One of the cardinal mistakes of the left-leaning liberal intelligentsia is to invest the RSS with superhuman indoctrination capabilities — by virtue of which its members and sympathisers get fired by hyper-nationalist, ideological fervour and they become immune to the social, political and cultural trends impacting the rest of Indian society.FULL TEXT AT:
This is questionable. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that the Sangh Parivar members remain untouched by forces of modernity, cultural globalisation and ‘aspirational’ economic growth. Organisationally, too, RSS is as prone to the pulls and pressures of competing beliefs and value systems, internal power struggles, bureaucratic turf wars, petty intrigues, scandals as any other. Their ideology machine is rusty, with little by way of fresh intellectual inputs in response to fundamental social and cultural changes taking place all around them.
The westernised, Nehruvian, liberal elite that it saw as its principal threat is no longer a force and the minorities too cannot be overtly identified as the ‘other’ to define themselves against without harming the BJP’s electoral prospects. There is little left therefore to sharpen their ideological claws against.
Continuing to see Modi as an arch, iconic representative of the RSS blinds us to the dramatically different phenomenon Modi is turning out to be and the way he is shaping Indian politics around ‘Brand Modi’.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/the-moditva-model-of-inclusiveness/article6636772.ece
