A sad spectacle

If there was any iota of doubt about the links between the RSS and the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dispelled it. He presented his key ministers to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and asked them to provide information on the working of their ministries. That the prime minister had no qualms about it was evident from the way the entire presentation was aired on news channels. He has been an ardent “pracharak” of the RSS before joining its political wing, the BJP.

The party has been evasive on the link because of its realisation that the RSS does not go down well with an average Indian. It was the same question of connection which split the Janata Party. The Jan Sangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP, promised to severe its link with the RSS when it joined the Janata Party and gave an assurance to Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan that it would cut off its relations with the RSS, provided it was allowed to stay in the Janata Party. This delinking did not, however, happen and it betrayed JP’s confidence.

I recall asking JP why he allowed the Jana Sangh to merge with the Janata Party when the former had not cut off its link with the RSS. In reply, he said that he had been betrayed because the Jan Sangh leaders had gone back on their words. They had given him an undertaking that once the Janata Party started attending to the organisational work, after forming the government, the Jan Sangh would have nothing to do with the RSS. “I have been let down,” said JP.

This must be true but in the process, the Jan Sangh was able to get secular credentials. The blunder committed by JP cost the nation dear and the Jan Sangh of yesterday has emerged as the BJP of today and has been able to secure an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress should have gained from the situation. But its obsession with the dynasty and president Sonia Gandhi’s insistence on having her son Rahul Gandhi as successor has dissipated the advantage. The party has lost its dependable vote-bank of Muslims. The community is now following either regional parties or even flirting with the idea of supporting Asaduddin Owaisi, who is trying to present himself the sole representative of Muslim leaders, as those in the Muslim League used to do before partition.

The community does not want to go back to parochial politics. Yet, it may have no option except to toy with the idea since the RSS has come out openly on the field to guide the BJP, jettisoning its role of being a pure cultural organisation. That the RSS has not gone through the electoral process does not bother the organisation because it knows that the BJP has to depend on the RSS cadres to win elections.

Nonetheless, it was sad to see on television channels RSS chief Bhagwat making it clear who is the boss when Modi met him and paraded his ministerial colleagues in front of him. True, the electorate has given a majority to Modi but never did he say during his campaign that when it comes to country’s governance, the RSS would be very much there.

In fact, during his campaign, Modi assured the minorities, particularly the Muslims, that whatever be the party’s stance in the past the new slogan was “sab ka sath, sab ka vikas”. At a few meetings, he went out of the way to make the Muslims believe that he would be the best custodian.

Really speaking, there is nothing discriminating in his way of working so far. However, the fact of the RSS saffronising the educational institutions and making appointments of its own men at key positions is visible. It suggests that Modi is implementing the RSS agenda slowly but relentlessly.

Seized to count
It is evident that the Muslims have seized to count in the affairs of governance. The Central cabinet itself has just one Muslim minister and he too has been assigned an unimportant portfolio. Even otherwise, the increasing impression inside and outside the government is that a soft-type of Hindutva has begun to prevail in governance.

The target of the RSS to have a Hindu Rashtra may look distant at present. But Modi still has three and a half years to go. Both he and the RSS chief, who now often meet publicly, seem to be working according to the plan which they have devised at Nagpur, the RSS headquarters. The BJP and its students’ wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad have no independent thinking. They just follow the script written in Nagpur.

This has a different manifestation. Sometimes, it appears in the shape of ban on meat and sometimes the dress code and even compulsory teaching of Sanskrit in schools and specific morning prayers in assemblies. The redoing of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi is part of the same thinking. The RSS, which was nowhere when the movement to oust the British was fought, is now trying to occupy all the space and parade as the real champion of freedom.

One sadly feels the absence of passion of freedom struggle and the philosophy of pluralism. Even the name of the architect of modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru, is being systematically erased. The havoc caused in the field of education is terrible. The history is being re-written and text books are changed to downgrade the role of leaders who were instrumental in getting us the freedom.

Understandably, the RSS and its affiliated units like the BJP and the Bajrang Dal feel left out when freedom struggle is mentioned. But they do not have to minimise the freedom struggle itself because that will amount to a great disservice to tomorrow’s generations. The important thing is the struggle for independence and the sacrifices made by innumerable people.