Sangh is the soul

Saba Naqvi

IT was a significant moment in the history of the RSS. The Sarsangchalak’s three-day national outreach was momentous in the manner in which an organisation denied intellectual legitimacy was now trying to seize it on the back of electoral legitimacy. It would be a mistake to see it from the lens of old oppositional positions. The wiser thing would be to sit back and hear what the organisation whose members are currently both Prime Minister and President of the country (not to mention Vice-President and party chief) has to say for itself.

The most puerile interpretation would be to suggest that somehow the RSS chief was rapping the knuckles of BJP chief Amit Shah and PM Modi and suggesting that they tone down positions vis-a-vis the Congress and minorities. He could pick up the phone to do that; he is doing no such thing in a poll year when the Congress will be viciously attacked and many parties (except those who may end up with the BJP) presented as anti-Hindu because they also get Muslim support. If there are to be any correctives to the BJP’s plank, it is not done at the level of the Sarsangchalak speaking at a public platform. 

First, a couple of quick points. The RSS has always tried to reach out to citizens beyond the brotherhood and invited eminent personalities for engagements at the local level. Mohan Bhagwat is Sarsanghchalak at a time when the BJP is the pre-eminent party of India and old certainties have been demolished. His recent exercise was, therefore, a bid to fill the hollowed out national space and come in from what was once the fringe to occupy the mainstream. 

An effort was, therefore, made to reach out beyond the faithful and invite those who would be willing to hear the Sangh’s version of its own past, present and future (this writer received an email asking if there would be an interest in attending. An affirmative reply resulted in a card and parking sticker being couriered). As a RSS/BJP watcher, I found the process fascinating. I was not there to argue with the RSS chief’s version of history; I was there to hear what he had to say for himself. 

Broadly, it was an exercise in retelling history by stating that the RSS has always been engaged in the national project and its founder Dr Hegdewar was, in his own way, part of the national movement, even hadfriendly equations at times with the Congress and communists. A question about another sarsangchalak MS Golwalkar’s controversial book Bunch of Thoughts with its explicit hate for minorities (Muslims are called enemy) was explained away by Bhagwat in the following words: “As far as Bunch of Thoughts goes, every statement carries a context of time and circumstance…his enduring thoughts are in a popular edition in which we have removed all remarks that have a temporary context and retained those that will endure for ages. You won’t find the (Muslim-is-an-enemy) remark there.”  A subtle revisionism there, but it should not be over emphasised as Bunch of Thoughts has been debated in the organisation as soon as Balasahab Deoras took over (Golwalkar-led the RSS from 1940 to 1973, for 33 years while Deoras followed for 21 years, till 1994). Even Deoras had stated that Bunch of Thoughts was written in a context and is “not a Bible or a Koran for the RSS”.  

 It is worth noting that many of the positions Bhagwat took including the “Bhartiyata is also Hindutva” is a continuation of RSS thoughts. Both Jan Sangh ideologue Nananji Deshmukh and ex-RSS chief KS Sudarshan have spoken of the  Indic civilisation and said “Bhartiyata is also Hindutva”.    

The ideological positions of the RSS matter more than ever today as it yields great power. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the RSS has played a role in reshaping politics even when the ball was not in its court. It helped JP Narayan oust Indira Gandhi from power after Emergency. Next, many of us were witness to the presence of the RSS cadre at the Anna Movement of 2011 that knocked the wind out of the UPA II, subsequently burying the Congress. Of late, the RSS has been the backbone on which the BJP has expanded in the country. The sheer cadre strength that he commands makes Bhagwat a man worth listening to.