Imagine a janeudhari Bengali with a trident-shaped red tika offering prayers at a Kolkata temple and then heading straight to buy, hold your breath, Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries from a book shop run by comrades.
He would probably end up buying Thomas More’s Utopia—for that’s where today’s Communists seem to live nowadays. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s latest internal review document speaks of installing “permanent book shops, medical centres and water facilities” in temple premises.
As the comrades also wish to install “secular-minded believers” in the temple management, one can only guess how they would indoctrinate them with a little help from Marx in whose words: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It’s the opium of the people….”
There are reams of writing on Marx’s understanding of religion, but Indian communists have always been ambivalent about this. While many saw atheism as a basic tenet of their ideology, others would argue that Marx didn’t see religion as a disease but as its manifestation. Remember late Subhas Chakraborty, the former West Bengal transport minister? Every time his temple visit would stir controversy, he would say, “I am first a Hindu and then a Brahmin…how can I deny it?”
Anyway, the CPI(M) doesn’t bar believers from becoming a member.
What is more interesting in the CPI(M) document is the reason cited by the party: “We cannot leave the temples and other religious places to the mercy of the RSS and its various outfits.” Haven’t you heard it before?
If there is one factor that unites the opposition in India today—apart from power, of course—it’s the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or their contempt for it.
Also read: RSS in Modi govt in numbers — 3 of 4 ministers are rooted in the Sangh
The big, bad RSS
Be it Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee or Sitaram Yechury, Nitish Kumar or Lalu/Tejashwi Yadav, anti-RSSism dominates their politics. Rahul Gandhi is ready to go to jail, but he won’t apologise for his allegedly defamatory remarks against the Sangh.The Bhim Army of Chandrashekhar Azad was gloating over the fact that he hoisted the tricolour near the RSS headquarters in Nagpur on Saturday. “Manuvaad will end only with a ban on the RSS,” Azad said there.
Even the ambitious poll strategist, Prashant Kishor, launched his debut as an aspiring opposition politician in Bihar with a Godse-versus-Gandhi jibe against Nitish Kumar. It was a bit rich for the former health expert who had closely worked with Narendra Modi’s BJP — and RSS functionaries — in Gujarat elections as also in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. That was before his fallout with Amit Shah, which forced him to seek his fortune in the opposition camp.
So, why do opposition politicians love to hate the RSS? First, it sustains their delusion—or what they would have people believe — that it’s not Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the RSS that is keeping the BJP in power. It’s their way of denying Modi’s mass appeal and their own failures. As if he would be a Rahul Gandhi without the RSS.
Of course, the RSS has been the ideological factory and assembly line for regular production of Jana Sangh/BJP leaders. Its socio-cultural activities in far-flung areas of India also lay the ground for the BJP’s expansion. The RSS imprint on the Modi government is unmistakable today, with a former pracharak as the Prime Minister of the country.
Also read: Prashant Kishor is seen as an election magician. But he wins only when in winning team
The wrong tree
Yet, the opposition leaders are barking up the wrong tree with their constant attacks on the RSS for its alleged involvement in fomenting communal riots and for its stated goal of a Hindu Rashtra. If these leaders were to hold a survey on how many votes these attacks fetched for them, they would get a rude jolt. If at all, they have ensured a more curious audience for the Sangh.
The so-called fight to protect the ‘spirit’ of India from what opposition leaders call a Hindu supremacist ideology fails to hide their weakness and inability to counter the RSS. The Hindustani Seva Mandal, the precursor of the Congress party’s Seva Dal, came into existence in 1924, a year before the founding of the RSS. The Seva Dal exists today, but only in name, thanks to the Congress leadership’s lack of interest.
The Communists in Bengal seek to blame the RSS for their plight but the latter was irrelevant in the state when Mamata Banerjee dislodged them from power in 2011. If Dalits are abandoning Mayawati and theYadavs are leaving Akhilesh and Tejashwi Yadav, it’s not because of the RSS’ influence; it’s because they are no longer happy being mere instruments of power and comforts for individual leaders.
Also read: Why and how ideology is central to winning elections in India
Look in the mirror
However much opposition leaders might demonise the RSS and blame its communal ideology for the rise of leaders such as Narendra Modi, the fact is that they can’t blame the Sangh for losing their own political credibility and mass appeal. As it is, it’s the RSS that depends on Modi for its expansion today and not vice versa.
In 1956, during his visit to the US, Jawaharlal Nehru had given a talk to then US President Dwight Eisenhower, telling him how Communism had the seeds of destruction in itself and the US President shouldn’t worry about it. Nehru was proved right decades later. The RSS is not a big fan of Nehru. Nor does it see any such seeds in its ideology so far, I guess.
For now, before heading to temples, the comrades may like to try selling the Communist Manifesto at sites where the RSS has the least influence—probably at Shaheen Bagh, to start with.
I do not have a problem with caste system as a part of identity. It is essential psychologically. We cannot deny our ancestors and our descendants. But, if there is an inherent seed of destruction in the RSS ideology, it is the MANUSMRITI. Whatever, RSS & BJP heads say, every member of their organisation practises xenophobic Manuvaadi. It has already destroyed India several times from within. But, people like this author are as much delusional as communists by hanging onto Manuvaadi and alienating the support of educated, non-Suvarnaas and other religion practitioners.
You are a dumb fellow. Read Ashok Singhal book ” Adi Manuvaad” . RSS does not approve the current Manusmriti
Very well said.
1. RSS did nothing to defeat the Leftists in West Bengal. 2. CP(M) and the Leftists lost their major base in West Bengal in 2011 due to their own blunders. These parties are making efforts to get people’s attention via ‘door to door’ campaign against Citizenship Amendment Act, National Population Register (NPR), etc and that is fine. I say in this context that CP(M) and other Left parties must do some critical self-examination to find out why the Leftists lost power in West Bengal and very recently Tripura. 3. I say that instead of wasting its energy on agitation against CAA and NPR, CP(M) and the Left parties should devote their energy for some good causes. I will mention a few here. (a) To protect environment we must demand implementation of policies which aim to cut consumption of petrol and diesel. (b) We must implement various reforms- administration, election law, economic /fiscal, legal, education sector and so on. (c) We need a law for compulsory audit of accounts of all political parties and in this regard to all political parties are reluctant to have such an audit. Is CP(M) GS listening to citizens? I will say further that if the Left parties demand implementation of above reforms, they will regain ordinary people’s support and thereby strength to fight RSS ideology.
Everyone needs a whipping boy. So it is RSS for left-liberal sickularist political parties. Can they tell us how many communial riots can be attributed to RSS, since independence? How many RSS workers and office bearers have been convicted in communal offences? Wouldn’t it be better if the opposition to an organisation is based on some rationale?
RSS Hindutwa is not bad ideology. But BJP and Savarkarite Hindutwa mongers are threat to India. RSS is not threat , they are proud to India
Sawarkars Hindutwa was based on patriotism. This hindutva was emanated from this soil and was inclusive for all those who have emenated from this soil. Sawarkar had more scientific brain and he looked upon cow only as an animal. It was Sawarkar who had warned India long ago of China. To love our nation is not a crime and Sawarkar loved his nation. His two brothers sacrificed their lives for the nation and their families were completely devastated during british raj. You read sawarkar and then you will start loving India.
Most Muslims don’t even read Quran. They know about Quran only as much as told by Mullas. What they have been fed from childhood is to hate RSS. If one wants to win Muslims’ trust, he/she should start with saying extreme hateful words for RSS. Anti-CAA protests are the living example that Muslims don’t read and they can be easily misguided through lies and imagined stories about RSS.
Wow, Very cute how Mr DK Singh is ignoring and minimising the poisonous propaganda of the RSS that has proliferared through its whatsapp, media arms and through all its appointments of committed idealogues both in Modi’s govt and in the BJP admin. He is also ignoring the shot in the arm RSS funding has recently received since 2013. Pathetic analysis. Somehow blames everything on the “Leftists” and also just HAD to mention Shaheen Bagh at the end. Is Mr D K Singh wearing saffron underpants himself? How is Shekhar Gupta approving this nonsense?
Miss Noo Noo: RSS is anti-dot to anti-India forces behaving like harmful bacterias and viruses polluting political environment of India. RSS haters have no clue about their political blunders. They continue to beat around RSS hoping some miracle will happen. What is happening is perpetual decimation of RSS haters.
LOL. Youre a bhakt who like all bhakts has never studied history or science. Look at us now, the whole world is laughing at us
The whole world is laughing from past 70 years this is not new things…
Quota is at least one RSS blurb a day. More is welcome and that too with RSS head priest. Is that Print agreement with the Organizer??