Methinks Ram Madhav doth protest too much. Objecting in
The Indian Express to the concern being expressed in several quarters at the spectacle of the Prime Minister and virtually his entire cohort of ministers queuing up at the three-day RSS meet to pay obeisance to their masters, Madhav denies that the RSS are the BJP's string-pullers and says the RSS limits itself to playing the role of an "ideological fountainhead" to the "Sangh Parivar, a family of organizations (that) is essentially an ideological
parivar".
Perhaps. But what is this ideology that all BJP leaders of any importance must subscribe to in order to remain members in good standing of the RSS, not forgetting that Modi himself is an RSS
pracharak, and is bound by the "discipline" which the RSS stipulates as an overwhelming condition of membership?
The ideology goes back to a young Congressman, KS Hedgewar, emerging from incarceration for his part in the 1921-22 satyagraha, totally disillusioned with Gandhi's non-violence, incensed with him for having linked freedom for India with the Khilafat movement, angered at Gandhi refusing to base his political programme on "cow protection", and convinced that unless Hindus as a community banded together militantly and distanced themselves from the Muslims, India would remain forever in chains, or in thrall to a Muslim Raj. His organizational motto was "discipline", but he felt himself lacking in a coherent ideology until he chanced upon the writings of VD Savarkar, in particular a hand-written copy of
Hindutva.
First and foremost, Savarkar held that the Hindus were "a nation". In this, he anticipated Jinnah who, a few years down the road, was to evolve the counter-concept of a "Muslim nation", leading Savarkar in 1943 to say that he agreed with Jinnah that there were two nations in India: the Hindu nation and the Muslim nation. The Hindu nation, said Savarkar, comprised all those who regarded India as both their "fatherland" (
pitrubhumi) as well as their "holy land" (
punyabhumi). This obviously excluded Muslims and Christians whose religion "drew on cultural sources outside the country". This, he maintained, "created divided loyalties". After meeting Savarkar in Ratnagiri in 1925, Hedgewar went on to form the RSS. The "ideological fountainhead" of the BJP, therefore, rests on the two-nation theory. Much has changed in the close to a century between 1925 and now, but it was none other than Subramaniam Swamy who let the cat out of the bag when he said in Hyderabad on 13 March 1993 that the RSS "is not a pro-Hindu organization, it is a purely anti-Muslim organization".
(Cited in Facts of Ayodhya Episode by Mohd Abdul Rahim Quraishi from a tape-recorded speech published in the Anti-Corruption Weekly of Hyderabad and later as a booklet, p 155)The RSS decided from its earliest beginnings that it would not itself be a political actor. That it left to its brother-in-arms, the Hindu Mahasabha, whose Presidentship fell on Savarkar soon after the Congress government of Bombay lifted the British-imposed ban on his political activities in 1937. Till its demise, the Hindu Mahasabha remained a fringe player in Indian politics. And the political space in the Freedom Movement was so filled by the Congress that Golwalkar recognized that the RSS would remain in the margins were it to undertake an overt political role. Moreover, when the Second World War broke out, the RSS were terrified that their activities might be curtailed by the British if they were perceived as playing politics. So Golwalkar took a very deliberate decision to entirely remove his organization from the political sphere, especially after the British came down heavily on all those involved, even tangentially, with the Quit India Movement.
Golwalkar took the line "not to anger the government in any way which might lead to impose a ban" and, therefore "to scrupulously avoid any political activity" (these quotes are from the leading American historian of the RSS, Walter Andersen, whom Ram Madhav quotes approvingly in his
Indian Express article). Golwalkar admonished his cadres "to keep our work within the bounds of law, as every law-abiding institution should". The Bombay Home Department hailed these "patriotic" activities of the RSS, commending the RSS for having "scrupulously kept itself within the law and, in particular, refrained from taking any part in the disturbances that broke out in August 1942". Thus, keeping the Brits happy was the RSS's principal contribution to "nationalism" in the crucial years leading to Independence. No wonder, they hate the Congress with such a passion.
The RSS have always maintained that they are "above politics", but politics is so interwoven into their programme that an essential feature of every
shakha is the "political class" (
Baudhik). It is from these political classes that have emerged the cadres that place themselves at the disposal of the political party to which the RSS is affiliated, and without whom no Sangh Parivar-related party could possibly contend for power. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, "a partyless leader in search of a leaderless party" as another American historian of the RSS, Craig Baxter, has put it, well-recognized this when he set up the Jana Sangh with RSS backing in 1951 in response to the sense of political isolation that overwhelmed the RSS when it was banned for about 18 months following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and none came to its rescue. Without the RSS cadres, the Jana Sangh would have floundered. And remember, all these cadres are bound by Hedgewar's 1933 diktat: "It is most essential for a Swayamsevak to obey the orders of the Sarsangachalak at any stage, under any circumstances and without any hitch." Hence, the concern over the BJP's relationship with the RSS.
Ram Madhav argues that "the PM and ministers meet members of social, cultural and business organizations almost as a daily routine" and asks, "Then why an objection in this case?" Because, Mr. General Secretary, the Jana Sangh/BJP was not set up by any of these "social, cultural or business organizations"; because their employees do not turn out in lakhs to canvass votes for the party at election time; because they petition the government, not determine the government's ideological conformity with what the RSS decrees as the right and moral course. Ram Madhav gives the game away when he ends his article by saying that "the ideological family went home content with the general direction of the country under the new government." Well, naturally, if the BJP is doing the RSS's bidding, why would the
parivar not go away content?
(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.