HINDU POLITICS

Neelam Mahajan Singh on Political Role of the RSS

The recent political activism of the BJP's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh has raised eyebrows among several political analysts. "Hindutva", has been the trump card used by RSS in fulfilling the political aspirations to capture power at the Centre. The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh has activated all its frontal organizations to play a lead role in ensuring the success of BJP candidates.

The rank and file of RSS are a confused lot today where they do not know whether they have to be self-sacrificing patriots or self-seeking politicians. The RSS has ordered its rank and file to plunge into the political fray. This, in fact, is negation of the ideology of its founding father. Hedgewar. Dr. Hedgewar founded the RSS on September 27, 1925 at Nagpur with only five persons in its first Shakha. In the last 70 years, there has been a giant leap in the works and achievements of RSS. The aim of RSS was to knit a strong fabric for the Hindu society and to revitalize the society on the basis of Dharma and Sanskriti.

Today RSS has more than 25,000 shakhas all over the country. As as 'claimed' to be a non-political organization, the RSS did not participate in the independence movement as a political body. The demand for "partition of India" brought many Hindus close to RSS. The RSS projected itself as the sole agency to checkmate the alleged Congress ambivalence on Muslim intransigence. Till date the RSS is not reconciled with the partition of India. Dr. Hedgewar, the first Sarsang Chalak had propounded the principle of building the character of an individual, i.e. Charitra-nirman won in turn would make a good society, i.e., Shisht Samaj which in turn would lead to a; powerful state, i.e., Sangthit Rashtra or Akhand Bharat. Why then has the present RSS leadership made a volte face in reversing the tenet of their founding fathers, i.e., to seek state power, then make society and then an individual?

Golwalkar, Deoras, both Sarsangh Chalaks, and Deen Dayal Upadhaya, founder General Secretary of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, believed in the consolidation of a Hindu society through social upliftment of the backward, downtrodden, destitute and the less privileged.

The Bharatiya Janata Party formerly Bharatiya Jan Sangh, is the political wing of RSS, something which had not even been envisaged by Dr. Hedgewar.

After Independence, Golwalkar had told Nehru that while Nehru could take charge of an Independent India, the RSS would undertake national reconstruction.

The RSS has created men of sterling quality, dedication and selflessness. However, lust for political power has made RSS to take a detour... The reasons of changing values of RSS are many. it no longer wants to play a "behind the scene" role. Sam, Dam, Dandha, Bheda is fully put to practice by none other than RSS top hierarchy.

From 1967, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh was on the rise. From 5.8 lakh in 1991, the RSS membership rose to 7 lakhs in 1980. In 1996, it has more than 35 lakh members.

The mistake that RSS has committed is in "front man" projection of L.K. Advani as the epitome of the RSS ideology, Hindutva, Swadeshi and honesty". But it did not hesitate for a minute to axe L.K. Advani and project Abki Bari Atal Behari.

The Ram Janma Bhoomi Shilanyas, and the Hindu frenzy resulting in Jai Shri Ram, Bacha Bacha Ram Ka, Mandir wahin Banayenge, resulted in mass hysteria amongst the Hindus in favor of BJP as a party with difference. The Rath Yatra of Advani further whipped up the Hindutva wave.

Just as Congress has been using the minority Muslim vote bank, the RSS and its baby, BJP, has been using the 'Hindu vote bank'. Needless to state both parties have done precious little for either the Hindus or the Muslims.

Now the RSS leaders like the Congressmen don a political topic. From the divine saffron flag which is the epitome symbol of sacrifice for the motherland for RSS, this political capping can turn disastrous for its socio- cultural-economic consolidation of the Hindu society.

RSS policy of double-speak and dual role social and political are sapping its foundation. Now RSS is dwarfed by the political paper mask of BJP. The thought of forming the Government at the Centre made RSS throw all caution to the air.

The RSS had given a call for all trans-Hindu forces to combine against Congress and other parties, it will not be a surprise, if tomorrow the RSS tells Bharatiya Janata Party to join hands with Congress to form the Government. If this happens what then what will be the difference between the Congress and RSS? Rajendra Singh must save Rashtriya Swayam Sevak from political disaster.

Once again the RSS chief Rajendra Singh and his team should go close to the aims of Hedgewar, if they wish the saffron flag to fly high.

RSS would remove the ugly political mask. The RSS should follow its path to achieve its goals with dedication and not desire. This alone will restore lost glory of RSS as a social-cultural organization (which) can consolidate the Akhand Bharat.

(Source: The Hindustan Times, 19 May, 1996)

N.V. Subramanian on RSS-BJP Politics

In March, 1996 at a three-day Pratinidhi Sabha in Lucknow, the RSS had first given indications that it would be backing any political party which would carry forward its Hindutva agenda Said Seshadri in Lucknow, "they (meaning the Hindus and the Hindu activists) will have to strive to their utmost to rouse voters to their national duty of electing such parties and persons who have proved by post history that they stand hrmly committed to tackle the problems and dangers of the Hindu society on a priority basis."

The problems Seshadri enumerated included infiltration of Bangladeshi refugees, the slaughter of cows, the activities of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the border areas, the declining population of the Hindus as against an increasing population of the Muslims, and so on.

Seshadri never said anything about supporting the BIP exclusively. This was to pre-empt any change of electoral malpractice.

But it was clear that the RSS was determined to influence the general elections. Several high-level meetings were held and it was decided to bring all the affiliates of the RSS into this work. This had been done before in a much smaller way in 1957 when M.S. Golwalkar was the RSS chief and the Jana Sangh needed the RSS backing, and in 1977 during the Emergency when Balasaheb Deoras was head and the outfit had. given its support to Jayaprakash Narayan against Indira Gandhi. There are something like 38,000 upashakhas of the RSS and if you allow ten members per upashakha you have a staggering 38 lakh volunteers. 

On top of this, the RSS got all its politically and religiously-oriented affiliates to pitch in. A long exhortation addresses to Hindus to support Hindutva politicians and parties was signed by Rajendra Singh with Vishnu Hari Dalmia, president of the VHP, Usha Chati, chief organiser of the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, the RSS' women affiliate, and Jagdev Ram, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram that works with tribals.

Moreover, the RSS convinced other non-RSS agencies to work with it on this. Among them were Vinobha Bhave'a Sarvodya Movement and the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha.

The RSS has been seeing this election as a sort of make-or-break one.

 Before all the results were out and the BJP looked like doing well the RSS was being very accommodative.

(RSS spokesman) stressed that the BJP's manifesto would not be imposed on future allies. "We are very keen about national integration and social harmony and the details can be worked out later," he said.

Would the BJP insist that its allies also agree to abrogating Article 370 "We could take it up later".

And would the BJP insist with its allies that the temple had to be constructed in Ayodhya within this term? "This thing can also be taken up with them later."

"We should not insist upon these thing now", he went on. "The other parties may or may not agree. The idea is to work out which part of the manifesto is to be operated now and which later. it is a matter of strategy".

But (he) insisted that in the end there would be no compromise on the RSS-BJP's main ideology. "There is no going back on opposing cow slaughter or abrogating Article 370". "If any party says that don't construct the temple in Ayodhya we are not going to agree. But equally we won't overturn the table just to have the temple in Ayodhya."

He also said that while the RSS would like the temple to be constructed within a week, it would in no. case force the issue or do anything which would be construed as illegal.

 Asked which parties would be backing he BJP, he said that he would rather concentrate on MPs. "We are not asking anyone to cross over," he said. "But we would like those MPs who believe in our ideology to form groups in whichever parties they may be and come out without attracting the Anti-Defection Act."

But all that was then when the first round of results had come in. The RSS-BJP had something to go by. Of course....The BJP did less well than it thought it would. The BJP (is) engaged in looking for partners. If you assume, for the moment, that neither the Congress party nor the Janata Dal breaks up and a faction joins the BJP. the party has to woo a whole range of regional formations, among them the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). the Dravida Munnetra Khazagam (DMK), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). the Congress (Tiwari), the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the Shiromani Akali Dal, apart from the Samata Party, the Shiv Sena and the Haryana Vikas Party to get just a simple majority in the Lok Sabha.

The BJP component in such a government will be less than 60 per cent. And if the BJP tries to gain a comfortable majority, it will go even lower, per centage wise, in its own government. How much of a BJP government would it be then? And, how much Hindutva commitment could the RSS get from it.

Several senior RSS functionaries who have refused BJP tickets for the second or third time now, have a basic objection to seeking power itself.

Their example is Golwalkar, the second RSS chief, who put character-building and organising Hindus above the search for power, and was, for the most part of his term, a reluctant backer of the BJP's earlier avatar, the Jana Sangh.

Others find the BJP itself objectionable. The foremost among them is Dattopant Thengdi, who controls the BMS (1989 strength: 4.91 lakh), the ABVP and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, and has emerged as a power centre in the sangh parivar and is, in some ways, more powerful than even Rajendra Singh today.

Thengdi forced the swadeshi issue on a reluctant RSS and his men have battled the BJP each time it has compromised on the swadeshi question.

Thengdi and Advani are on less than friendly terms too. And any future clash in the sangh parivar is likely to be between these two titans. Thengdi, however, is ageing and unwell and, therefore, hard-pressed to leave behind a strong second and third line of leadership. But he has already put in place hardline cadres.

In one sense, Thengdi represents the Left view in the sangh parivar without being communist. Advani, by that definition, is right. Moderates, like Rajendra Singh, Seshadri, and so on, are per force middle-of-the-road.

It is in such an ideological crossroad that the sangh parivar now stands. This was bound to occur. When K.B. Hedgewar launched the RSS in September 1925, it was nine years since the Congress and the Muslim League had agreed to a separate Muslim electorate for the Legislative Councils; five years since Mahatma Gandhi's support to the Khilafat Movement that many Hindu revivalists thought would encourage Muslim separatism and four years since riots in Malabar in which there were some forcible conversions.

But till his death in 1940, Hedgewar refused to turn the RSS political, and this resolve continued with his successor, Golwalkar. V.D. Savarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha supremo, who first fleshed out Hindutva, later adopted by the RSS, broke off with Golwalkar just because of the latter's determination not to turn the RSS political.

Most say this reluctance was so as not to incite the British to ban the RSS. But this anathema for politics continued after the RSS was banned for a year in connection with Mahatma Gandhi's murder until 1951, when Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, quitting Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet over differences over Pakistan, formed the Jana Sangh.

Golwalkar's first preference was to come under the Congress umbrella. And it was only after Sardar Patel, his ally in the Congress, couldn't get Nehru or the bulk of Congressmen to accept RSS cadres in the Congress, that Golwalkar reluctantly gave his blessings to Mukherjee.

The Jana Sangh, in the five general elections till Golwalkar died in 1973, performed only marginally better in 1967, winning 35 of the 250 seats it contested, bagging 9.57 per cent of the votes. It was a track record that Golwalkar could have found barely satisfactory. In 1956 itself, he had banned RSS transfers to its affiliates, especially the Sangh, returning the RSS to character building work. Balasaheb Deoras, later to succeed Golwalkar as sarsanghchalak, withdrew from the RSS that year only to return in 1962 when the ban was lifted.

Golwalkar's own idea of politics was to establish a dharmasatta in India. Researching why the bulk of Hindus couldn't be converted in successive Mughal and A British rules, he concluded, in an essay on the subject in his Bunch Of Thoughts, that "the basis of our national existence was not political power".

"Otherwise," he went on, "our fate would have been no better than that of those nations which remain today as only museum exhibits. The political rulers were never the standard-bearers of our society. They were never taken as the props of our national life."

"Saints and sages, who had risen above the mundane temptations of pelf and power and had dedicated themselves wholly for (sic) establishing a happy, virtuous and integrated state of society, were its constant torch bearers. They represented the dharmasatta. The king was only an ardent follower of that higher moral authority.

Golwalkar's quest wasn't woolly-headed. Ashish Nandy, the well-known social scientist, nearly 20 years later, did a similar study of Indians under the British Raj (The Intimate Enemy. Loss And Recovery Of Self Under Colonialism). It was empirically sounder than Golwalkar's study, nor was it coloused by any attempt to apply any of the findings to modern times.

And Golwalkar had one that. In his scheme of dharmasatta, political power would be one point of a triangle separate from economic power, which would be the triangle's second point. And each of them would be checked by a countrywide collegium of saints and sadhus

RSS top-rankers will still tell you that Golwalkar's dharmasatta had no anti-Muslim bias and that the English of dharma is not really religion. May be not.

Yet, the dharmasattas, by Golwalkar's own admission, came up in response to Muslim and later British Christian proselytising efforts. So, latter-day dharmasattas wouldn't really be able to overcome that world-view. After the Christian British left, there were only the Muslims remaining in large numbers. So, any dharmasatta... at least implicitly, anti-Muslim.

Anyhow, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), set up in 1964, was entrusted with getting all the various Hindu sects and mutts together to possibly make such a collegium.

Then, separating economic power from political power was part of the Jana Sangh's ideology of greater privatisation. By the time Golwalkar died in 1973, a framework for organising national society was in place.

Ten years after he died, the VHP began the Ayodhya agitation and 16 years later, the BJP won 54 seats more than the Jana Sangh at its best in 1967. And both were affected by their respective growing strengths.

 In December 1992, frenzied cadres of the VHP demolished the Babari Masjid. And by then, corruption was as much there in the four BJP state governments as in the Congress regimes before them.

The saints, after December 1992, were being hardly seen as that. Politicians were chummy with industrialists. And the dharmasatta, for whatever it was worth, was finished even before it had been set up.

Among the few senior functionaries in the sangh parivar to be genuinely disturbed by the Ayodhya episode was Thengdi. "If he had his way," said a Thengdi  follower, "Ashok Singhal and Vishnu Hari Dalmia (of the VHP) would have no more been part of the sangh parivar for what happened in Ayodhya that day."

And again it is Thengdi who id livid about the BJP's politician-industrialist nexus in Golwalkar's dharmasatta spirit. But in the BJP, few see any wrong in it.

Just now though, there is a cease-fire on in the sangh privar. The BJP, in the process of government-making, is having to back down from many of its o't positions. hority. And not everyone is unhappy with that.

Thengdi has such swadeshi friends as George Fernandes and Chandra Shekhar who will make any sell- out impossible. In dealing with the DMK, Dravidian consciousness has to be borne with if not accepted.

Then the Asom Gana Parishad did so well because its President Prafulla Kumar Mahanta campaigned extensively in Muslim-majority areas of Assam that were previously Congress strongholds. In dealing with point of Mahanta, therefore, talk of Muslim appeasement has to be muted if not forbidden. And the newly-elected Shiromani Akali Dal MPs would care to be treated as Sikhs and not as sword-arms of the Hindu religion.

After Ayodhya it takes little imagination to picture crazy mobs storming the disputed mosques in Mathura and Varanasi followed by riots and bomb blasts.

Such a thing could also produce visible cracks in the sangh parivar. Before the Ayodhya episode, the Thengdi group had begun building bridges with the National Front-Left Front through a series of meetings. After the dimolition, all such contacts ceased.

Thengdi, after all, is of Vajpayee's generation that saw Muslims in wars against Pakistan in 1947-48, 1965 and in 1971 and as co-sufferers with Hindus during the Emergency. And finally, last fortnight's general elections do not show the RSS' door-to-door campaign to have had any great effect. The RSS accepts this.

The BJP did well in Madhya Pradesh because of infighting in the Congress. In Bihar and Haryana, sensible seat-sharing arrangements produced results. In UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav upset its plans of a runaway victory. And in the south, it was decimated.

Gujarat was bad for PR too. The BJP looked like being just any other party in just any other election.

 (Source: The Sunday, 19-25 May, 1996)     

RSS: Lok Jagran Abhiyan

The Sangh parivar has launched yet another front to strengthen its information campaign. The new front will operate under the banner of 'Lok Jagran Abhiyan'.

The front's campaign will highlight issues ranging from national integration to cow slaughter, infiltration and espionage activities of a neighbouring nation, appeasement of the most significant minority, the electronic media's attack on Hindu culture and other issues that it considers crucial.

Even while calling their campaign as an effort to influence the common man, the Lok Jagran Abhiyan will desist from holding mass meetings. A single activist deputed for one block will conduct a person-to-person campaign. He will also use the other front organizations Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the parent body, the Sangh, like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Hindu Jagran Manch, to gain support in urban and rural areas.

Intellectual discussions will be conducted at the personal level to reinforce the ideological base of political, religious and social programmes of the Sangh parivar. While seeking to deny that the decades-old shakhas' are proving ineffective in strengthening its mass base, the new ideological propagators maintain that this campaign is different from its usual efforts at cultural indoctrination.

Apart from retired civil servants and some ex-army officers, the front consists the individual entrepreneurs and professionals: There will be both full-time as well as part-time activists. Most of the committed activists are middle-aged.

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Mani Shankar Aiyar on Sangh Parivar

The sangh parivar... showed at Ayodhya how utterly untrustworthy it is. The same lies, prevarications, dishonesty and dissimulation are still the characteristics which make the sangh parivar believe that despite securing less than a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, its tryst with destiny has come.

It was moral bankruptcy that charaterised Advani's leadership of the BJP at Ayodhya, it is the same moral bankruptcy that now characterises Vajpayee's doomed attempt at insinuating himself into the gaddi without the people's sanction to do so. When it comes to the crunch, there is no choosing between Advani and Vajpayee. Both are gentlemen of the utmost personal charm, both. however, are leaders of the most dangerous political party in the country. Atalji's political visage is of the religious extremists and narrow-minded zealots who make the running in the sangh parivar.

True, the sangh parivar has over these 40 years moved so far down the road of fanaticism that Vajpayee looks like a moderate when viewed against the background of his RSS puppeteers.

(Source: The Sunday, 26 May 1 June, 1996)