A day after his own party MLA sought a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar refused to heed the call, stating that the sanstha can’t be blamed for the mistakes of individuals who may be its members. While this is a reasonable explanation for not banning the sanstha, or any other organization for that matter, the government needs to take a serious relook at the sanstha and the number of controversies it has brooked over the past few years.
Notwithstanding all its denials, the sanstha has been drawn into controversy on various occasions, and not by just one individual member, but by more than one member. The first time most people in Goa actually learnt that an organisation called the Sanatan Sanstha had its headquarters in the State was in October 2009 when its members were killed while planting the improvised explosive device (IED) at Margao during the Narkasur competition on Diwali eve. It was a blast that startled Goa out of its peaceful life and also brought the sanstha to the front pages of the local newspapers and on to the television screens. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) that investigated that blast is still looking out for Rudra Patil, a sanstha volunteer, who has been absconding since then and a cousin of Malgonda Patil who died in the Margao blast.
This, however, was not the first time that the sanstha has been in the news for the wrong reasons. A year earlier, in 2008, six members of the sanstha had been arrested for planting bombs outside an auditorium in Thane, Maharashtra. Two of them had been later convicted in the case, though they were acquitted of terror charges. They have appealed in the high court.
The sanstha returned to the limelight this week, when one of its members, Samir Gaikwad was arrested in connection with the murder of Govind Pansare in Kolhapur. Earlier sanstha members had come under the lens for the 2013 murder of Narendra Dabholkar, another rationalist who fought against superstition. Dabholkar and Pansare were shot at when on their morning walks by two men on motorcycle. A third rationalist shot last month, MM Kalburgi was also killed in the early morning, not while out walking but at home. Rudra Patil who is wanted in the Margao blast case and on the run since 2009 is wanted in all three cases.
There is a connection between these three cases and the Goa government would also do well to look into the wider perspective of the three killings. The men who have been killed were rationalists who led a crusade against fanaticism and superstition. Dabholkar was threatened in the past for his views, so it is safe to assume that the three men were killed for their views, what they stood for. On the other hand, the sanstha is known to be a right-wing organisation drawing the hard line. That being so, its members would also be hardliners, inspired by the sanstha and what it stands for.
The demand for a ban, coming from the opposition and from civil society, may not be unfounded and it is also not the first time that such a demand has been made. There have been demands in Goa for its ban earlier too. Parsekar also said that Maharashtra should complete investigations in the case and then the Goa government will take a call. He has perhaps forgotten that the previous coalition government in Maharashtra, of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, had sought a ban on the sanstha after the attack on the Thane theatre and had even petitioned the Centre on this.
The involvement, still alleged, of members of the Sanatan Sanstha in killings and bomb blasts does cloud the organisation’s credibility. Its denials notwithstanding, there is reason for the Goa government to monitor the sanstha and its working. That is the least that the government in this State can do.
