An agenda of Indianisation

At the Agra conclave of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the biggest ever meeting of RSS activists, there was the usual veiled criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in government, but the main focus was on the need to "Indianise" Muslims and Christians.

DURING the last two years, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has held several special conclaves of the Sangh Parivar with the professed objective of advancing Hindutva, its philosophy and ideology. The Chinthan Baithak (introspection meet) of Decembe r 1998 was the first in this series. At all these meetings the functioning of the Union government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party came under criticism of varying degrees - from moderate to trenchant.

sarsanghchalakshivir

The RSS top brass used these forums to lament that the Sangh Parivar could not make the kind of gains it had expected from the BJP being in government. The leaders felt that the BJP leaders who ran the government had deviated from the fundamental policie s of the Parivar. The conclaves have apparently evolved "plans of action to rectify the deviations and correct the erring representatives in the government". A special target of the exercise has been Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and those identifi ed as his close associates. Although the RSS could assert its leadership of the Parivar, it felt that in the absence of an agency that could ensure the implementation of the "corrective" plans, the Vajpayee government would continue to tread "the path of drift".

The Braj (western Uttar Pradesh) pranth (region) unit of the RSS organised the Rashtriya Suraksha Shivir (national security camp) in Agra from October 13 to 15 was no different. The shivir was touted as the biggest meet of RSS activi sts ever, and its ostensible objectives were to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the organisation and to focus "the nation's attention on the growing threats to national security".

The shivir did indeed celebrate the anniversary in style. But the question whether it achieved the other objective, does not evoke a ready response. Pracharaks were apparently given lessons on how to combat terrorism at the local level, without go vernment help. But since it was a closed-door affair, nobody knows what the lessons were.

Kuppahalli Sitaramiah Sudarshan, the new sarsanghchalak of the RSS, told mediapersons at the end of the three-day jamboree that neither policy decisions nor plans of action were evolved at the meet. He said that the Agra shivir, the third o f its kind in recent times, was attended by nearly 50,000 volunteers: the attendance at the earlier ones ranged between 25,000 and 30,000. Sudarshan claimed that it only showed that the RSS was "growing at a tremendous pace".

The discussions were marked by the now-familiar glorification of Hindutva, lament about the "waywardness" of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and assertions about the need to go in for the swadeshi pattern of economic development. The is sue of national security was addressed in the typical Parivar way. The shivir declared, primarily through the concluding speech of the sarsanghchalak, that Christians and Muslims could turn out to be a threat to national security if they we re not ready to "Indianise" themselves. This idea emerged as the central theme of the shivir.

General secretary Mohan Rao Bhagwat, who inaugurated the camp, regretted that the change of government, leaders, parties and slogans had not brought about the results desired by the Sangh Parivar. Without directly naming any leader or party, he said, "Th e government has some good people, but still they are forced to make compromises."

Expressing concern over the "deteriorating conditions" in the country, he regretted that even as the "leaders were engaged in a rampant power struggle", there were "visible" signs of setbacks in all walks of life. The country was caught in a debt trap an d was forced to make compromises against national interests, Bhagwat said.

Chief organiser Suresh Rao Ketkar criticised the BJP for diluting its stand on issues such as the Ram temple and Article 370, "which brought it to power". "The people of this country want a grand temple to be constructed at the place of Lord Ram's birth. Any government opposing it will face the ire of the people when the elections come, as Mulayam Singh Yadav faced after the firing on kar sevaks in 1990," Ketkar told mediapersons after the first day's deliberations. He said that the RSS would attempt to build up social pressure to facilitate the construction of the temple. "Our idea is to build a social movement, which would facilitate construction of the temple," he said.

These criticisms were mild when compared to the outbursts after the Chinthan Baithak. At the Baithak, attended by representatives of all Sangh Parivar organisations such as the BJP, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and the Bajrang Dal, the RSS stated with uncharacteristic candour that it was not happy with the functioning of the government. Listing out specific complaints, it had said that i n many areas the Vajpayee government was giving in to immediate pressures, including those from international agencies, without considering their long-term implications. The resolutions passed had identified actions such as the introduction of the Insura nce Regulatory Authority (IRA) Bill, the ban on the sale of (non-iodised) common salt and allowing 100 per cent foreign investment in cigarette manufacture as anti-national. All these measures, the Baithak pointed out, went against the swadeshi economic perspective of the Sangh Parivar. In the wake of the Chinthan Baithak, the BMS even launched an agitation against the IRA Bill.

But all that is water under the bridge. The Vajpayee government not only introduced the IRA Bill but got it passed in Parliament with Congress(I) support. Vajpayee and his Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha have embarked earnestly on what is termed the "sec ond generation reforms", and the RSS is left to making futile assertions about the need to stick to the swadeshi path.

In a sense, the shivir indicated that the RSS top brass too realised the futility of their fulminations. Even while emphasising the need to construct the Ram temple at Ayodhya, he admitted that it was "not practical" to build the temple without th e government's consent. He added that the BJP was weighed down by the compulsions of coalition politics and that it would take time for it to chalk out the correct path. Ketkar stated that of all the political parties, the BJP was "closest to the RSS ide ology" and that the RSS was "certainly of the view that the party can do much to advance the nationalist cause". Indeed, it was a far cry from Sudarshan's statement at the Chinthan Baithak that all parties were equal in the eyes of the RSS and nobody sho uld take its support for granted.

On economic policy, the basic projection at the shivir was that an alternative model had to be evolved within two years. But until it was developed, organisations like the SJM should tell the government wherever it went wrong, on a case-to-case ba sis. Clearly, the BMS war cry of 1998 and 1999, calling for an immediate withdrawal of the policy of liberalisation, is no longer part of the Sangh Parivar programme.

In sum, the quarrels between the RSS and the government have come close to the level of shadow boxing. According to Sangh Parivar insiders, what this ultimately points to is to the personality tussles within the Parivar and the BJP. Vajpayee's continuanc e in office over the last two years has tilted the balance in the BJP as well as in national politics in his favour. So much so that even Union Home Minister L.K. Advani, once supposed to be the conscience-keeper of the RSS top brass, is meekly following Vajpayee's policies and trying to imitate the Prime Minister's moderate, liberal appearance.

This was most evident at the recent National Executive of the BJP at Nagpur, where Advani endorsed the Vajpayee line completely. It was left to his one-time proteges such as Sushma Swaraj to oppose the government's economic and security policies. Such ha s been the growth in Vajpayee's political strength that he has made bold to take the public position that the RSS could not interfere in governance.

In this situation, said a senior Sangh Parivar leader from Uttar Pradesh, the message that the RSS top brass, particularly Sudarshan, wants to give out through shows of strength like the shivir is meant essentially for Vajpayee and his followers. "It only says, do not go too far. We know that we cannot upset you at the moment but do not push us too far. For we have the network and support base that you require for electoral battles. That is the communication," said the leader. With elections in s ome crucial States slated for early next year, it was hoped that Vajpayee and Co. would get the message, added the leader.

Whether Vajpayee gets the message or not, the shivir indicated that Advani was passing through a phase of rethink. The Home Minister, who tried to present a liberal face that would satisfy the non-BJP constituents of the NDA, was a prominent prese nce at the concluding session of the shivir. All through the two-and-a-half hour programme, Advani sat out there in the sun, among other guests, away from the stage. He dutifully recited Sangh songs and did the Sangh salute.

Other important BJP leaders who made an appearance at the shivir were Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj (who has become very close to the RSS top brass in recent times), Union Transport Minister Rajnath Singh and the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit president Kalraj Mishra.

The overall message from all this is that in the matter of short-term political issues, the relationship between the RSS and the BJP would be marked by shadow-boxing between the RSS top brass and Vajpayee, with smaller leaders of the BJP adopting positio ns of convenience. Besides, there came clear signals that the new sarsanghchalak would pursue a line of fundamentalist social discourse. According to Sudarshan, "Indianising" meant "accepting wilfully that all those who live here share the same mo therland, same cultural heritage and same historical predecessors." At the level of practice, Sudarshan added, Christians and Muslims living in India should realise that their historical predecessors were Ram and Krishna and not invaders such as Mahmood Ghazni, Taimoor Lang, Babar and Aurangzeb or missionaries such as St. Thomas. He called upon the Muslim clergy to stop exploiting unlettered Muslims who, he said, were being asked to call Hindus kafirs.

Sudarshan claimed that Muslims of Indonesia carried Hindu names and honoured their Hindu traditions; he said that Indian Muslims also should accept Hindu gods as part of their tradition. "Indonesia even has the picture of Lord Ganesh on its currency note s," Sudarshan said. Another of his contentions was that Muslim intellectuals in India disagreed with the views of the clergy "because they know that no other Islamic country will accept them simply because of their religion". He also said that Saudi Arab ia, an Islamic country, drove out 22,000 Bangladeshi Muslims because they could not be integrated with Saudi society.

The RSS chief urged Muslims to keep a vigil on the activities of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and provide information about it to the authorities.

Sudarshan argued that the Christian clergy in India kept the faithful away from the national mainstream. According to him, Christianity was more about politics than about religion and that an indigenous Church was essential for India's national security. The Church, he said, was part of the armies of Western powers. "It is an arm of the West's defence forces. It has been used to guide Christians into domestic as well as international politics."

The RSS chief said that Christianity's "intolerance towards other religions" was "evident" from what he called a recent Vatican document that stated that there could be no salvation outside the Catholic Church. The 36-page document, he said, was in respo nse to a resolution passed last month by a Millennium Conference of religions in New York, which said that all religions were equal. "This type of intolerance breeds social tension," Sudarshan said. In this background, "the minimum demand" the RSS unveil ed at the camp was that Christians accept that there could be salvation outside the Church also. The shivir argued that the idea of a "swadeshi Church" was only to bring the people closer.

Clearly, the RSS and its chief were just taking forward Sudarshan's own maiden Vijayadasami address to RSS pracharaks at Nagpur. It was in that lecture on October 7 as part of the RSS Foundation Day that Sudarshan first articulated the concept of "Indian ising" Christianity and Islam.

The BJP response to Sudarshan's formulations was mixed. While BJP president Bangaru Laxman simply said that, "it is the BJP and the NDA that have to seek votes and not the RSS," senior leader J.P. Mathur endorsed the sarsanghchalak's line. Mathur said that the BJP "believes that Indian Christians are capable of spreading Jesus Christ's message across the country without the help of foreign missionaries." He added, "In many areas, particularly in the northeast, foreign missionaries have created un desirable elements."

It cannot be predicted now as to what this divergence would ultimately lead to. Perhaps a clearer signal would emerge from the meeting of the Dharam Sansad of the VHP in Prayag in January 2001. The VHP has in the recent past revived its temple campaign; its leadership has stated that the construction of the temple will start in 2001, sanction or no sanction from the government or the judiciary. If the Hindutva agenda is pursued in a decisive manner, that will certainly lead to a battle between the NDA a nd the Sangh Parivar.