Communal Delirium at its Worst

The clue to the Sudarshan coup may be found in the grand exhortation with which the newly crowned RSS supremo has chosen to open his innings. Strikingly out of context and wholly from nowhere, he has invented the need for the Hindus to wage an epic war against the non-Hindus. It does not have to be argued that this is communal rhetoric at its virulent worst, in relation to which the Ayodhya discourse sounds like a nursery rhyme.

The compulsion for this call is writ large over the political plight of the BJP. Contrary to expectations, the political graph of the party has flattened out in a short span of time. For all the calculated game plans and war-games waged against innocent and helpless people, the party's electoral fortunes have dried up, consigning the party hawks to the vexatious need to put up with the allies who are unwilling to toe the RSS line. The BJP's political" momentum has always been drawn from the RSS, and the compulsions of the present scenario make it difficult and dangerous to own up this intimate relationship in public, causing a great deal of heartburn in the RSS camp.

 Being in power is a mixed blessing for the BJP. It is a blessing insofar as the party now has access to unlimited money, which counts a lot in Indian politics. It also controls the media, which is a decisive advantage in democracy. The mystique of power, besides, has enhanced the political image of the party nation-wide at a time when the memories of the freedom struggle and the assassination of Gandhiji are fading in the minds of the people. The BJP has a respectability today that it could not have dreamt of a decade ago.

Assuming the reins of governance is also, at the same time, a disadvantage for the BJP to a number of reasons. First, the party's genius is essentially negative and destructive, and is suited more to pulling down mosques and churches than developing the country or ensuring the wellbeing of the people. The fiery rhetoric and dramatic strategies that appealed to the frustrated youth of this country, for instance, are a liability for the party when it occupies the treasury benches. Second, the people will now judge the BJP in terms not of its promise but of performance; and the performance has been dismal so far. This compels the party to work out strategies to deflect the attention of the people from the failures of the government and the misery of the people resulting from it. The Clinton visit is a case io point ... Third, the coalition politics has the potential to strain the relationship between the party and the Parivar. Fourth, the regional parties seem to be strengthening their popular base, upsetting BJP's hopes of being able to thrive at their expense sooner or later. Evidently the BJP strategy is first to grows at the expense of the Congress and the Leftists and then, once the required strength is attained, to consume the coalition partners one after the other. This now seems a trifle far-fetched, forcing the more ambitious among the Parivar protagonists to push the issues to a crisis.

The call to begin an epic war against the non-Hindus is a calculated move to coerce unity in the Hindu fold. Today the truth stares the Parivar in the face that the followers of Hinduism in this country are too sane to buy the fundamentalist project 'in a state of rational thinking. Sudarshan's call craftily and deceptively evocative as it is of the Hindu epics, is aimed at by-passing rationality and creating a pseudo-religious wrapping for the RSS communal agenda. Politically, this is aimed at reducing the options available to the coalition partners who are being compelled to buy the Hindu card. Once the Sudarshan's dharma yudh is launched, any freethinking on the part of the partners can easily be discredited and pilloried as anti-Hindu.

The ascent of Sudarshan is also a clear warning to Vajpayee. Perhaps it signals that the days of mask-wearing are over, and that the RSS wants the government to be more strident in converting secular-democratic India into Hindu Rashtra. It is also a message to the RSS cadre that the days of restraint are over, and that they can now roam around like communal cowboys in the wild East ...

With the call to this epic war, the RSS has fully unfurled its flag of conflict and violence. The RSS has as much need to foment Hindu-Muslim disunity as the British had to keep the sub-continent under their iron grip ... The irony is that the RSS needs to divide India to unite Hindus under its banner. (Source: The Indian Currents, 9 April, 2000)

Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha: Resolutions (Extracts)

Resolution on Conversion

The ABPS therefore, ardently appeals to the various Hindu religious bodies to come together and evolve a concerted plan to not only halt the rampant conversion, but also bring back to our fold those that were converted to intolerant faiths by force, fraud or allurement ...

Resolution on Cow Protection:

The ABPS urges the Central Government to initiate legislation banning slaughter of cow and her entire family through out the country ... The meeting also appeals to the farmers and the peasantry to exercise utmost concern towards the welfare of cows and bullocks as they are integral parts of the farmers family.

The ABPS suggest that the Government should appoint a Rashtriya Gau Sewa Ayog empowering it with financial and executive powers adequate enough to provide for the protection of cattle-wealth.

In short, our overall national scenario presents, both a positive and powerful nationwide Hindu awakening, on the one hand, and, on the other side, every conceivable anti-national, anti-Hindu force -both internal and external - joining hands in a. concerted no-holds-barred vicious attack on our national unity, integrity and points of honour ... They are all - every one of them - scared of the fast-growing Hindu awakening, which has already started unmasking their real face and exposing their nefarious designs and slogans. And the half-a-century long unchallenged hold on their safe seats of enjoyment of every kind of name, fame and creature comforts in every field of national field have started tumbling.

The message is, therefore, ringing forth to every ardent lover of our country, our culture and our national unity and integrity to apply himself ... to push forward the ongoing irrepressible movement of Hindu Renaissance and take it to its glorious consummation, (Source: The Organiser, 26 March, 2000)

Nagpur Calling - Editorial, The Times of India, 13 Mar., 2000

K.S.Sudarshan ... new sarsanghchalak of the RSS has ... an ideological tough mind ... At a recent function to honour 'nationalist' journalists, Sudarshan and Vajpayee had openly disagreed. Expounding on the now-familiar 'India versus Bharat' theme, Sudarshan said that whereas Bharat was a civilisational concept, India was a gift from the departing British. Bharat was one united nation;' India was many nations in one. Bharat was held together by a single strong culture; India argued for multi-culturalism. Then came the tricky bit. Sudarshan wondered how any self-respecting country could allow English to co-exist with its own national language. Of the BJP's two dozen allies in government, there are several who cannot and will not speak Hindi, much less accept it as the sole national language ... Little wonder then that at the same meeting the Prime Minister asked the RSS not to cross the Laxman rekha.

Will the RSS further enlarge its role under Sudarshan? In the nearly two years that Vajpayee has been in office, he has had many run-ins with the RSS, including that time in December 1998 when the Sangh bristled at the government's pro-liberalisation moves ... Crisis blew over thanks to the excellent rapport between Vajpayee and Rajendra Singh ... Sudarshan, on the other hand, is a die-hard Swadeshi ... Under the new chief's stewardship the RSS has passed a resolution expressing "concern about economic policies of the current government". However, the RSS is also a pragmatic body ... A BJP government, liberalisation and all, is better for the RSS than an inimical Congress government headed by a foreign-born woman. The Vajpayee government can expect a lot more pinpricks, though. In the end, only a conscious moving away from the influence of the RSS can save the BJP ..

V. Venkatesan On RSS-BJP Relations under Sudarshan

. What does Sudarshan's elevation signal for the RSS and the BJP? Insiders in both organisations deny the general perception that Sudarshan is a "hard-liner" and the age barrier between him and the present BJP leadership might be reflected in the equations between the two organisations. These leaders point out that the RSS has always functioned as a collective entity and that there is no scope for decision-making by individuals. Although Rajendra Singh and Seshadri may not hold any post in the organisation, they will be consulted by Sudarshan before every decision is taken, they claim ...

The Advani camp in the BJP does not expect any significant change in RSS-BJP relations after Sudarshan's elevation. A senior BJP leader said that Vajpayee had no reason to be worried about Sudarshan, whose views on swadeshi, Hindutva, the environment and human development were fairly well-known. Sudarshan is not a hard-liner but a clear-headed personality, claimed K.R. Malkani, editor-in-chief of the BJP's official organ, BJP Today.

Whatever the nature of the relationship between the BJP and the RSS in the coming days, it is certain that Sudarshan has a heavy agenda before him ... Seshadri Chari, editor of the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, told Frontline that the accent under Sudarshan would be on increasing the p ace of the Sangh's activities, rather than changing its direction ... (Source: The Frontline, 31 March, 2000)

Sudarshan's War -Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 17 Mar., 2000

The first mistake in RSS leader K.S. Sudarshan's interpretation of the Mahabharata is that it was not a conflict between Hindus and anti-Hindus, as he has claimed while predicting another similar "epic war" in India, but a battle between two closely related families ... were Hindus, although it is doubtful whether they would have used the term for themselves. However, ... the battle which he foresees may well'be within another family - the Sangh Parivar - because it is unlikely that the BJP will be pleased with his grim prognostications, Even if there is some convergence in the strategic vision of both the RSS and the BJP, it is clear enough that the latter's tactics emphasise the soft-pedalling of the issues which are close to Sudarshan's heart ..

The entire focus of the BJP's recent politics has been to downplay the contentious issues with which it used to. be associated earlier in order to widen its scope for acceptability by other parties. Implicit in this approach is the recognition, as underlined by L.K. Advani some time ago, that "the country is so heterogeneous that ... an ideological party, be it the communists or the Jan Sangh, cannot hope to come to power at the Centre on its own". It is the evident compulsions of a multicultural society which have made the BJP shed its ideological straitjacket, even if as a tactical gesture. The essence of such a society is that the various communities in it are not seen as being antagonistic towards each other. The RSS leader's neat division of the citizens of India between Hindus and anti-Hindus and, what is more, the prediction of a war between them may well raise the question whether the temporary tactics and the ultimate strategy of the Sangh Parivar is beginning to converge.

Such suspicions about the Perrier's real agenda may gain credibility in the wake of the latest pronouncement because it is quite in line with Golwalkar's categorisation of non-Hindus virtually as second class citizens. In envisaging a war between the two, however, Sudarshan has gone one step beyond his mentor. Unless the BJP dissociates itself completely from this particularly offensive remark, misgivings about its objective will continue to persist. Indeed, ... doubts about even the BJP's intentions will not totally disappear. The BJP, therefore, has entered perhaps the most critical phase in its history because Sudarshan hard line has brought it face to face with issues basic to the Perrier's ideology which it has been trying to gloss over so far.