If a crow sits on top of a temple, can it become an eagle? RSS sarsanghchalak (chief) Mohan Bhagwat asked this question in a speech Thursday as part of the Sahajeevan Vyakhyanmala series in Pune. He also brought back the Sangh’s ambition that India should rise as vishwaguru, or teacher to the world. This is something the Modi government and the BJP have stopped saying lately. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is now evangelising the idea of vishwamitra (friend to the world) instead.
While these statements sound merely rhetorical, they aren’t. These were important flourishes in what seems like a determined effort to change the current discourse on communal relations in the country and give a sermon to the BJP and its vast support base—especially in the Hindi heartland, which is seeing a rash of ‘masjids built over mandirs’ claims, Sambhal and Ajmer Sharif being the latest.
Since the Supreme Court has now called time out on all these and is hearing the challenge to the Places of Worship Act, 1991, this might even be seen as a cue to it.
When even the sarsanghchalak is calling a halt to all such activity and activism, you have to wake up and pay attention, whether you are a follower or a critic of the BJP. In an unambiguous speech, he called out wannabe Hindu leaders, saying that some people think they can become Hindu leaders by raising such (temple-mosque) issues. That translates into that crow sitting atop a temple hoping to become an eagle.
The return to the vishwaguru aspiration is also rooted in the same sermon. “India did not become a nation because of conquest, commonality of language, culture or faith, or even shared strategic interest. India became a nation through its unique ancient ideology and samveshi sanskriti (syncretic culture). We saw everybody as our own. Unity doesn’t mean homogenising or destroying this diversity.” He then makes his larger point: “We used to say unity in diversity, now we must start believing diversity is our unity.”
He asks that India “try out a little experiment by eschewing all the issues that create enmity or revive the old burden of suspicion. A small experiment would follow, showing the world that we can all live peacefully.” That answers the point he made on being vishwaguru. “Only if we can prove this to the world can we become the natural vishwaguru.”
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While the secular side and political parties still seem to be analysing what he said, surprisingly—or maybe not so surprisingly—criticism has come from hard Right, especially on social media, with lots of people saying he’s lost his mind or that he presumes too much by thinking he can speak for all Hindus. And that just because he’s calling a halt to all these mandir-masjid issues, it doesn’t mean people are going to stop, because this is a long-awaited quest for justice for all the “awful things done to the Hindus in the centuries of Muslim rule by various dynasties”.
This will face a test soon enough when we see what response the Modi government gives to the Supreme Court on the Places of Worship Act. Will it defend the act, stand against it as much of its support base seems to be doing, or maintain ambiguity? That will be a test of how seriously the sarsanghchalak is taken now.
His is quite a significant and detailed statement. He’s taken you back to Muslim rule, and very significantly, he says that a process of assimilation was going on, and then Aurangzeb came and ruined it. Then he says that in 1857, a maulvi and a sant had decided to give the Ram Mandir to the Hindus. A ban on cow slaughter had been announced. The British grew alarmed by that unity and divided us again. “This finally led to the creation of Pakistan. We can’t let somebody do similar khod (mischief) again.”
This is actually of a piece with what he had said at an RSS office-bearers’ training camp in Nagpur on 2 June, 2022. He said that we should stop looking for a shivling under every mosque. Now, it’s evident that those who acted in Sambhal or Ajmer are not taking him seriously, so maybe he’s serving a reminder.
It isn’t the first time Bhagwat has spoken out as if trying to correct some distortion in Hindu politics. He spoke, for example, at Ambikapur on 15 November, 2022—again addressing RSS volunteers—saying that Hindus and Muslims in India are the same in the sense that their DNA is the same. That’s also not something hard Hindutva liked very much.
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Why is he speaking out on these issues so often, and at this point so emphatically? Let’s explore a couple of possibilities. The RSS chief is often guided by the feedback he gets from his wide network of workers across the country. And it looks like he’s concerned over the ruckus distorting their own BJP’s politics. It also gives the RSS a bad name.
Second, it is damaging the global reputation of what’s already seen as a bad, militant ideology in many parts of the world, feeding into the belief that there is a rise of Hindu extremism. In any case, it’s a very strong concern that the leadership of Hindus should remain within the BJP and the RSS, and it should not become a franchise that grows and spreads wildly in a protozoan way.
There’s a realisation that if this goes on—if mandir-masjid issues from place to place become a rash—then it’ll be impossible for their own government to maintain peace and order. It will give them a bad name and ultimately make them unpopular. So, ‘we’ shouldn’t allow it to continue.
If you’re a critic of the RSS, you might be inclined to dismiss this as cynical, but think harder. It could also be smart politics because nobody has a greater stake in the BJP government not only surviving, but ruling for a long time, than the RSS. To that extent, it looks like a very rational intervention.
A new kind of Hindutva—angrily fighting to ‘right’ the past with lawfare, if not militant and armed in the conventional sense—is now rising. They are breaking out of the four walls of party offices onto the street, and then into the small-town back street. Local media, YouTube channels and social media are the weapons that follow the petition in a local court. Mainstream TV channels then run with it. Rival party spokesmen jump in with their default positions and we have one more crisis.
The question is, how many Sambhals can India or even the BJP governments afford? If this goes unchecked, the same BJP governments who thrive on this politics will find their states ungovernable. It is the BJP that likes to say India is a secular country because its Hindu majority wants it to be so. That’s a sound argument, actually. It’s all the more reason Hindus, and the party that claims to represent them, should have the greatest interest in keeping things together.
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This obsession with the words of RSS heads is meaningless. It is complaint of someone who’s made a Devil’s bargain. The moment RSS – BJP legitimised Yogi Adityanath and gave him the position of CM, the “thought leadership” of Hindutva was handed over to the fringe. This was a conscious choice to ensure power was retained. Now the consequences of the choice are playing out and there’s nothing the words of the RSS will do to make a difference.
Too little, too late. The cat is already out of the bag. India is on its way to becoming a Hindu Pakistan (with somewhat better level of development). The US at least reached the top before becoming polarized along religious and ideological lines. India barely made it out of the starting gate.
Great by bhagawat ji . We don’t need to fight for mandir masjid. We need to focus on economic development
Words of wisdom from an elder statesman that people across the political and ideological spectrum should applaud. 2. The harm a surfeit of religious polarisation will do to social cohesion, making governance itself difficult, as the column argues, is one aspect. The other is the cost this is exacting on economic progress. Not surprisingly, the strongest proponents are from the states like Uttar Pradesh that have the most ground to cover in HDI. 3. It is now for the government to make its stand on the Places of Worship Act, 1991 clear to the Supreme Court. And it is for the SC, irrespective of the government’s stand, to honour the sanctity of the Act which alone serves as the moral and ethical foundation for the Ayodhya verdict.
It all started with the inculcations by RSS using its hydra heads…inculcating an young restless breed of Indians on hate, nationalism and ONEness or uniformity has created monsters on its own without any leader…no one can stop this poisoned minds now and RSS sister concern BJP and other vested interests both nationally and internationally is going to use them to their advantage as and they wish……RSS has made a mistake I believe and now it is seeking amends, but can it be done, it is going to be a tall order…..they should have learned from world history but their narrow mindedness has done the damage…Vishawaguru is going to be a distant dream…
Here comes the fake news peddler couptaji , tryimg to justify street violemce and street veto by jihadis .
If any government is unable to maintain order, in the course of upholding the laws of the land, it can resign and go home.
Street veto jhas no place ina democracy . shame on you couptaji
Hindus will fight for their rights, RSS or no RSS. Ram janmabhoomi agitation was happening before RSS was born.