Today, on 26 November 2025, it is exactly 17 years since the terrorist attack on Mumbai on 26/11/2008.
On 28 December 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded. This 28 December will mark its 140th anniversary – making it the oldest political party in the country. As far as I remember, before Congress there was no political party in India at all. Whatever existed were only small associations or committees formed for social reform.
The current ruling party of India, the BJP, can perhaps be called the youngest major party. It was formally founded in 1980 (though its age is counted as 43–44 years now), but its predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was formed in 1951 and merged into the Janata Party in 1977. Within 19 months, the Janata Party broke up over the “dual membership” issue of old Jana Sangh members with the RSS. So in April 1980 (actually 6 April 1980), the old Jana Sangh members formed a new party called Bharatiya Janata Party. Hence it is the youngest national party.
After Congress, the Communist Party of India was formed in 1925 – the same year the RSS was founded. Then the Congress Socialist Party in 1934. That is why Congress is counted as the oldest party. And old age is called “ageing” in English. Just as in ageing the body stops producing new cells and muscles, and wrinkles appear on the face and other organs start failing, the same condition has more or less befallen the Congress Party today.
Yet some of Congress’s defects are congenital. For instance, from the very beginning it has been confused and negligent on the issues of caste, religion and personal property. The reason is purely the feudal upper-caste leadership that came into it. From Arya Samaj’s Lala Lajpat Rai and Hindu Mahasabha founder Madan Mohan Malaviya in the early days to countless others even today. During the Emergency, socialist leader Nana Saheb Gore gave a speech in Rajya Sabha that was censored and never came out in the press, but we cyclostyled and distributed it. In that speech, while talking about banning the RSS, he said:
“Indiraji, what do you wish to achieve by banning the RSS? The RSS already exists inside the Congress Party. Kamalapati Tripathi, Uma Shankar Dikshit, Vasant Sathe…” – pointing towards the treasury benches he said – “Madam Indira Gandhi, your own party is full of people with RSS mentality. You are not doing anything about them, so what will you gain by banning the RSS outside?”
He added that these elements have been present inside Congress from the very beginning.
That is why until 1925 the Sangh Parivar people did not feel the need for a separate organisation. But after Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in 1915 and, because of him, the anti-untouchability resolution was passed for the first time at the Nagpur Congress Session of 1920 (whose reception committee included Dr Hedgewar and Dr B.S. Moonje), the ears of Hedgewar and Moonje stood up. After Bal Gangadhar Tilak died on 1 August 1920, and they felt there was no longer any benefit in staying inside Congress. Therefore, on Vijaya Dashami day in 1925, in Mohite Wada, Nagpur, Dr Hedgewar founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with just 10–15 people. This year the Sangh is celebrating its centenary.
Even while Mahatma Gandhi was alive, the Hindutva forces inside Congress never stopped maintaining relations with the Sangh Parivar. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya himself gave two acres of land inside Banaras Hindu University campus to the RSS. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (known as Guruji), who became Sarsanghchalak after Dr Hedgewar’s death in 1940, had earlier studied and then taught zoology at BHU – that is probably why he came to be called “Guruji”. Malaviya specially helped both the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS. That is the reason Hindutva forces have always remained inside Congress.
Apart from Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad and Mahatma Gandhi, I cannot recall any other truly secular name in the Congress leadership. Communal poison has existed inside Congress from day one. It remained silent only because of Nehru. Yet even during Nehru’s lifetime, people like Govind Ballabh Pant did whatever they wished. On the night of 22–23 December 1949, when both the Centre and Uttar Pradesh had Congress governments, idols of Ram Lalla were placed inside Babri Masjid. Nehru wrote several letters to Chief Minister Pant, but Pant took no action. Exactly the same thing happened on 6 December 1992 under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. Veteran journalist Kuldeep Nayar wrote in his autobiography that Rao spent the entire day pretending to do puja at his residence while IB and CBI were giving him minute-to-minute updates. Rao himself wanted Babri Masjid demolished. Even his close associate Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote in Frontline magazine reviewing Rao’s autobiography that the entire book is a bundle of lies.
That is why the loud-mouthed former RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan (the fifth Sarsanghchalak) openly said: “All parties are ours, especially Congress,” and even called Indira Gandhi an incarnation of Goddess Durga.
Congress has always been a “hold-all” party – every kind of person is inside it, and the one who wields the most influence prevails.
I am writing this from my own experience. I personally investigated the bomb blast that took place at the house of irrigation engineer Rajkondawar in Pataliputra Nagar, Nanded on 6 April 2006; the Malegaon blasts of 8 September 2006 (Shab-e-Baraat) and 29 September 2008; and the so-called “fidayeen attack” near the old RSS headquarters in Mahal, Nagpur on 1 June 2006. After these investigations, some Delhi friends took me without informing me to a Lutyens’ Delhi bungalow (2008). When I saw the nameplate on the gate, I asked why they had brought me there. Before they could answer, Ahmad Patel himself came out, welcomed me inside and requested:
“Khairnar Saheb, please do not brief the Delhi press about your findings on the Nanded-Malegaon blasts and the alleged fidayeen attack on RSS headquarters.”
I immediately replied:
“Ahmad Bhai, Soniaji did not make you her political advisor just because you look handsome. She appointed you especially as the representative of India’s 20–25 crore Muslims. After Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, these Hindutva terror incidents are happening in Maharashtra and at the Centre when your party is in power – and you are advising me not to speak to the press?”
I added, “Anyway, I have already held the press conference at Delhi Press Club; these friends brought me here afterwards. You can take the names of the journalists from them and call them not to publish anything.”
He held both his ears and said, “Tauba tauba! These are not Emergency days that I would do such a thing.”
As I gathered my papers and got up to leave, the then Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachouri, who was sitting there, walked with me to the gate and said, “I am the Parliamentary Affairs Minister; give me a copy – I want to distribute it to some MPs.”
Today is 26/11 – exactly 17 years.
My firm belief is: had the Nanded, Malegaon, Nagpur RSS HQ, Hyderabad, Ajmer Sharif and Samjhauta Express blasts been properly investigated, 26/11 Mumbai would never have happened.
All these incidents took place when Congress was in power both at the Centre and in Maharashtra. My friend former IG S.M. Mushrif wrote the same thing more than 15 years ago in his book “Who Killed Karkare?” and pointed fingers at our country’s top investigating agencies. I was a speaker at the launch functions of the English, Hindi and Marathi editions, and on all three occasions I demanded legal action against the author and publisher, saying: “Very serious allegations have been made against our premier investigating agencies of the country; action must be taken.”
Yet even after more than ten years, the book is freely selling in every major Indian language and no action has been taken.
Today the Bharatiya Janata Party is 100% following Hitler’s model – spreading hatred against minorities and baking its political bread on every issue. Just as Hitler, before coming to power, called a meeting of all big German industrialists and promised them unlimited profit-making freedom if they funded his party, exactly the same way Narendra Modi and BJP, after obtaining absolute majority in 2014, have given open licence to Indian crony capitalists in the name of the so-called “Gujarat model”. From 2002 riots onwards, Modi has been polarising society only on communal lines – riots, hijab, halal, temple-mosque disputes, terrorism, Pulwama, Pahalgam, the suspicious incidents near Red Fort – and even using the names of Lord Ram and Krishna for fulfilling political lust, sacrificing innocent citizens and security personnel for political gain.
On this 17th anniversary of 26/11, humble salute to the memory of brave officer Hemant Karkare and all other ordinary citizens who lost their lives in that tragedy.
