'Cultural nationalism' of RSS, a dangerous idea

Is it simply a coincidence that in the past few months, there has been a spate of violence against Christians, attacks on churches, a belligerent insistence on reconversion or “Ghar Wapsi” and similar events, in other words a new resurgence in the activities of the RSS/VHP? This has obviously caused embarrassment to the government at the Centre, which, nonetheless chose to remain quiet about it for a long time. How are all these events to be understood? Should one dismiss them as small unconnected episodes of little consequence? Or is there a larger pattern or a design behind it?

When the RSS was formed in 1925, it was a product of strong cultural passions. These cultural passions were themselves a product of immediate circumstances marked by Hindu-Muslim discord and many instances of communal violence. When the RSS was formed as a cultural body of Hindus, there already existed an all-India political organisation of Hindus – All India Hindu Mahasabha. It was endeavouring to transform the religious community of Hindus into a political constituency. The RSS was attempting a cultural resurgence of Hindus. Thus, even though the two organisations were not organically connected, they had a commonality of purpose. 

The RSS, in its long life of around 90 years, has, broadly speaking, gone through three stages. The first stage went on till 1948 and was marked by an aggressive hostility towards Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, and strong suggestions of RSS’s culpability in it, pushed the organisation on the defensive. From 1948 till around 1984, it lived out a somewhat quiet and passive existence, passive by its own standards of aggression and belligerence.

After 1984, the RSS entered a new phase. In this phase, the Sangh tried to appropriate Indian nationalism, and attempted to do it through cultural roots. A new slogan was born – cultural nationalism. The original Indian nationalism had been culturally very plural and had celebrated India’s tremendous diversity – religious, linguistic and cultural. The RSS brand of nationalism sought to base Indian nationalism on a single culture. The trouble was that existing realities simply did not conform to the ideational standards of the RSS.

India was not a country based on a single culture, or language or religion. The very DNA of Indian society, built over centuries of assimilation and co-existence, militated against such an idea of a single dominant culture pervading the entire country. Therefore, the idea of cultural nationalism had to be turned into a ‘project’, to be pursued vigorously. It required cultural engineering. In this project, a cultural mainstream had to be created and the multiple cultures of India, were either to be persuaded or coerced into merging into this cultural mainstream.

Social engineering

Soon, it became clear to the RSS that imposing cultural nationalism on a country like India was not going to be easy. It required tremendous social engineering. The mere presence of a strong cadre was not enough. It also required the active support or the acquiescence of the State. This created a new reliance of the RSS on the BJP. The BJP was formed in 1980 but had a long pre-history in the form of the Hindu Maha Sabha and the Jan Sangh. Its political trajectory, unlike that of the RSS, had not been so straight and linear. It has oscillated between being a party of the far Right and a party moving towards the Centre.

Sometimes, the BJP emerged as a champion of Hindu communalism. This was, for instance, the case, when the BJP, under the leadership of L K Advani, led the Ayodhya movement that culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, before subsiding somewhat. On other occasions, it resembled the Congress and tried to appropriate Congressism. It contested the 2014 elections largely on a rhetoric of economic development. In its political orientation, the BJP has always retained this Janus-like character.

The RSS, has remained very consistent in its pursuit of cultural nationalism. Its activism was somewhat muted in the 1990s when the BJP captured power with the help of NDA allies. But the results of the 2014 elections have been much more emphatic in favour of the BJP. This has provided a new opportunity to the RSS and it has unleashed all the weapons from its armoury of cultural nationalism based on political Hinduism. This explains the frequency of the recent events.

Cultural nationalism is a dangerous idea for a country like India. It is a complete negation of the very idea of India, its history and traditions. It militates against the very spirit of India. The Indian society has acquired its basic features through centuries of its history. It was a history of gradual evolution, multiple contacts and dialogues and centuries of give-and-take with outsiders.

The Indian society is a product of its own history and has been enriched by it. It cannot, and should not, be subjected to political and social engineering seeking to convert India into a mono-cultural society and thus alter its very DNA. Should the idea of cultural nationalism succeed, it would be nothing short of a death-knell for the very Idea of India, nurtured and sustained through centuries of its history.

[The writer teaches history at Ambedkar University, Delhi]