Communist China, Pakistan and the United States along with that of Bharat. This Adivasi Ekta Parishad has been at the forefront of many protests like the protests against the Statue of Unity and the protests against the Bullet train project connecting Maharashtra to Gujarat. Any project which brings progress to villages and tribal areas is a project which such associations and organisations (mis)use to make the locals go against the government.

Let us now understand the way these and other organisations which are even remotely related to Leftists, Naxalites and Soul Vultures function :

  • First and foremost they believe in anarchy and any form of government and to spread this thought process they always convince their target citizens that the government only wishes to exploit them.
  • Their biggest enemy is Democracy because it is only in a democracy that people’s opinion counts. They claim to have democratic functioning in their own organisation but hate democracy in a country.
  • They almost always claim to believe in ‘pagan’ worship by tribals and adivasis, but also always claim that this worship is not respected by Hinduism. They concoct stories that Hinduism has gobbled up native cultures and traditions and that the Gods of Hindu Dharma is different from the Gods of the Tribals and Adivasis.
  • They fill the minds of innocent Tribals and Adivasis that they were the Rakshasa race and that Hindus (a.k.a. Aryans) trampled upon them and killed their race. The examples given are that of Ravana and Mahishasura. They do not care about the fact that Rakshasas were cannibals (man eaters) but our tribals and Adivasis are definitely NOT cannibals. They spread fake stories of Brahmin Patriarchy and Aryan Invasion Theory to fill the mind of the simple villagers and tribals with hatred for all Hindus and Hinduism.
  • The next step that these organisations then take is to claim to protect the culture of the ‘aborigines’ of the land by preventing the government from bringing in any progress or connecting these tribal areas to the cities. Then these very organisations also blame the government saying that the government does not care for the betterment of the tribals/adivasis/villagers and that is why one does not see any progress in these areas. “Heads I win, tails you lose”. 
  • If one were to see the chargesheet of the police and the FIR in the Palghar lynching, one would notice that most of the villagers have put a thumb impression on the sheet. This means that though the CPM and other organisations have claimed that they are trying to bring education to the people, in actual they are preventing these people from getting education as provided by the Government agencies. This is telling. They do not want the people to get educated and learn more about the truth of these organisations or the working of the government.
  • These organisations use all of the above to convert the tribals and Adivasis into Christianity or Islam, and to cut them off from their roots and culture. They know very well that a deracinated tribe can be moulded into becoming the enemy of the most ancient living civilization of the world – Hinduism. Such deracinated people can then be convinced to work against the Nation itself.
  • While claiming that they are working to improve the lot of the tribals, these organisations extract money from the poor tribals in the form of annual charges for being a member of any of these organisations. The upliftment of the tribals is a sham and any upliftment which actually happens is only because of Central or State Government measures. Where these attempts to uplift the adivasis fail, one can be sure that it is either because of Red-tapism or Corruption or strong-arm tactics of any of the above organisations.

Unfortunately, our governments through the years, be it the State or the Centre, never looked at Conversions, especially by the Church, as a cause for alarm. They failed to realise that when a society becomes deracinated from their roots and culture, there is nothing to bind them to Dharma and the Society. This frequently also creates battlegrounds between those who have converted to another religion and those who have not. When one’s society, roots and culture are questioned and revolted against by a constant barrage of lies and agenda driven hateful material, people lose their ‘raison d’etre’. When such an existential crisis arises and one hates one’s past, then it is very easy to fall into the trap of hating one’s government and going against it. This is how Leftists, Soul Vultures and Naxalites have torn upon our fabric of Unity in Diversity and have made people hate their Motherland, while believing that they are actually fighting for their dignity. This is how a peaceful place like Palghar became a place of blood-thirsty people who killed two unarmed Sadhus and a driver, while believing that they were doing the right thing.

Though currently some people have been arrested in the case of the lynching of the innocent Sadhus, the bigger culprits here are the Soul Vultures and the Leftists for whom human life and humanity does not matter above religion and politics. Also blameworthy is the Government (both State & Centre) which did not ever pass laws to preserve the civilizational identity and culture and teach it to the citizens of our country. They also did nothing to restrict blatant conversions into any religion which did not originate in India. Almost always these conversions have been through force or inducements. Till both of these lacunae are filled, Sadhus, nay Hindus will continue to be killed ruthlessly and everyone from the Media and the Polity, will turn a blind eye.

Note: This article was first published in www.organiser.org

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.