Deccan Chronicle
RSS: Still in the mood for love?
Anand K. Sahay | 25th Nov 2013
From what we have seen so far, the RSS appears to have erred in guiding Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to the position of Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for Prime Minister.
Much of this false image-building seemed at first exhilarating but later turned painful and insulting for many (especially the Vajpayee comparison), but they held off.
No one was keen to cross swords with the RSS brass which had promoted the Gujarat CM. That’s the way it is in the BJP, even the new generation BJP eager to become the plain Right rather than remain the Hindu-Right. But with Modi revelling in the style favoured by the tough-boss type in the genre of B-grade Bollywood films, the branding of a possible future leader of India seems to be going badly wrong.
The dhoti-wallahs and the tweed jackets alike, who seemed only too keen to jettison the UPA just the other day, are seriously wondering if they have really found their man.
Although interrogated for its Hindu-supremacist ideology and for not playing a part in the national movement against British rule before Independence, since its inception in 1925 the RSS — whose mission is nothing less than the establishment of a “Hindu Rashtra” — has tended to place a premium on qualities such as sobriety, simplicity, austerity, courtesy and gravitas in personal life and public discourse. These values have done not a little to help its spread among the middle classes and, in fact, constitute emblems of civilised conduct that cut across class and region and find nationwide appeal.
In the current phase of his life, Modi, who has been named the star campaigner for his party, has alas shown all too little inclination for the above totems and the life-style they demand as essential. He has wilfully falsified well-established historical facts in his public speeches to draw blood and to fool voters; in Sangh Parivar circles his ignorance of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee being the founder of the Bhartiya Jana Sangh (the BJP’s earlier avatar) has caused shock and dismay.
Given its record, these were hardly facets that the RSS would have liked in a leader it has gone to some lengths to promote and protect. In the past, those who have made the transition from whole-time RSS activist to its overtly political branch, the Jana Sangh and the BJP, have included the likes of Deendayal Upadhyaya, Dattopant Thengadi, Kusha Bhau Thakre, Murli Manohar Joshi, and, yes, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Does the Gujarat CM make the cut for the model these Hindutva stalwarts represent? This will be an abiding question for the RSS and the BJP.
The RSS and the BJP won’t lose much sleep over the 2002 violence against Muslims in Gujarat. At the level of form at least, Rajdharma has been maintained in that Modi has not been indicted by a court of law for his failure to stop blatantly communal violence, although one of his ministers, Maya Kodnani, faces the death sentence for her despicable role, and another, Amit Shah, has been hauled up by the judiciary. In any case, it can be argued that the Gujarat happenings denoted a step in the evolution of “Hindu Rashtra” since a clear-cut explication of this goal is not available.
So that’s fine, in a way. But the allegation of stalking a woman (allegedly with Shah, a former minister of state for home in Gujarat, acting as a cut-out) using state machinery (including the Anti-Terrorism Squad), in violation of every laid-down procedure, hardly redounds to the credit of one whose aspiration is to be Prime Minister in 200 days (as Modi reminds his audiences).
The RSS should be dumb-founded. Indeed, the dangerous leap of faith that can make a deeply ideological, deeply motivated, and deeply experienced agency such as the RSS swing from a Vajpayee to a Modi paradigm deserves to be a subject of study.
When the Jana Sangh, for decades, was a party on the margins, and had little expectation of making it to Parliament or a state Assembly in a manner that could be called significant, it was perfectly understandable that the party should see in the presidential model of running an election campaign its only glimmer of hope to make some impact on public consciousness.
A Vajpayee thus became the narrator for his side with some élan — he had the mind for it, the gift of speech, and the political sangfroid. There were also others. But to hanker after the same model when the BJP runs state governments, has run the government at the Centre as the head of a coalition, and has its influence spread more or less throughout the country, seems like an
admission of defeat. Modi is a product of that mindset, whatever the bravado.
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