Is the RSS attempting to roll back the Great Indian Renaissance? Does the civilisational project initiated two centuries ago face a real danger?Though the RSS – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – launched the challenge exactly a hundred years ago, it could not muster enough strength to inflict any noticeable injury on the world the Renaissance had created in Bengal and other parts of India. The outfit waited, conspired and ultimately gained enough strength to launch a battle against the Renaissance’s civilisational gains.The entire Hindutva network is working on the task, but Prime Minister Modi will be remembered for his leading role. He has been pioneering the most lethal offensive against the religion and culture of India, and it directly affects Bengal. He has played a major role in transforming the RSS, a weak challenger, into a fierce aggressor. The battle between the Renaissance and Hindutva has unfolded most explicitly during the Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal.Why did the RSS and the BJP choose Bengal? Because, the province has been the epicentre of the Indian Renaissance and absorbed its essence most organically. The Hindutva forces are convinced that if any Hindu Rashtra has to come up, it can only emerge from the ruins of the Renaissance. They are out to destroy the alternative world the great Indian Renaissance had envisioned for the nation in the wake of brutal colonial domination and indigenous obscurantism.The offensive is coming from all sides. Sometimes it comes through politics; other times, through culture or religion. How else would you describe Prime Minister Modi creating a fake live show of revered Swami Chinmayanand blessing and endorsing him? The saint departed for heavenly abode almost 33 years ago. The pious soul is given a physical form with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and is made to greet and bless the prime minister for his dedication to the cause of people’s welfare. No leader who respects the ideals of the constitution would have ventured to do it. The conversation between the prime minister and the saint unambiguously resembles sorcery.Was the conversation that led to guru’s endorsement of Modi as the prime minister scripted at the latter’s behest? Had Modi limited the encounter to his tribute to the saint, it would have been taken as a creative use of AI. However, the act of using a dead person for political endorsement is morally reprehensible.Also read: Mohan Bhagwat Has Made it Clear: RSS Supports Modi Govt’s Crackdown on Anti-SIR ProtestsThe use of AI tools to make such a propaganda film has deeper significance. Does it not take us to pre-Renaissance India dominated by obscurantist ideas and unscientific practices? This was the era when Hinduism was identified with idol-worship, vegetarianism, Sati, the ban on widow-marriage, and the prevalence of child marriage. When Renaissance proponents confronted these ideas and practices without submitting to British rulers’ cultural hegemony, Sanatanis opposed them and argued for preserving them. The Renaissance presented a vision of a just and humane social order by amalgamating the best of the East and the West, and Sanatanis advocated for the status quo.Why should the prime minister’s sorcery not be seen as a message to destroy rationalism? We have seen how his message against “dimagi naxals” was immediately received at the ground level, and attacks were organised against progressive institutions and individuals.BengalSince West Bengal is the new laboratory of Hindutva, Sangh Parivar is in a hurry to carry out a mission to dismantle the identity the state acquired through the complex and glorious struggle against colonialism and the indigenous obscurantism. It wants to re-establish superstitious beliefs in the name of Sanatan. After the capture of the political machinery of the state, the RSS and the BJP are on a mission to dismantle the identity of the state. The BJP did not stop at the electoral defeat of the Trinamool Congress, the Left and the Congress. Consolidating political power alone cannot reverse Bengal’s Renaissance. They feel it is necessary to change the cultural soul of Bengal because Hindutva, they know, cannot survive without making the soil sterile. This is why there is continued violence even after the structural decimation of the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee.Also read: Bengal was the First Breeding Ground of Hindu Nationalism and the Idea of Hindutva Originated ThereViolence often takes different forms and does not remain restricted to physical assault. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announces that no other than Sanatanis can touch the Durga idols, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad prescribes restrictions on the consumption of non-vegetarian food near Durga pandals; these are forms of violence that have been unleashed against both Hindus and Muslims. It signals an open battle against the liberal, progressive culture ingrained in Bengali society. The implications are clear: a retreat to pre-Renaissance days. Banning non-veg food may seem simple on the surface, but it is a planned attack on a culture shaped by Renaissance influence.The evolution of Sarbojanin (all-inclusive) Durga Puja reveals the peculiar journey of idol worship from a feudal, patriarchal tradition to a mass festival. It is the cultural expression of a pluralistic Bengali identity which transcends barriers of class, caste and religion. Banishing Muslims and Christians from Puja pandals or processions of idol immersion is a real attack on the core of the culture. Adhikari’s statement offers some clarity on the Hindutva project. He asks the police to note down the names and identities of those who take Maa (mother) Durga. He says that the purity, tradition, scriptures and rules followed for thousands of years must be adhered to. “It is a secondary thing that it is a festival. The primary thing is that it is religious,” declared the chief minister.The chief minister’s invoking Sanatan Dharma reminds us of the language of his 19th-century predecessors in colonial Bengal. They resisted reform efforts by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, and others to preserve tradition. The Sanatani social leaders of the time had fiercely opposed the ban on Sati, abolition of child marriage and widow marriage. They even approached the highest court of law in London to demand that the ban be lifted. They argued that Sanatan Dharma did not permit it and that no part of tradition could be touched by law. Everyone knows how Raja Ram Mohan Roy confronted them with his scholarship of Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin and English. He used scriptures to prove that the practice of Sati, child marriage, and the prohibition of widow marriage were not part of Vedic tradition and resulted from vested interests’ wrong interpretation of the scriptures.Sanatanis formed the Dharma Sabha to oppose Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s efforts to reform Hinduism, and the great patriot Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was dismissed from Hindu College for allegedly trying to impart modern education to students from elite Hindu families. They accused Derozio of guiding students to immorality and anti-religion.We can draw a parallel between the current fight between Hindutva and liberalism and the colonial-era fight between Sanatan and reformism. We must not forget that Sanatanis opposed reforms because they interfered with tradition, but they never opposed colonial domination. Reformists’ stance helped drive the great Indian Renaissance and laid the groundwork for the Indian Independence Struggle.Pluralism was central to the Renaissance. Raja Ram Mohan Roy drew ideas from all religions and remained associated with Muslim aristocracy and Christian Missionaries. He represented the Mughal Emperor in the Privy Council to argue for a pension increase.Derozio was India’s first nationalist poet. He was the first poet to invoke the metaphor of Mother India in 1827. This is the time to invoke India’s first nationalist poet, Derozio, as the present discourse is dominated by a narrow interpretation of the metaphor. The Brahmo Samaj, founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and the Young Bengal movement led by Derozians laid the foundation of the Renaissance. The Sanatanis of the time fiercely opposed both. The present-day Sanatanis are only repeating the same. They are trying to destroy the Renaissance’s gains. They are restricting non-vegetarian food offered to the Mother Goddess in the temple where Swami Ramkrishna Paramahansa lived and attained sainthood. He practised Islam and declared that all religions lead to the same God. Who can discard his religious experiments?While arguing for a sectarian celebration of Durga Puja, the new Sanatanis are out to destroy the glorious nationalist tradition associated with it. How can the Bengalis exclude Kazi Nazrul Islam from the glorious Durga Puja celebrations? He wrote a series of Agomone songs (arrival-of-deity poems) and invoked a spirit of rebellion against British Rule. In 1922, he was imprisoned on sedition charges for his Anandamoyeer Agomone song (On the arrival of Joyous deity), published in his magazine Dhumketu. He asks the Mother Goddess to come out of her clay idol and destroy the British rulers.Also read: In Bengal, Religion Is Personal, Festivals Belong to All. No Hindutva Project Can Change ThatWas the attack on CPI(M)’s book stalls, with the BJP government’s approval, any different? Adhikari openly says that he will not allow anti-nation and anti-Sanatan writings to be published. The right wing is targeting every aspect of Bengali identity and culture that has evolved under the influence of the Renaissance. It bulldozes book stalls and attacks campuses such as Jadavpur University and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), which represent the best of the Renaissance. The right-wing hooligans damaged the emblem Rabindranath Tagore suggested and a noted nationalist painter designed during the 1905 Bengal partition movement. The attackers accused SRFTI’s students and faculty of being Bangladeshi and Pakistani. It clearly means they wish the Bengali identity to be reduced to a particular religion.The exclusivist Durga Puja, attack on freedom of speech and violent processions on Ram Navami are only aimed at eroding all that the Renaissance has given to the nation and Bengal in particular. Banishing freedom of speech, pluralism and scientific thinking means killing the essence of the Renaissance because these are its core. How can we forget that the Renaissance has given us Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, Shri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Sharadchandra, Satyajit Ray, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyen Bose, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Ravi Shankar, Ritwik Ghatak, Amartya Sen and above all, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose?Anil Sinha is a senior journalist.