Failure to win a decisive mandate from the Indian voter should take the Bharatiya Janata Party back to its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Saturday’s exit polls predicted a decisive victory for the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, sending both party loyalists and the Sensex on a historic high. Tuesday’s results, however, brought both to a crashing halt. Amid the cacophony of TV anchors discussing the possibility of new political alignments, BJP president JP Nadda’s 18 May interview with The Indian Express must have come back to haunt the party.
“We were less capable in the beginning and needed the RSS. Today we have grown and are more capable. The BJP now runs itself,” Nadda had said while commenting on the RSS’ declining involvement in and influence on government affairs under Modi. His comment did not bode well with the RSS, which had birthed first the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951 and later the BJP in 1980. Nadda’s comments brought to the fore something that has been brewing for long within the Sangh – the discord between the BJP and the RSS.
Modi cult over Parivar culture
If the Sangh stands for organisation first – as stated in its motto, Sange Shakti Kali Yuge (organisation is strength in current times) – Modi’s BJP is solely about the individual. This is hardly a new phenomenon, and the party has reached dizzying heights with Modi as its face. However, RSS ranks say that the BJP’s overconfidence and overreliance on one person has cost it dearly.
As it became clear that the BJP wouldn’t reach the 272-majority mark on its own, a senior RSS functionary made some important revelations to me over the phone. He told me that the RSS wanted the BJP to fight elections on three key issues.
“The RSS wanted the tone and tenor of the BJP’s 2024 electoral campaign to focus mainly on three positives: PM Modi’s personal popularity with the Indian voter and his government’s last-mile delivery on the ground of all its promises, the issue of national security that has no doubt gotten strengthened under this government and the cultural resurgence that has taken place in the last 10 years,” he said.
The RSS, according to him, was unpleasantly surprised to notice that as the BJP hit the road with its poll campaign, it focused on only one theme – Modi ki guarantee. “The party was not only seeking a historic third term in office, it was hammering home a fantastical figure of 400 seats for the coalition NDA [National Democratic Alliance]. We fail to understand how the party can condense different strands of political messaging into one individual’s personal guarantee. Hubris has hit the BJP hard this time.”
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Dilution of ideology, faulty washing machine
Two more factors caused a rift between the BJP and RSS in the run-up to this year’s Lok Sabha election. First, the dilution of the party’s core ideology due to the large-scale induction of leaders from political parties with different ideological moorings. Second, the admission of prominent faces with serious corruption charges against them, and the subsequent decision to shield them from ED/CBI heat.
“Not everyone internalises the party’s core Hindutva ideology like Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. How many among the new crop of leaders from other political parties that the BJP took in its fold in different states subscribe to what we stand for?” the RSS functionary told me.
Moreover, on the ground, RSS workers found it very difficult to explain to voters the ‘washing machine effect’. An effect that seemed to magically wash away the sins of ‘corrupt leaders’ after they joined hands with the BJP.
“Be it the NCP [Nationalist Congress Party]’s Ajit Pawar and the Congress’ Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra or Congress MP Geeta Koda in Jharkhand, the RSS worker was at a loss explaining to voters why the BJP that promised to be a party with a difference and having zero tolerance for corruption was washing away sins of tainted politicians,” the functionary added.
The agencies are asking our leaders and activists to either join the BJP or face action, The Hindu had quoted Mamata Banerjee as saying on 7 April.
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Past continuous, present tense
Reporting from Uttar Pradesh – where the BJP has performed disastrously – ThePrint’s Sanya Dhingra on 17 May explained why RSS workers were lying low this time. “In issues like job postings, registering FIRs, or obtaining loans, the life of an ordinary RSS Swayamsevak has barely changed under BJP governance,” she wrote.
There have been loud whispers in Delhi’s power corridors of the extent of the rift between the RSS and the BJP. In a 21 May Opinion article for ThePrint, journalist Vivek Deshpande wrote that if the BJP wins a majority in this election, the RSS would find it more challenging to maintain its patriarch role.
Now that it is clear that the BJP is no longer atmanirbhar and has to rely on allies to form a government at the Centre, it is time to recount a March 2012 article from The Caravan. In ‘The Emperor Uncrowned: The Rise of Narendra Modi’, Vinod K Jose, while quoting unnamed sources, had written that the RSS had always been uneasy with Modi, given the latter’s penchant for making it all about himself. With less than satisfactory election results, maybe it’s time to make it about the Sangh Parivar again.
Deep Halder is an author and journalist. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Late awakening on the part of the BJP leadership. Mind you, it always takes two to clap. Anyways, better late than never.