A message from Chitrakoot

The RSS is ready for a long haul to correct the course of the BJP. It also plans to use other Sangh Parivar organisations to push the Hindutva agenda and build a nationwide pan-Hindu constituency.

in Chitrakoot

THE Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (national executive) of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) held at Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh between October 21 and 23 passed four resolutions on national issues ranging from the situations in Kashmir and the northeastern region to caste rivalry and "minorityism". But the most important message of the meeting was not found in these resolutions. Instead, it was announced by the organisation's sarkaryavaha (general secretary) Mohan Madhukarrao Bhagwat, while interacting with the media on the last day of the conference.

The message, principally directed at the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political arm of the RSS-led Sangh Parivar, was delivered without much elaboration. It was made clear that the RSS believed that the state of affairs in the BJP was "asthir" (unsettled) and the party's "gati" (pace) in carrying out ideological and organisational reforms was "slow". The RSS was "waiting and watching" whether the party would adopt the "right direction" in future.

Adopting the right direction, it was reiterated, involved adherence to the "five principles" dictated repeatedly over the past one year to the BJP by the RSS. These principles underlined the need to uphold the primacy of Hindutva as the ideological foundation of the party, enforce ethical conduct and evolve a consultative mechanism in the party, and train cadre on these lines to strengthen the organisation. Lastly, the BJP leadership would have to be a collective one, not personality driven. The RSS, Bhagwat said, held that collective decision-making and teamwork formed the basis of a democratic system.

However, Bhagawat added that the issues relating to the BJP and its leadership and style of functioning were not specifically discussed at the Chitrakoot meet. He said that the issues had been discussed in detail at the national executive meet in Hardwar in November 2004 and the delegates did not want to discuss them over and over again.

Elucidation of his points by relating them to specific political and organisational developments in the Sangh Parivar was not the strength of Bhagwat's briefing, but its message was unambiguous. It was especially so in the context of the developments of the past several months in the Sangh Parivar, which progressively worsened the relationship between the leaderships of the RSS and the BJP.

According to a senior Sangh Parivar functionary from Uttar Pradesh, central to Bhagwat's message was the comment that issues relating to the BJP were not specifically addressed at Chitrakoot since they had been discussed threadbare at Hardwar. At Hardwar, an overwhelming majority of the national executive disapproved of the BJP's style of functioning in front of L.K. Advani, who had taken over as party president in October. The delegates were scathing in their attack of the party's functioning, especially during its six years in power leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

A section of the delegates at the Hardwar meet even argued that the BJP was irredeemable and that the Sangh Parivar should form a new Hindutva party under a new leadership. This "extremist" suggestion, advanced principally by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders, was rejected by the RSS top brass. It decided to stick to the BJP as its political instrument, albeit by enforcing a rigorous course correction exercise.

The "five principles" were evolved as part of this exercise. The ideological and organisational reform plans formulated as part of this initiative involved proposals to strike at the personality cult that has developed in the BJP around its senior-most leaders, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani, also a former Deputy Prime Minister, by displacing them from positions of power and evolving a collective leadership of Hindutva-oriented and committed younger activists. Interestingly, the deliberations within the RSS repeatedly referred to the organisational pattern of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), where the supreme leaders of the party, including the general secretary, kept out of positions in government, as a possible model for the BJP.

The RSS put the final stamp of approval on the reform agenda at its prathinidhi sabha (national council) held in Mangalore in Karnataka in March. But despite this, no course correction happened in the BJP. On the contrary, added a VHP functionary from Gujarat, many BJP leaders including Advani challenged the exercise by clinging on to their positions. In the process, they opposed the concept of returning to the core Hindutva agenda.

It was in this context that the RSS resorted to unprecedented tactics and manoeuvres, which even took the form of castigating Advani, to impel a change of leadership. The RSS assessment in the run-up to the Chitrakoot meet was that this objective had been achieved partially with Advani's declaration to demit the BJP president's office in December.

The success, according to the Uttar Pradesh-based Sangh Parivar functionary, was "partial" for several reasons. To start with, Advani, even while announcing his decision to step down, made bold to criticise RSS interference in the BJP's day-to-day affairs. More seriously, a relatively junior leader like Uma Bharati raised accusations against top RSS functionaries and in the process engineered a revolt in the Madhya Pradesh unit of the BJP. All this, added the Sangh Parivar functionary, made the RSS top brass realise that fulfilling its organisational objectives comprehensively would take much more time. Bhagwat's comments about the slowness of reforms in the BJP and the wait and watch policy of the RSS vis--vis the reform process have to be seen in this background.

So, clearly, the RSS is bracing itself for a long haul in its battles to "correct the course" of the BJP. This process, according to Sangh Parivar leaders who participated in the Chitrakoot meet, would develop on several fronts. "Correcting the mistakes of BJP leaders, including those such as Uma Bharati, would be one form," said the functionary from Uttar Pradesh. He added that the RSS would make concerted efforts to boost the importance of other Sangh Parivar organisations such as the VHP, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and downgrade the importance of the BJP leadership.

According to informed sources, the plan to give a greater role to non-BJP Sangh Parivar outfits in the overall Hindutva political and organisational spectrum would acquire concrete shape with the birth centenary celebrations of M.S. Golwalkar, the late chief of the RSS, which will begin in February 2006. The Chitrakoot meet has evolved specific "quantitative and qualitative targets" to be met by non-BJP Sangh Parivar outfits during the year-long celebrations. The qualitative targets would apparently include raising Hindutva-related social issues and issues of economy focussing on the negative impact of globalisation. The plan, according to informed sources in the Sangh Parivar, is to develop the activities of these organisations to such a level that the BJP, even the "wayward" sections of its leadership, are forced to associate with them and their programmes.

The Sangh Parivar conducted a similar operation in the late 1980s and early 1990s through the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. The movement was principally advanced by the VHP with the BJP's leaders and party organisation supporting it. Paradoxically, two of the biggest beneficiaries of that "symbiotic" arrangement were Advani and Uma Bharati, the two leaders with whom the RSS is cut up, even as it plans a similar initiative.

The new RSS plan, in the context of the experience of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, may look good on paper but some sections in the Sangh Parivar itself are doubtful about its efficacy. According to an informed source in the Sangh Parivar, who has from time to time enjoyed the "fruits of the NDA regime", returning to the core Hindutva agenda through non-BJP organisations and getting the party to back it is easier said than done. He said: "Six years in power at the Centre has changed the personal attitudes and even the ideological perspective of many of our activists. The manoeuvres launched by Uma Bharati now or the sabotage operations her detractors unleashed when this Other Backward Class leader was chosen by this very RSS leadership last year to lead the tiranga yatra and emerge as a national figure all point towards this rather dramatic change. It remains to be seen whether such people would all fall in line with RSS strategies that easily."

Despite the prevalence of such scepticism, the RSS top brass is convinced that it will ultimately build a nationwide pan-Hindu socio-political constituency by advancing its core Hindutva agenda. Significantly, the first resolution passed at the Chitrakoot meet asserts the importance of "Hindu unity" and highlights the need to fight against casteism to achieve a unanimity of purpose. The Sangh Parivar leadership had, in the mid-1990s, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the later failure of the BJP at the hands of caste-based political forces such as the Samajwadi Party (S.P.) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), expressed similar sentiments against castiest forces.

Obviously, the advocates of pan-Hindu identity lost out in that phase. Will the Chitrakoot meet and the Golwalkar birth centenary celebrations make a new beginning for Hindutva? The signs, to say the least, are not positive given the mounting scepticism even among sections of the Sangh Parivar. But, as is evident, the RSS top brass will battle on.