rediff.com: Whither RSS?

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh could more appropriately call itself the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, since the Rashtriya part is a bit misleading anyway. With the Bharatiya Janata Party holding the reins of power in New Delhi, the RSS is trying to elbow in as much space as it can, grow rapidly and emerge as the champion of Hindu revivalism.
Both Muslims and Christians are now wary of the RSS and its motives. They feel more insecure than ever as the RSS tries to dictate how their minds and ideologies should move.
As the RSS meanders from one controversy to another, Roving Editor Ramesh Menon looks back at the growth of the RSS, its dilemmas and the possible shape of things to come.
Seventy-five years is a long time. Long enough for an organisation to take stock, design new goals and re-energise itself. It is introspection time in the RSS, though they will never admit it. With its political wing, the BJP, heading a rag-tag coalition government with partners whose ideologies have nothing in common, the RSS finds its agenda diluted.
It is precisely this worry which often makes it say something that hits the headlines and surrounds it in controversy for weeks. It wants to be heard. It wants to be seen as the sole architect of the so-called Hindu revivalism. It wants to stand up and be counted.
For the BJP, the last few weeks have been trying. Ever since K S Sudershan took over as the new RSS chief, the BJP finds itself desperately trying to neutralise whatever the RSS is saying on the issue of Indianisation of Muslims and Christians. Sudershan says the time has come for Muslims and Christians in India to accept Indian culture and Indianise themselves.
Seems like a harmless statement but, when it comes from the RSS, even the secular Hindu could sit up. Christians, he said, should set up their own church free from foreign influence. And Muslims should accept India's heritage as their own. Sister Nirmala, who heads the Missionaries Of Charity, was quick to react: "The church is a universal entity. It cannot belong to any particular community."
Sudershan said the Indian church should be brought under a state-encouraged indigenous church like in China. He also hit out at the Vatican, saying it was intolerant of other religions. Donald D'Souza, deputy general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India points out: "India is a democratic country. How can we be shown examples of totalitarian countries? We are very hurt. Hate literature against Christians is floating around. We have been in India for 1,950 years. No one doubts our patriotism."
Seventy-seven-year-old RSS spokesman M J Vaidya says his organisation's statement came as a reaction to a statement from the Vatican that all religions were not equal and salvation was only possible with the help of Jesus Christ. This came after a summit of religious leaders in New York passed a resolution saying all religions were equal.
BJP leader and Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani may say the RSS is to the BJP what Mahatma Gandhi was to the Congress. But the analogy does not work. Gandhi was a towering national personality. The world looked up to him. The RSS is a private organisation and has a private philosophy that citizens need not subscribe to. It is okay for the RSS to be a moral influence on the BJP, as Advani says. It is not okay for it to be forced down the throat of any Muslim, Christian or Hindu for that matter.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Bangaru Laxman, the newly appointed president of the BJP, made a full-throated call to Muslims, saying they were valued by his party and there was no need to panic. Clearly, it was just another ploy to garner votes. The BJP knows that sweeping into power with an absolute majority would be difficult without the Muslim votes. Was the BJP finally seeing the pragmatism of electoral politics or was it being sincere? No one wanted to guess.
Then came one missive after the other from the RSS. In one stroke, it knocked the wind out of Laxman's statement. Political scientist Ambrose Pinto says: "What we are seeing is just a lunatic fringe. It is certainly not representative of the Hindu community. There have been enough outraged voices against the RSS. The Indian society does not reflect their sentiments."
Ever since Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, alongwith half a dozen supporters, founded the RSS on Vijayadashmi day in 1925, the RSS has grown. Especially since the demolition of Babri Masjid. Says Vaidya, who has been in the RSS for the last 68 years: "The RSS was started to organise Hindu society that was divided by different castes, creeds and languages." (See interview in full)
Seventy-five years later, caste continues to haunt Hindu society. But the RSS says untouchability does not exist where they operate. Today, it runs around 30,000 shakhas where its ideology is propagated and volunteers are trained in martial arts.
Of late, the attendance of the youth at these shakhas has been steadily dwindling. The young today have a lot to do. They have a lot to study. They have television. They have careers to chase and competition to catch up with. They have no time to attend a shakha and listen to lectures on the importance of Hindutva and Swadeshi.
The RSS leadership has always been in the hands of seniors. There is really nothing like a young leadership. Or even an emerging one. No wonder none of its ideas mirror the aspirations of the youth in a fast changing modern world. No wonder their ideas are not even contemporary.
The youth today will not permit any control of their ideas. They are looking for change. They are looking for a better quality of life. Whether Indian Christians follow the dictates of the Vatican or not does not bother them. They are too self-confident to be scared of the Western influence. Instead, they love basking in the freedom and comfort of Western lifestyles.
The youth who work, work hard. Sometimes for 12 hours a day without a weekend. There is little time to listen to Sudershan's philosophy of what a Hindu-dominated country should be like. No wonder there is declining attendance at the shakhas.
This should worry the BJP. If it has to make any dent, it needs the young. The BJP also sees the dichotomy. The youth today are not as communal as their elders and have a different world vision.
The RSS finds itself enveloped in irony. Though its political wing heads the present government, it cannot push across its agenda as it is a coalition government. Ideally, it would want its typical shakha-trained, ideologically indoctrinated individuals moving into all possible slots of power. It would like to have total control of the BJP and its policy-makers. It would like to pick candidates. It would like to pen the government's agenda.
But it cannot do any of that. Coalition politics ensures it. When Advani said there was a historical bonding with the RSS and it had a moral influence on the BJP, Telugu Desam Party leader K Yerrannaidu lost no time saying the RSS was not a guiding force for the National Democratic Alliance.
There is a great deal of frustration among the hard-boiled RSS seniors, who sacrificed a good life to work for the organisation. They are not comfortable with the newer elements in the BJP, who lack the ideological orientation and commitment that the RSS instills. Says Vaidya: "We understand the compulsions that a coalition government has. But we are not tied to those compulsions. No one can control or dictate to us. We cannot be purchased. No power can bend the RSS."
All these years, the RSS got noticed at every calamity. Their cadres were usually the first to reach there. Fighting the stench of death, they worked relentlessly bringing relief to those who managed to stay alive. Says a proud Harishchandra, 68, who retired as an undersecretary in the Planning Commission: "The RSS is the only organisation doing constructive nation building. We are not power-mongers. The RSS also had power-hungry people, but they are all in the BJP."
The RSS has to figure out its mind. It cannot keep attacking liberalisation while the BJP goes whole hog at it. It is against multinationals coming in. It does not like global players. It is uncomfortable with career-driven youngsters. It hates consumerism. But Indians, as the last few years have shown, love it all. They are just not ready to listen to lectures on Swadeshi right now, when the marketplace is opening up.
The BJP is not able to do anything that the RSS wants. Advani saluting the RSS flag is fine, but the organisation obviously wants more attention paid to its agenda.
It has been a bumpy ride for the RSS in the last 75 years. It was banned thrice. The first one came in 1948, after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. "At that time," recalls Vaidya, "the whole country was against us. The press was against us. The government hated us. But we survived." Then Indira Gandhi banned it in 1975 after she clamped the Emergency. She suspected that Jayaprakash Narayan's real strength was the RSS.
Analysts say that, had it not been banned, the RSS would not have grown like this. Vaidya agrees: "That ban really helped us. The people were with us. The press was with us. We grew with the ban."
After his release from jail, Balasaheb Deoras said: "If the 1948 ban put us 20 years behind, the 1975 ban took us 20 years ahead." The RSS effectively gave the impression that it was in the forefront of the fight against the Emergency.
The last ban came in 1992, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid -- an event that shamed India in the eyes of a liberal world.
But as communal forces got polarised, it again helped the RSS grow.
Today, the RSS parivar has numerous affiliates, all of whom are growing. They were systematically created to slowly convert influential sections of society to their way of thinking. For example, the Purva Sainik Seva was created to look after the interests of retired servicemen. It was a workable idea as there are over three million ex-servicemen spread out in different corners of India. The idea was to tap their skills to train the youth in discipline and ignite national pride.
There are scores of retired defence officers in the BJP today. When the Kargil war sent bodybags home, it was RSS cadres who actively organised the funerals. They adroitly added hype and effectively rode on the wave of nationalism that the war whipped up.
Senior officers feel the RSS influence should not be allowed to creep into the Indian armed forces as it would damage the secular fabric that, today, makes it one of the best in the world. Retired Admiral J G Nadkarni had once remarked that many servicemen might be wearing a saffron vest under their immaculate uniforms.
Similarly, there is the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh that organises labour, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad that organises students and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that articulates Hindu revivalism and militancy.
No one took the RSS seriously when there were just two BJP MPs in Parliament. Today, the RSS cannot be ignored. Will it actually thwart the growth of the BJP with its anti-Muslim, anti-Christian tirades?
Chances are it will.
The BJP will have to find the courage to distance itself from the RSS if it ever has to have a majority government. There are 180 million Muslims in India and the BJP needs to know that. Laxman has probably made a move to correct that, but with the RSS making these statements dipped in acid, Muslims are not going to play ball.
Will the BJP be able to breakaway and emerge as a political party with an independent mind?
At the moment, it seems unlikely.
Yet, if it does not, it will always be on the fringe of victory and never on top of it.
You might also want to read...
No power can bend the RSS: M S Vaidya
RSS repeats call for Indian church, Islam
Agra camp marks launch of poll campaign
The way the Sangh is structured
The Rediff Specials
Do tell us what you think of this special

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	The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh could more appropriately call itself the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, since the Rashtriya part is a bit misleading anyway. With the Bharatiya Janata Party holding the reins of power in New Delhi, the RSS is trying to elbow in as much space as it can, grow rapidly and emerge as the champion of Hindu revivalism. Both Muslims and Christians are now wary of the RSS and its motives. They feel more insecure than ever as the RSS tries to dictate how their minds and ideologies should move. As the RSS meanders from one controversy to another, Roving Editor Ramesh Menon looks back at the growth of the RSS, its dilemmas and the possible shape of things to come. Seventy-five years is a long time. Long enough for an organisation to take stock, design new goals and re-energise itself. It is introspection time in the RSS, though they will never admit it. With its political wing, the BJP, heading a rag-tag coalition government with partners whose ideologies have nothing in common, the RSS finds its agenda diluted. It is precisely this worry which often makes it say something that hits the headlines and surrounds it in controversy for weeks. It wants to be heard. It wants to be seen as the sole architect of the so-called Hindu revivalism. It wants to stand up and be counted. For the BJP, the last few weeks have been trying. Ever since K S Sudershan took over as the new RSS chief, the BJP finds itself desperately trying to neutralise whatever the RSS is saying on the issue of Indianisation of Muslims and Christians. Sudershan says the time has come for Muslims and Christians in India to accept Indian culture and Indianise themselves. Seems like a harmless statement but, when it comes from the RSS, even the secular Hindu could sit up. Christians, he said, should set up their own church free from foreign influence. And Muslims should accept India's heritage as their own. Sister Nirmala, who heads the Missionaries Of Charity, was quick to react: "The church is a universal entity. It cannot belong to any particular community." Sudershan said the Indian church should be brought under a state-encouraged indigenous church like in China. He also hit out at the Vatican, saying it was intolerant of other religions. Donald D'Souza, deputy general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India points out: "India is a democratic country. How can we be shown examples of totalitarian countries? We are very hurt. Hate literature against Christians is floating around. We have been in India for 1,950 years. No one doubts our patriotism." Seventy-seven-year-old RSS spokesman M J Vaidya says his organisation's statement came as a reaction to a statement from the Vatican that all religions were not equal and salvation was only possible with the help of Jesus Christ. This came after a summit of religious leaders in New York passed a resolution saying all religions were equal. BJP leader and Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani may say the RSS is to the BJP what Mahatma Gandhi was to the Congress. But the analogy does not work. Gandhi was a towering national personality. The world looked up to him. The RSS is a private organisation and has a private philosophy that citizens need not subscribe to. It is okay for the RSS to be a moral influence on the BJP, as Advani says. It is not okay for it to be forced down the throat of any Muslim, Christian or Hindu for that matter. Just a couple of weeks ago, Bangaru Laxman, the newly appointed president of the BJP, made a full-throated call to Muslims, saying they were valued by his party and there was no need to panic. Clearly, it was just another ploy to garner votes. The BJP knows that sweeping into power with an absolute majority would be difficult without the Muslim votes. Was the BJP finally seeing the pragmatism of electoral politics or was it being sincere? No one wanted to guess. Then came one missive after the other from the RSS. In one stroke, it knocked the wind out of Laxman's statement. Political scientist Ambrose Pinto says: "What we are seeing is just a lunatic fringe. It is certainly not representative of the Hindu community. There have been enough outraged voices against the RSS. The Indian society does not reflect their sentiments." Ever since Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, alongwith half a dozen supporters, founded the RSS on Vijayadashmi day in 1925, the RSS has grown. Especially since the demolition of Babri Masjid. Says Vaidya, who has been in the RSS for the last 68 years: "The RSS was started to organise Hindu society that was divided by different castes, creeds and languages." (See interview in full) Seventy-five years later, caste continues to haunt Hindu society. But the RSS says untouchability does not exist where they operate. Today, it runs around 30,000 shakhas where its ideology is propagated and volunteers are trained in martial arts. Of late, the attendance of the youth at these shakhas has been steadily dwindling. The young today have a lot to do. They have a lot to study. They have television. They have careers to chase and competition to catch up with. They have no time to attend a shakha and listen to lectures on the importance of Hindutva and Swadeshi. The RSS leadership has always been in the hands of seniors. There is really nothing like a young leadership. Or even an emerging one. No wonder none of its ideas mirror the aspirations of the youth in a fast changing modern world. No wonder their ideas are not even contemporary. The youth today will not permit any control of their ideas. They are looking for change. They are looking for a better quality of life. Whether Indian Christians follow the dictates of the Vatican or not does not bother them. They are too self-confident to be scared of the Western influence. Instead, they love basking in the freedom and comfort of Western lifestyles. The youth who work, work hard. Sometimes for 12 hours a day without a weekend. There is little time to listen to Sudershan's philosophy of what a Hindu-dominated country should be like. No wonder there is declining attendance at the shakhas. This should worry the BJP. If it has to make any dent, it needs the young. The BJP also sees the dichotomy. The youth today are not as communal as their elders and have a different world vision. The RSS finds itself enveloped in irony. Though its political wing heads the present government, it cannot push across its agenda as it is a coalition government. Ideally, it would want its typical shakha-trained, ideologically indoctrinated individuals moving into all possible slots of power. It would like to have total control of the BJP and its policy-makers. It would like to pick candidates. It would like to pen the government's agenda. But it cannot do any of that. Coalition politics ensures it. When Advani said there was a historical bonding with the RSS and it had a moral influence on the BJP, Telugu Desam Party leader K Yerrannaidu lost no time saying the RSS was not a guiding force for the National Democratic Alliance. There is a great deal of frustration among the hard-boiled RSS seniors, who sacrificed a good life to work for the organisation. They are not comfortable with the newer elements in the BJP, who lack the ideological orientation and commitment that the RSS instills. Says Vaidya: "We understand the compulsions that a coalition government has. But we are not tied to those compulsions. No one can control or dictate to us. We cannot be purchased. No power can bend the RSS." All these years, the RSS got noticed at every calamity. Their cadres were usually the first to reach there. Fighting the stench of death, they worked relentlessly bringing relief to those who managed to stay alive. Says a proud Harishchandra, 68, who retired as an undersecretary in the Planning Commission: "The RSS is the only organisation doing constructive nation building. We are not power-mongers. The RSS also had power-hungry people, but they are all in the BJP." The RSS has to figure out its mind. It cannot keep attacking liberalisation while the BJP goes whole hog at it. It is against multinationals coming in. It does not like global players. It is uncomfortable with career-driven youngsters. It hates consumerism. But Indians, as the last few years have shown, love it all. They are just not ready to listen to lectures on Swadeshi right now, when the marketplace is opening up. The BJP is not able to do anything that the RSS wants. Advani saluting the RSS flag is fine, but the organisation obviously wants more attention paid to its agenda. It has been a bumpy ride for the RSS in the last 75 years. It was banned thrice. The first one came in 1948, after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. "At that time," recalls Vaidya, "the whole country was against us. The press was against us. The government hated us. But we survived." Then Indira Gandhi banned it in 1975 after she clamped the Emergency. She suspected that Jayaprakash Narayan's real strength was the RSS. Analysts say that, had it not been banned, the RSS would not have grown like this. Vaidya agrees: "That ban really helped us. The people were with us. The press was with us. We grew with the ban." After his release from jail, Balasaheb Deoras said: "If the 1948 ban put us 20 years behind, the 1975 ban took us 20 years ahead." The RSS effectively gave the impression that it was in the forefront of the fight against the Emergency. The last ban came in 1992, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid -- an event that shamed India in the eyes of a liberal world. But as communal forces got polarised, it again helped the RSS grow. Today, the RSS parivar has numerous affiliates, all of whom are growing. They were systematically created to slowly convert influential sections of society to their way of thinking. For example, the Purva Sainik Seva was created to look after the interests of retired servicemen. It was a workable idea as there are over three million ex-servicemen spread out in different corners of India. The idea was to tap their skills to train the youth in discipline and ignite national pride. There are scores of retired defence officers in the BJP today. When the Kargil war sent bodybags home, it was RSS cadres who actively organised the funerals. They adroitly added hype and effectively rode on the wave of nationalism that the war whipped up. Senior officers feel the RSS influence should not be allowed to creep into the Indian armed forces as it would damage the secular fabric that, today, makes it one of the best in the world. Retired Admiral J G Nadkarni had once remarked that many servicemen might be wearing a saffron vest under their immaculate uniforms. Similarly, there is the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh that organises labour, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad that organises students and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that articulates Hindu revivalism and militancy. No one took the RSS seriously when there were just two BJP MPs in Parliament. Today, the RSS cannot be ignored. Will it actually thwart the growth of the BJP with its anti-Muslim, anti-Christian tirades? Chances are it will. The BJP will have to find the courage to distance itself from the RSS if it ever has to have a majority government. There are 180 million Muslims in India and the BJP needs to know that. Laxman has probably made a move to correct that, but with the RSS making these statements dipped in acid, Muslims are not going to play ball. Will the BJP be able to breakaway and emerge as a political party with an independent mind? At the moment, it seems unlikely. Yet, if it does not, it will always be on the fringe of victory and never on top of it. You might also want to read... No power can bend the RSS: M S Vaidya RSS repeats call for Indian church, Islam Agra camp marks launch of poll campaign The way the Sangh is structured The Rediff Specials Do tell us what you think of this special
HOME \| NEWS \| CRICKET \| MONEY \| SPORTS \| MOVIES \| CHAT \| BROADBAND \| TRAVEL ASTROLOGY \| NEWSLINKS \| BOOK SHOP \| MUSIC SHOP \| GIFT SHOP \| HOTEL BOOKINGS AIR/RAIL \| WEDDING \| ROMANCE \| WEATHER \| WOMEN \| E-CARDS \| EDUCATION HOMEPAGES \| FREE MESSENGER \| FREE EMAIL \| CONTESTS \| FEEDBACK