The myriad colours of the RSS

To infer that Bhagwat's speech was a salve to soothe festering wounds of the minorities is preposterous

Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat, the present and sixth "sarsanghachalak" of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), may not be the most politically prudent person to helm the organisation. This circumstance has helped and harmed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the "parivar's" most precious progeny.

In the politically volatile times we live in, it no longer helps the RSS or the BJP invoke the oft-quoted shibboleth, which claimed the Sangh was a cultural outfit aloof from politics. The RSS's charter, drawn largely from the preaching, writing and activity of its first three "sarsanghachalaks", undergirds the BJP's agenda whether in or out of power, although the parent's expectations and demands have sometimes to be side-stepped if these clash with the exigencies of coalition politics or keeping policy continuity in government.

The Narendra Modi government has perhaps exceeded the RSS's expectancy because unlike Modi's conduct as the chief minister of Gujarat, as the prime minister, he is excessively mindful of the paterfamilias. In Gandhinagar, Modi never thought twice about taking on the RSS's affiliates, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, if their agitations clashed with his ideas of governance.

The RSS cannot be accused of presiding over a parallel establishment or running a deep state; its objectives are out in the open, as is the government's exertions to fulfil them. However, periodically, Bhagwat cannot resist the temptation of saying something that discomfits the BJP and the government. Last Sunday, releasing a book "Vaicharik Samanway: Ek Vyavharik Pahal" by Dr Khwaja Iftikhar Ahmad at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Bhagwat spoke out against lynching by cattle vigilantes, claimed that no community, Hindus or Muslims, can dominate India and stressed the "shared ancestry" of the two communities which, he added, rendered the concept of inter-faith unity, redundant.

Muslim opinion-moulders welcomed Bhagwat's quoted statements as a positive gesture towards the community kept on tenterhooks throughout UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's tenure. However, to infer that Bhagwat's speech was a salve to soothe festering wounds is preposterous. The BJP is gearing for the UP polls, and Adityanath's governance record is a far cry from the "model" template it is encased in, particularly after the pandemic mismanagement. The indications are it will typically hark back to communal polarisation and reap whatever advantages this brings. Ghaziabad, the venue of the Sunday function, is a communal hot spot that continues to report incidents of lynching and assault on Muslims by young Hindu activists.

Therefore, while deconstructing the Sangh's articulations, it is imperative to locate their text and subtext in a context before "spinning" them around to fit preconceived notions or post facto wisdom. The Ghaziabad function was hosted by the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS offspring headed by Indresh, a senior "pracharak". The book Bhagwat launched was authored by a Muslim, reported to be an advisor to a former Congress prime minister.

The "shared ancestry" theory that Bhagwat spoke of was thought up by MS Golwalkar, known as "Guruji". Golwalkar was the Sangh's second "sarsanghachalak". He is credited with crafting and fleshing out an "intellectual" frame that delved deep into the sentiments in support of a "Hindu nation" in the aftermath of Partition and the population transfer. In March 2006, the RSS officially disowned Golwalkar's book "We or Our Nationhood Defined" (1939), the progenitor of his thoughts and ideas and courted controversy for endorsing the Germanic idea of using race to denote nationalism instead of territory. Hitler was a bad name, so any validation for his concepts was and is unthinkable. However, "We" is considered the fundamental charter of the Sangh, from where the belief of separating "we" (Hindus) from the other communities and cultural nationalism, which the BJP actively advocates, emanated. In 2006, the RSS virtually repudiated "We", claiming the book did not carry Golwalkar's views but was an abridged version of Ganesh Damodar Savarkar's "Rashtra Mimamsa". It said that "Bunch of Thoughts" authentically represented his thoughts because it was brought out after he became "sarsanghachalak" on June 21, 1940.

Let's see how "Bunch" expatiates on the "shared ancestry" proposition. Under the sub-head "Call to Shake off Slavery", Golwalkar wrote, "So, all that we say is that the Muslims and Christians here should give up their present foreign mental complexion (sic) and merge in the common stream of our national life. Everybody knows that only a handful of Muslims came here as enemies and invaders. So also, a few foreign Christian missionaries came here. Now the Muslims and Christians have enormously grown in number. They did not grow just by multiplication...They converted the local population. We can trace our ancestry to a common source, from where one portion was taken away from the Hindu fold and became Muslim, and another became Christian...It is our duty to call these our forlorn brothers, suffering under religious slavery for centuries, back to their ancestral home." With a caveat. "As honest, freedom-loving men (the female of the species never figures in his thoughts), let them overthrow all signs of slavery and domination and follow the ancestral ways of devotion and national life." The RSS "parivar's" "shuddhi karan" and "ghar wapasi" programmes are a direct fall-out of Golwalkar's teaching on "forced" proselytisation. Bhagwat has nuanced his statements. His ideologue was more direct and aggressive.

Therein lies the Sangh's dilemma of having to tone down its traditional assertions to fit into the compulsions of political power and governance. Bhagwat personally intervened to straighten out in-house conflicts at the start of Modi's first term, when the Bajrang Dal and the VHP got hyper-active on the front to "re-convert" Muslims and bring them back "home" as Hindus. It provoked a fierce backlash in UP, the Sangh's new laboratory.

But the peace efforts did not last. The Sangh and the extended "parivar" no longer needs dog whistles to take to the streets or morality lessons from Bhagwat to rein them in. Indeed, Bhagwat's Ghaziabad address was sneered at and critiqued by the hard-core Hindutva trolls on social media, signifying that even if the RSS chief wished to modulate the assertions, the "parivar" is in no mood to lower the pitch in word and deed.

(Radhika Ramaseshan is a Delhi-based political analyst and columnist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.