Tapan Ghosh: cometh the hour, cometh the man

(Contribution to an obituary volume for Tapan Ghosh edited by Prokash Das, July 2020)

"When catastrophe is at its highest, salvation is near", at least according to a Flemish proverb. It was born more from wishful thinking than from experience, for often catastrophe rises to a peak only to invite even newer sources of trouble. This is especially the case when you have squandered earlier opportunities and are in a hurry to save the day after all. Such was the situation in West Bengal, where several generations of Hindus allowed anti-Hindu rule and massive Bangladeshi infiltration to push them ever farther into a corner, without fighting back. 

Perhaps all these Pujas for Durga have more effect than sceptics would give them credit for. Suddenly, without having done anything to deserve it, the Bengali Hindus found a saviour among them. In 2007, an RSS pracharak was so dissatisfied with the RSS-BJP's ostensible lack of fighting spirit, even when it came to saving their own activists, that he broke away. Tapan Ghosh never became disloyal to their original programme of service to Hindu society, which is why in his last words, he paid homage to the historical RSS leaders Doctorji and Guruji. But disappointment in their ever-softer positions (to the point of  denying the once-central conceptual distinction between Hindu and non-Hindu) convinced him of the need to make a choice 'between the organisation and its programme'. He started his own platform, the Hindu Samhati.

The challenges before it were clear enough, and rising. The need of the hour was to transmute the idea of Hindu survival into action. Hindu Samhati would meet the threats head on.

We met him several times in his modest headquarters in Kolkata. Two of his priorities were curbing Love Jihad and promoting Ghar Wapasi ("homecoming", reconversion to Hinduism). In 2016, we encountered three young women there who had found refuge under his care and testified how two had been saved from pressure into an Islamic wedding, one was a convert from Islam. Over the years, such cases were numerous, and contemplating the alternative, that they had all been Islamized and enlisted into Islam's demographic war effort, you wonder just how fast Hinduism is losing ground. 

A third concern was the ever-increasing effort needed to merely keep Hindu communal life going, since the enemy forces show ever more effrontery in e.g. forcing closure on Hindu festivals. Hindu Samhati rendered a necessary service, so outsiders despair of how this work can continue now. But that is not where the problem lies. As a responsible leader, Ghosh made sure to surround himself with equally capable activists, who are ready to take it further. The only problem, as the fighters in the field know best, is that the challenge is becoming ever more formidable, a magnitude that ultimately calls for the involvement of Government power.

Tapan Ghosh, who bravely rushed in where higher powers feared to tread, will be vindicated. But in this imperfect world, he won't live to see the day.