New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would prefer an RSS insider like Union Minister Nitin Gadkari as the successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over someone like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who has not risen through the ranks of the organisation, says noted academic and scholar Walter Andersen.
With the RSS turning 100 this year, Andersen, one of the foremost authorities on the organisation, spoke to ThePrint in a wide-ranging interview on everything from what the RSS leadership thinks of Muslims and how it views PM Modi to the loosening up of the norms of austerity and celibacy within the organisation. The American scholar has researched the organisation since M.S. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghchalak.
Asked who the RSS would prefer to be Modi’s successor, Andersen said that, while the leaders of the organisation are extremely reticent over this question, he believes that they would be “more comfortable” with someone like Gadkari than Yogi.
“They (the RSS) would be more comfortable with Gadkari (than Yogi). There has never been a leader of the BJP after Syama Prasad Mookerjee who is non-RSS,” Andersen said. “There is a certain sense of comfort in that background because they know that a person with that background has a sense of the unity of the RSS and the BJP.”
Besides, the successor of Modi would have to be someone “moderate,” who looks at “Indians as Indians,” like Mohan Bhagwat, the current sarsanghchalak, Andersen added.
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On attitudes to Muslims
According to him, Bhagwat’s repeated statements seeking to minimise animosity against Muslims are crucial. Just last month, Bhagwat said that nobody will become the “leader of Hindus” by fanning communal divide.
Bhagwat has implied in several statements that Muslims are essentially Hindu, Andersen said, referring to Bhagwat’s statement in 2021 that Hindus and Muslims share the same DNA. This flies in the face of the notion that the RSS propagates the ideology of Germany’s Nazi Party because the key to its ideology was the notion that Jews are not German, or truly German, Andersen said.
Asked, however, if the views of the sarsanghchalak are resented or go unheeded by RSS cadres or affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, Andersen said that there was no way to know if those deviating from the Bhagwat’s message are in any way representative. The RSS chief’s calls to end campaigns looking for evidence of vandalised temples under every mosque have failed to stop Right-wing Hindu groups from doing so.
Nevertheless, the fact that Bhagwat and Dattatreya Hosable, the general secretary of the RSS, are “moderates” on the question of Muslims sends out an important message to the Sangh Parivar. “I think the fact they said it makes a difference because they are the leaders,” he said. “It gives (the moderate side) a certain legitimacy.”
Between the leadership of Golwalkar and Bhagwat, there has been a noticeable change in the RSS ideology. “One of the key areas of where there’s evolution is the notion of Muslims,” Andersen said.
Since the time of Golwalkar successor, Balasaheb Deoras, there has been a moderation of the RSS leadership’s stand over Muslims, Andersen said. Now, you have the RSS leadership stating unequivocally that Hindus and Muslims have the same DNA—that essentially, they are the same people.
Even though there certainly are people who still swear by Golwalkar, the fact that the leadership has changed its stand is clearly evident, he said.
Bhagwat and Modi
In general, Bhagwat is a moderate within the RSS, Andersen said.
“He has always been considered to be moderate and has kind of worked the RSS in that direction,” Andersen said. Moreover, he would not be able to hold the office for as long as he has—Bhagwat became sarsanghchalak in 2009—if he was not a moderate. Even Hosable, who Andersen thinks could be Bhagwat’s successor, is a moderate, he said.
A number of Bhagwat’s statements in the aftermath of BJP’s reduced seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the RSS did not campaign for the party, were seen as digs at the PM. Asked what the relationship between Bhagwat and Modi is like, Andersen said that the two certainly respect each other.
However, there are concerns within the RSS about what they see as Modi’s “personality cult”.
“Let’s face it, Modi is, without a doubt, in the whole Sangh Parivar, by far the most significant personality. I think he knows that as well,” Andersen said. “There’s certainly, on the RSS side, they have tried to downplay the individuals, including the head of the RSS and others, their own individuality. And this is very different from politics. In politics, you kind of stress individuality.”
However, the RSS’s suspicion of political power and its potential to corrupt predates Modi, Andersen said. The RSS sees politics as a dangerous profession because of its overemphasis on individuals, he said. “Because then that leads to a kind of authoritarian complex that one has to be careful about…Are they fearful of this? Oh, of course. Oh, yes,” he said.
This is precisely why the RSS prefers to have those from its own ranks to lead the BJP, even though the fear of corruption does not go away completely even in those cases, such as with Modi or Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he said.
While the relationship between the RSS and the BJP, and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, has never been seamless, a permanent split between the RSS and its political wing is “highly unlikely” because it is from the RSS that a large crop of BJP leaders come.
However, how the non-RSS leaders in the BJP may change the character of the party remains to be seen, Andersen added.
“As long as the BJP leadership continues to get its cadre mainly from the RSS, a formal split is highly unlikely,” he said. “But now what’s happening is that the BJP under Amit Shah has established its own training system. And I’d be curious to know to what extent that makes a difference.”
Loosening of norms
While both Bhagwat and Modi are set to turn 75 years old this year—an age at which leaders are expected to step down within the BJP-RSS—neither is likely to step down, Andersen said.
As far as Bhagwat is concerned, he is healthy, enjoys popularity within the RSS, and is considered effective. “I have not seen any group within the RSS ask for his retirement, he is very unlikely to go,” Andersen said.
As the RSS nears 100 years, conventions around long-held standards such as austerity and celibacy too are loosening up a bit, Andersen said. However, there is no alarm or disquiet within the organisation over it.
While in the initial years, celibacy was seen to be extremely important with a large number of RSS-BJP leaders being celibates, increasingly, you see a large number of married men taking up important roles in the two organisations.
“Even though among the top leadership, as I think of them, they’re largely still celibates. Not all, not all of them are. But, you know, I’d say a majority are,” he said. “But you get one layer below that, then my guess is probably the majority are married. And this hasn’t always been the case.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)