The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is upset with its former pracharaks and swayamsevaks in the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah couldn’t have missed the message in RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s ruminations on Monday – about true sevaks and arrogance, return of gun culture in Manipur, the need to treat the Opposition as pratipaksh – those representing the other viewpoint – and not adversaries, and so on.
The ruling party saw it coming, claim Sangh insiders. Reason? A desperate attempt to keep Bhagwat’s speech out of news headlines. If you listen to them, there is a grand conspiracy theory. The RSS sarsanghchalak’s speech was pre-scheduled Monday evening and the timing had been announced much in advance. Yet, the announcement of the portfolios of newly sworn-in ministers hit the headlines just before Bhagwat started speaking.
As if to deny him the headlines. So much about conspiracy theories. If I were to stretch it a little, the BJP leaders might have been bracing themselves for a blowback since the day party president JP Nadda suggested that the BJP didn’t need the RSS any more.
BJP insiders would have us believe that the media is making too much of the RSS chief flagging concerns about the nation’s challenges as PM Modi takes a fresh guard for the third innings. They are, however, forgetting how the same RSS sarsanghchalak batted for the Modi government in his 2023 Vijayadashami speech last October. Having dwelt at length over so many good things that happened in India during the Modi—led government, Bhagwat saw the hands of “outside forces” in what was happening in Manipur.
He mentioned how home minister Shah had spent three days in Manipur. “Which foreign powers may be interested in taking advantage…Despite there being a strong government in the country, on whose strength and instigation has this violence continued? Why did this violence erupt and continue even though there was a state government that wanted to maintain peace?” Bhagwat had said in October.
Change in contents, tone, tenor
On Monday, Bhagwat had different questions: “Manipur has been waiting for peace for a year…Who will pay attention to this? The situation in Manipur will have to be considered with priority. There is a need to get over election rhetoric and focus on problems facing the nation.”
You can’t miss the change in contents, tone and tenor. Much has changed since October. If Bhagwat’s Dussehra speech was about praising the Modi-led government and slamming ‘foreign powers’, cultural Marxists and wokes, Monday’s address was an attempt to hold up a mirror to Modi-Shah.
So, what has changed since last October? Conversations in hardcore Modi fan circles tend to get cynical. They see in Bhagwat’s not-so-veiled criticism a reflection of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz’s ‘Ketman’; the Sangh might have applauded him under compulsion but held a different opinion about him. They don’t specify Ketman but what they say suggests as much.
That’s because the former RSS pracharak outgrew the Sangh. Now that he has suffered a setback in the election, the Sangh is getting back at him. It’s far from the truth. Yes, it has always had issues with personality cults. The Sangh believes in the collective ‘we’, not ‘I’. But it’s also true that it is proud of its former pracharak, Modi. He has been instrumental in the RSS’s phenomenal rise as an organisation in terms of reach, expansion and clout as well as in realising ideological goals.
Also, don’t forget why MS Golwalkar so grudgingly agreed to the formation of the Jan Sangh. “Sangh must take part in politics not only to protect itself from the greedy designs of politicians but to stop the un-Bharatiya and anti-Bharatiya politics of the government and to advance and expedite the cause of Bharatiyata through state machinery side-by-side with official effort in the same direction…(Sangh) must develop a political wing for the more effective and early achievements of its ideas,” KR Malkani wrote in Organiser in 1949, as quoted by Bhupendra Yadav and Ila Patnaik in their book, The Rise of the BJP: The Making of the World’s Largest Political Party. The context then was different, of course. That was the time when the RSS was reeling under the impact of the ban following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
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Bhagwat’s larger message
Why I am quoting Malkani here is to drive home the point that the larger objective behind the Sangh’s involvement in politics remains equally relevant today, even though the context might have changed. Few would know better than Bhagwat how the Modi phenomenon has helped in the Sangh’s growth and expansion.
But it’s also not true that the media is creating smoke without fire. ThePrint was the first to report how the RSS volunteers in Uttar Pradesh were feeling disillusioned with the BJP and were not active on the ground.
It was quite different from 2014 and 2019 when the RSS had even set up war rooms for coordination with BJP candidates and spearheaded their campaigns. In the run-up to the 2022 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, ThePrint had reported then, the RSS and its affiliates were running call centres to ‘sensitise’ people, campaigning door-to-door to remind them of the Ram temple, invalidation of Article 370 and motivating families to vote.
All these initiatives were missing on the ground in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Therefore, it would be unfair to suggest that Bhagwat has chosen to raise the red flag after the BJP’s setback in the elections. He very much knew about the feelings of the swayamsevaks on the ground but didn’t want to queer the pitch for the BJP by raising their concerns in the middle of elections.
In the process though, the RSS has managed to send out a clear message to Nadda and his backers—that the BJP might have grown big but it still can’t win elections without the support of the Sangh. In the 1984 elections post-Indira Gandhi assassination, the RSS had supported Rajiv Gandhi’s bid for prime ministership. The BJP then got two seats in the Lok Sabha. Writing in a Hindi magazine, Pratipaksh, RSS ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh had given a call to bless Rajiv Gandhi, according to author Rasheed Kidwai. Kidwai also noted the fact that the BJP denied any RSS-Congress understanding in that election.
In 2004, too, after six years of acrimony with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the RSS went cold on the ground, contributing to its fall. History has repeated itself in 2024 again. So, where do the BJP and the RSS go from here? The answer would depend on how Modi and Shah respond to Bhagwat’s advice.
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Sangh still needs Modi
Hypothetically, PM Modi can ignore Bhagwat’s advice. He may be into his third term and his popularity may be waning, but the Sangh can’t still afford to be seen as undermining or marginalising him. And if push comes to shove, let’s not forget what Modi said in the context of the Opposition’s attack on him post-demonetisation: “Jyada se jyada mera kya kar lenge? Hum toh fakir aadmi hain, jhola lekar chal padenge (What can they really do to me? I’m just an ascetic; I’ll pick up my bag and leave).”
Imagine the reactions if Modi repeats these lines today in the current context. It’s Amit Shah, his putative successor, who needs to worry more. As No. 2 in the government and de facto BJP chief, he has a key role in the functioning of both. And if the RSS chief is unhappy about their functioning, it may reflect on his abilities. He is no Modi.
Many CMs, ministers, MPs, MLAs and BJP office-bearers owe their position to him but Shah still needs Bhagwat on his side if he has to realise his ambitions. The RSS chief’s last speech was a bummer for him in this context.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
What makes you think that Modi undermined democratic ideals more than anyone else did?
He is running around the country morning thru night all round the year seeking public support and votes getting up every morning trying to prove himself. That sound like more democratic to me than a bunch of entitled dynasts who think they are born to rule. Opposition was ready to malign the entire election process had they not done better this time. That sounds like more undemocratic to me than BJP and Modi who have worked for decades to reach where they are.
People like you can’t stand anyone becoming successful. A typical looser mentality.
DK Singh proved again that he is confirmed Modi-fan. He mentioned “Imagine the reactions if Modi repeats these lines today in the current context.” Modi’s lines were ““Jyada se jyada mera kya kar lenge?”. As per DK Singh Modi cannot be undermined or marginalize because Modi has been instrumental in RSS’s phenomenal rise. I want to remind the fanboy DK Singh that had Hitler or Xi Xinping or Putin ruled India, our country would have been most powerful in 10 years. Would he like that? If political power is a determination of success without considering democratic ideals, then animal kingdom where animalistic power rules is the best. I don’t understand if DK Singh deserves to be a journalist. Legislative, executive, judiciary, media exist because of democracy; when any person from one of these especially media undermines democratic ideals, it is like a person cutting the same branch where he is sitting.