The saffron onslaught on the polity is nothing new – it began in the Eighties with the Ayodhya agitation, and now in Gujarat, the only State where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is not saddled with allies, the process of saffronisation is beginning to bloom.

The party's not-so-hidden agenda has begun unfolding, if not at the Centre ... at least in the States where the party holds political sway, particularly Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.

It was the dream of the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, to make Gujarat "a model State". The Keshubhai Government is beginning to show its colours. The systematic politicisation of the entire State apparatus and saffronisation of the education system has begun.

If in Uttar Pradesh the Sanskar Bharati, yet another RSS front, has become the self-appointed guardian of Indian culture even as the Government looks on approvingly, the Gujarat Government has made it lawful for its employees to become members of and to participate in the activities of the RSS. Soon, this new "liberal" regime is to be extended to RSS offspring such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Sanskar Bharati and the Bajrang Dal ..

The real issue is that the RSS is no dance and drama club. It is political to the core. It set up its political arm, Jana Sangh, in the Fifties and handpicked half a dozen RSS "pracharaks" for the job. After the Jana Sangh was born again as the BJP, the links remained intimate. Almost the entire top brass of the BJP belongs to the RSS and were handpicked to lead the political arm.

The BJP cannot decide who its party president should be without the concurrence of the RSS - the decision is taken by a few senior party leaders in consultation with the top office-bearers. of the RSS, and the election becomes a mere formality - and the leadership of all its fronts, including. the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the Sanskar Bharati is held by RSS pracharaks.

The RSS continues to have a major say on important policies and programmes of its political wing, the BJP. In 1998, it was the RSS which vetoed the Prime Minister and decided that Jaswant Singh could not be the Finance Minister. And during every election, RSS members come out in large numbers to canvass actively for the BJP. In 1995, well before the central election committee meeting of the BJP, the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, Rajendra Singh, predicted that around 20 to 25 sitting BJP MLAs would not be given the ticket, and that is exactly what happened.

With these admitted facts, how can the RSS be considered a non- political cultural organisation when top BJP leaders confess that the RSS chief is their "friend, philosopher and guide"? As for the controversy on Water no organisation can be allowed to set itself up as the arbiter of cultural values or as the guardian of Hindu ethics. The Babari Masjid demolition was justified on the ground that many temples were destroyed by the Mughals ... But the question remains, does India want to become a Pakistan, or do we want to bring back the jizya tax in reverse and penalise the minorities? Does India want to imitate the Islamic countries?

What the Keshubhai Patel regime did quietly through a Government Order - withdrawing the ban on Government servants participating in RSS activities – was a blatant attempt at politicising the bureaucracy and the police in Gujarat. The "logical" next step would be for the Centre to say that Central Government servants, including police and armed forces personnel, will be allowed to participate in the activities of the RSS, which is a "cultural organisation". After all, what is good for Gujarat must necessarily be good for India. Perhaps only the fear of opposition from allies prevents the Vajpayee Government from taking this step. The Government could fall, and even the RSS does not want that to happen at the moment ...

The RSS has always used its several front organisations to test the political efficacy of some of its saffron ideas before letting the BJP take the plunge at the formal political level. The Ayodhya issue was taken up and the ground prepared by the VHP before the BJP put it on its formal agenda. The method employed is always the same. Start an agitation, create a controversy, and then claim to speak on behalf of the "people" and the "Hindu sentiment"

Having demanded pre-censorship of Water, would the day be far away when these organisations attack newspapers demanding a reading of news stories or articles that are to appear the next day? Or demand to see the video recordings of programmes to be telecast? All in the name of "people's sentiments". which were used to whip up the Ayodhya agitation and religious conversions, M. F. Husain's paintings or Ms. Mehta's films.

With Ram Prakash Gupta, an old RSS hand as Chief Minister in UP, the scene has been set for full-scale saffronisation ... Besides, Mr. Gupta has on and off made statements saying that Ayodhya was very much on his Government's agenda or that he would not come in the way of the VHP or the Bajrang Dal trying to build a temple on the disputed site. All this on video tape. His later denials only support the belief that the provocations were deliberate, that there is method to the madness, that the BJP has been signalling to its cadre through him that it has not abandoned its pet plank.

The recent legislation - the Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Public Religious Places and Buildings Bill – giving enormous powers to district magistrates to prevent construction of temples, mosques and churches in rural areas has been justified citing growing ISI activities on the UP- Nepal border. It was a virtual admission that the law will mostly be used to stop construction of mosques.

National security has become the Government's alibi ... No one trusts the BJP on this count, not even its allies believe the BJP is secular. In Gujarat the "Hindu card" of the BJP is not its hidden agenda, it is very much out in the open. Repeated electoral victories have only emboldened the party to flaunt its communal card unabashedly. (Source: The Hindu, 6 February, 2000)