So, it’s now official. The truth about the current relationship between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was being discussed in grapevine terms so far, is now a matter of record. BJP president JP Nadda has, in a media interview, said that the party has grown independent of the RSS now and doesn’t need any hand-holding by the patriarch anymore.
That’s quite an explosive revelation by no less a person than the BJP president himself.
What makes it curious is that it has come right in the middle of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
And what makes it perplexing is that it breaks the carefully nurtured and internalised RSS strategy not to publicly state anything that could dent its assiduously built facade of an organisational monolith, something that perpetually keeps its adversaries in awe.
So, what do we make of the Nadda revelation?
RSS-BJP in tune? A myth busted
Make no mistake, it is a virtual declaration of independence by the BJP from the RSS. There is no missing this message here since Nadda has said it in so many words himself.
And it wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark that Nadda just foolishly blurted out without realising its gravity.
The BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had apparently been looking to speak it up at an appropriate time, and Nadda used The Indian Express interview to give way to the feeling that seemed to have been building up within the BJP’s top echelons for some time now.
The Nadda revelation, at once, demolishes the myth that the RSS and the BJP are completely in tune with each other and that there is nothing for the two to be upset about.
At the same time, many analysts have come to believe that the RSS has nothing to complain or worry about the BJP and Modi, since the latter have fully implemented the RSS’ core agenda. This understanding is quite superficial. One needs to delve deep into the RSS’ foundational thought process.
There can be no two opinions about the RSS being happy with the work done by the Modi government toward steering its ideological agenda. But that surely isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of it.
The RSS does want to see its agenda getting implemented, but not at the cost of its foundational thought process about its organisational functioning being altered. At the heart of that thought process is an inviolate principle — that the organisation must reign supreme and must not be dwarfed by any individual or any personality cult.
Much to its discomfiture, that’s precisely what has happened with the whole RSS ecosystem over the past ten years under the Modi rule.
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The alienation of RSS under Modi
Given the kind of person he is, Modi went about delivering the Hindutva agenda while keeping the RSS at arm’s length. He made no bones about the fact that he wouldn’t like to take anyone as his commander, not even the RSS.
The strain between the relationship was too obvious to be missed. During his years as PM, there were hardly any instances of Modi consulting the RSS.
RSS insiders say he would not personally talk to RSS emissaries whenever the latter wanted to convey something to the government.
Modi is the last person to reserve that kind of humility and humbleness. His refusal to visit RSS founder KB Hedgewar and his successor MS Golwalkar’s samadhis at Nagpur after becoming the Prime Minister and not acknowledging the RSS’ gratitude for helping him become the PM are proof of his indifference toward the RSS.
Modi doesn’t believe in going out of the way to keep anyone in good humour, until and unless that is badly needed to keep him in a commanding position.
What we have clearly seen happening over the last ten years is Modi becoming Sangh Parivar’s centre of gravity with everything revolving around him.
This is something that goes against the foundational RSS principle that nobody is above the organisation, not even the RSS chief.
The RSS has, since its inception, emphasised on treating the saffron flag as the guru to prevent any individual from assuming an overwhelming position.
“Sangathan mein hi shakti hai (the real power lies in the organisation),” is the incontestable, and hence an inviolable,RSS creed.
Modi has breached that principle in his characteristically authoritarian fashion. And that’s the RSS source of discomfiture with him.
Also read: Nadda is wrong. PM Modi has made BJP ‘capable’ but it can’t do without RSS yet
The dichotomy in RSS’ posturing
There is an inherent irony in this basic RSS premise — while the RSS doctrinally but slyly promotes the idea of benevolent dictatorship, it can’t put up with any individual assuming that role within the larger Sangh Parivar organisation.
It believes that the moment organisation becomes subservient to any individual, it might prove to be the proverbial death knell for it. Governments and individuals running them will come and go, but the organisation must survive. It is this concern for its own survival that has put the RSS at odds with Narendra Modi’s style of functioning vis-a-vis the entire Sangh Parivar.
Add to this Modi’s BJP alluring several RSS cadres with plum positions and critical roles within the government as well as within the party organisation. It has considerably corrupted the value of selflessness that the RSS nurtures within its cadres since childhood.
That’s why the RSS is apparently keeping itself aloof from the BJP in this election. Its unstated gauntlet to Modi is: go and win on your own if you think you don’t need the RSS.
The lack of enthusiasm on the part of the RSS palpable in this election couldn’t have been attributable to anything else but this sense of alienation. And it is this RSS aloofness from this very crucial election that could be behind Nadda’s terse declaration of independence from the RSS right in the middle of the election season.
What Nadda also goes on to say is that the RSS is an “ideological front” when it is the parent organisation, and the BJP is its political front.
Whether Nadda deliberately used the word “front” for the RSS or due to inadequacy of linguistic skills is unclear, but it does belittle the RSS’ overarching importance within the Sangh Parivar.
So, where is this “separation” between the RSS and the BJP headed? We will have to wait until the election results are out.
If Modi wins a majority, then the RSS would find the going tougher for itself as the patriarch.
But if he fails, then the RSS will have the last laugh. It could then pave the way for its regaining pride of place as the Sangh Parivar patriarch.
The author is a freelance journalist based in Nagpur who worked with The Indian Express. He tweets @vivekd64. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)