Kar Sevak

A kar sevak is someone who offers services for free to a religious cause. The term is derived from the Sanskrit words kar (hand) and sevak (servant).

Quotes

• Bullets for the kar sevaks, biryani for the Kashmiri militants.
  • L. K. Advani. Commenting on the contrast of the Government's treatment of the Hindu agitation by Hindu kar sevaks and of armed Kashmiri militants who were provided with biryani during the siege of the Char-e-Sharif mosque. Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p58

• The Hindus have been so much humiliated and insulted since 1947 that sometimes it seems doubtful whether they are living in their own country adding that in Kashmir & Punjab Hindu blood is being shed so much so that even in Ayodhya unarmed Kar Sevaks including the Sadhus were brutally killed.
  • From a speech by Sadhvi Ritambhara, which was considered to be actionable, objectionable under 153-A of Indian Penal Code 'on the ground of inciting the Hindus in the context of construction of Shri Ram Temple at Ayodhya and attempting to spread feelings of animosity against the Muslims'. Quoted from ' The Case of Sadhvi Ritambhara', in Goel, Sita Ram (ed.) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy. [1]

• I regret giving orders to shoot kar sevaks at Ayodhya. My decision to order firing at kar sevaks was to save Muslim minorities. This decision was needed to keep the faith of Muslims in this country intact.”
  • Mulayam Singh Yadav quoted from ‘Mulayam Singh govt buried Karsevaks, conspired to hide actual number of casualties’: Republic TV exposé

• There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra. ... There is no suggestion that the karsewaks started the violence ... there has been no real provocation at all ... And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the karsewaks had it coming to them. Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims ...
  Why then are these poor karsewaks an exception? Why have we de- humanised them to the extent that we don't even see the incident as the human tragedy that it undoubtedly was ... I know the arguments well because—like most journalists—I have used them myself. And I still argue that they are often valid and necessary. But there comes a time when this kind of rigidly ‘secularist’ construct not only goes too far; it also becomes counter-productive. When everybody can see that a trainload of Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on the VHP 19 or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them. Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader... There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh Parivar-bashing?
  • Vir Sanghvi “One-Way Ticket” in The Hindustan Times of Feb. 28, 2002. Also quoted in The Godhra Riots: Sifting Fact from Fiction by Nicole Elfi (2013)