India: RSS wants Hindu renaissance, Modi is its mascot (Kingshuk Nag's blog in The Times of India)

The Times o India

THE WONDER THAT IS INDIAN POLITICS
RSS wants Hindu renaissance, Modi is its mascot
Kingshuk Nag
16 September 2013, 09:38 PM IST

Who said that the next Prime Ministerial battle will be between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi? In reality it will be a war between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Congress. To put it succinctly it will be a battle between all that the Congress supposedly stands for and all that the RSS signifies. If you want to stretch the argument it will be a battle between competing visions of what constitutes the idea of India.

Have no illusion, Modi has been catapulted to be the Prime Ministerial candidate not because the BJP Parliamentary Board selected him (supposedly on the demand of the party’s cadres) but due to the diktats of the RSS. The RSS is the fountain head of the sangh parivar and controls its various arms including the BJP and dozen others like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra (VKK) and the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The RSS’ avowed objective is to work for Hindu renaissance in India and the organization pushed Narendra Modi to the top with a purpose. The RSS’s bosses felt that Modi – in the present context - would be the right guy to fulfill the stated aspirations and goals of the organization. By doing so they pushed out their earlier mascot Lal Krishna Advani who had furthered the organization’s objectives effectively by launching the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the early 1990s. He is also the guy who galvanized the BJP after the party had been reduced to holding 2 seats in Lok Sabha in the elections held in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. But in the end he could take the organization thus far and no more. He could not consolidate the “Hindu” vote to a size that would enable the BJP to capture India electorally.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement came to a naught although the Babri Masjid was demolished and in the 1993 elections in UP (where Ayodhya is situated), the BJP had to cede ground to the BSP whose representative Mayawati became chief minister. The Ram temple for which the Babri Masjid was razed to ground never came although the country witnessed major communal conflicts in the aftermath of the movement. Realizing that the movement had to not help realized the RSS’s dream of putting the BJP in power, L K Advani signaled in 1995 that the moderate A B Vajpayee and not he would be the mascot of the BJP. This was a strategic move: a kind of strategic retreat by the RSS combine that allowed the BJP to come to power in 1998 and 1999 and remain in power till 2004. It was not a total RSS/ BJP government because the party came to power in association with other parties who jointly formed a National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Therefore the RSS could not push its core agenda much but was content to wait for a more opportune moment.

However in Gujarat, the RSS was able to install one of its protégés as chief minister. He was none other than Modi. The earlier chief minister Keshubhai Patel was also a RSS man but not as strident or zealous as Modi. Narendra Modi had joined the RSS full time as a seventeen year old after coming to Ahmedabad from his village in Vadnagar 100 kilometers away and serving as a tea vendor for a while. Modi was fully engaged in RSS staying at its Ahmedabad headquarters and schooled in the organization’s culture. As such Narendra Modi personified the interests of the RSS. Well known is the fact that there was an unprecedented polarization in the state after the Gujarat riots of 2002 –which took place barely a few months after Narendra Modi ascended the chief ministerial gaddi. Under unprecedented attack, Prime Minister Vajpayee (never a hardline RSS member) wanted to drop Modi. But he was prevented from doing so by Advani, the RSS’s chief representative in the BJP. So Modi continued and in the aftermath of the polarization caused by him, he romped back to power in the December 2002 elections.

After losing elections in 2004, the BJP has never come back to power in Delhi. In Gujarat however Modi continued his run and got re-elected in 2007 and 2012.But with the 2014 elections coming close, the RSS’s desire to see a BJP government in New Delhi has intensified. It sees hope in the constant bungling by the Congress led UPA government in the last few years what with massive corruption scandals whether it is related to the Commonwealth Games, Telecom licenses or allocation of coal blocks. The RSS has realized that large sections of people desire change and wants to tap into this segment who might just vote for change not waiting to figure out what is the change that they want. They also would not bother to analyze what is the change that the RSS and its political affiliate BJP stand for.

The RSS is also banking on the increasing number of urban middle class who have benefitted from the process of liberalization and have been impressed by the talk of Modi’s performance on the economic front in Gujarat. First time voters – between the age of 18- 22 – who have little memory of the riots that were common nationwide in the late 1980s and early 1990s are also on the target of the RSS/BJP combine for netting votes. They would also bank on many upper class Hindus who believe that the Congress has followed a policy of appeasement of Muslims in the last sixty years (although the Muslims feel otherwise as stated later in the blog) and now there is a case of a level playing field.

The polarization of votes represents the BJP’s best chance and this can be best achieved through the idiom and language of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Anyway Modi has excelled in this style of campaigning ever since 2002 and who better to experiment this at the all India level than a successful performer? This is why that the RSS has jettisoned their old war horse Advani who though has not given up his Prime Ministerial ambitions. The more difficult it is to consolidate the ‘us’ into a Hindu vote enough to enable the BJP to come to power in Delhi the more strident will be this divisive idiom. With the BJP confined largely to north, central and west India the job of winning national elections sans the south and the east is rather difficult for the right wing BJP/RSS combine.

The unfortunate part of using the language of ‘us’ and ‘them ‘is that it leads to deterioration of relations between communities leading in some places even to riots. Therefore it would not be a matter of surprise if the communal situation in the country deteriorates in the next few months. Incidentally the Muzaffarnagar riots are being cited as the example of riots the likes of which will grip the country in the coming months. The BJP is being part blamed by analysts for the riots.

The fall out of a deteriorating communal situation could be tremendous and this is especially so because the Muslims now form a sizeable 15 per cent of the Indian population. As a community the Muslims feel that they have arrived now. They perceive that after having remained underprivileged in the Indian republic since 1950 (Muslim representatives quote statistics of representation in the legislature, government service and figures of bank loans and industry to buttress their argument) it is time for them to demand for their place under the sun.

For the record, at least at a theoretical level, the Congress’s idea of India is a secular republic and that’s how the party has run the country for the better part of the last sixty years. However there is no denying that the way the party has been worked it has been reduced to a dynastic set up. It is also a fact that the party in government has not been able to achieve a lot that it was supposed to. Also it should be mentioned that the RSS whose political philosophy is skewed is known to have done good social work especially during the time of natural calamities. The organization has been banned three times in the past.