RSS In Madhya Pradesh

  Nalini Taneja

WHILE it is true that even after four and a half years in government the BJP is not electorally in a position to form the government on its own and has to think about broadening the NDA, it has successfully used its  ‘largest party’ status in this alliance to push through the RSS political agenda. It does this in two ways: by cornering state resources and directing them towards implementing policies favourable to the RSS; and, allowing the VHP-RSS organisations full freedom of interference in governance and their hate filled anti-minority campaigns. In just this short time since taking over, Uma Bharti, the fire-spewing leader of the BJP, has already shown her priorities.

RSS TO MONITOR GOVT FUNCTIONING

Immediately after taking oath in the Assembly, she made it a point to call on the BJP organising secretary, Kaptan Singh Solanki, basically the RSS man looking after the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, to put in place a parallel unit to monitor the government’s functioning. Instructions issued by her make it binding on every minister to report to the BJP office once a month; a special panel of this monitoring team will monitor requests to the ministry; there is to be a structure under Solanki divided into six sets of ministries to be monitored by specific ‘ OSDs’ i.e., Officers on Sangh Duty. The Indian Express was given a copy of this blue print (Indian Express, December 16, 2004). At least one member on the personal staff of each minister will be a government official who has dealt with the Sangh earlier. There will be three member committees in charge of each set of ministries, with official links that go down to the district level and deeper. The interaction with district core committees will be through district sangathan mantris, drawn from the RSS, and so on. The district core committee is to be responsible for monitoring the “conduct” and “accountability” of administration officials, implementation of government schemes, status of satta, gambling etc, liqour trade and crime graph. The blue print also makes it clear that the committee would try and “increase the participation” of party workers in government sponsored schemes. And “look after the self respect of our workers under any circumstances.”

While no newspaper has since reported whether the network is already in place, one can guess that with the elections coming, and the resourcses at their command, this should be so. This means that the entire adminstration at the district and village level has been made accountable to the RSS, and it is ensured that the administration is being thoroughly communalised, with transfers being effected right and left. According to the Indian Express February 3 report, by then 200 of the 275-odd IAS officers and 100 of the 300 odd IPS officers and more than fifty other types of officials were already transferred, and the government has announced that between April 15 to June 15 transfers within a district can be effected solely by the minister incharge of the district. One can see what this means for the coming elections, and also how the Sangh Parivar was able to operate so successfully in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, with almost the entire government machinery at all levels being made subservient to the RSS designs.

COMMUNAL AGENDA

As for Uma Bharti’s ‘development’ agenda, she has pronounced her desire to rename Bhopal as Bhojpal. This has been a long-standing RSS demand. During much of her campaign she had called for ‘Din ki pehli roti gai ke naam’ (The first roti of the day for the cow) from every household. She is now allotting funds for a gaushala for every cluster of 10-12 villages. Claiming inspiration from Holland, she says they would be established on riverbanks and would also promote tourism! (Indian Express, February 3, 2004). She added the government would use designations from Shrimad Bhagwad, which describes officials according to the number of cows under their care, for every rank up to the level of the chief minister! She has already constructed a gaushala and a temple and a havankund at the chief minister’s official residence, and has plans of developing a “cow-based economy” as part of a “comprehensive model of development” with aggarbattis and cow urine as parts of this effort.

She has accorded special status to two pilgrim centres, Amarkantak, and Maheshwar. Interestingly, Amarkantak lies in the heart of Gond and Baiga territory, and Maheshwar is full of Muslim weavers. Both sections of population are inconvenienced because this implies a meat free and eggless regime.

Every new policy is being linked with religion and religious organisations, and inaugurations and announcement of schemes with religious festivals. For example, at the beginning of the nine-day ‘Gupt Navratris’ nine women inspectors were appointed as police station incharges to “symbolise the nine different incarnations of the female deities.” The special staus to the two ‘holy’ towns, the cow based economy schemes and her shift to official residence were all similarly timed and occasioned, with government and police officials often having to salute to the ‘gurus’ and saffron clad sadhus who are routinely present.

ATTACKING CHRISTIANS & MUSLIMS

The communal campaigns against Muslims and Christians, which Digvijay was somehow able to precariously contain, despite the Sangh Parivar provocations with regard to the Bhojshala campaigns and their activities in Jhabua, a tribal district, now have full state support from Uma Bharti administration. According to press reports, first, wrong information, claiming that there was firing from within a church, was supplied to the media, at a press conference addressed by Uma Bharti herself. Then, two ministers visited Jhabua and gave a clean chit to the Sangh organisations without meeting a single Christian victim. Later, Uma Bharti herself visited Jhabua, met some of the victims, ordered a CBI probe but rendered it a foregone conclusion by stating that Hindus had displayed patience and tolerance despite provocation (Indian Express, February 3, 2004). As usual, the victims were once again being blamed for their own plight.

In fact, a church was attacked and vandalised by Bajrang Dal members in mid January, and its members were asked to give up Christ. (Yeh Hindusthan hai, yehan Jesus-vesus nahin chalega). This was followed by destruction of churches in Alirajpur (district headquarters), Kathiwara, Amkhut. Homes of Christian families were attacked in Alirajpur, Punyawad, and Amkhut by the local BJP MLA, Nagar Singh Chauhan. According to press reports, there is hardly a large village in Jhabua where the Sangh has not left its signature in the form of a unit of the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra or a Sewa Bharti or a Dharam Jagran Manch, and there is a wide network geared to “reclaim” Jhabua from “Christian occupation” (Tehelka, February 28, 2004). Christians are being continuously threatened, and the rioters being given government protection. It must be noted that till recently this area was a Congress stronghold, and many of the people living there are some fourth or fifth generation Christians. Obviously the Congress has not been serious in not allowing the growth of RSS organisations here.

Bhojshala is being systematically geared to become another Ayodhya. Hindus have been allowed prayers on specific days at the mosque on the plea that it is an old temple. By allowing this it has in fact been converted into a temple, in the same way that the babri masjid site in Ayodhya is, because there is now no chance, given today’s politics to revert to what it has been prior to this move.

COMMUNALISING ADMINISTRATION

In Ujjain, where the Sangh Parivar has engineered ‘riots ‘, the police officers who ensured that violence did not spread, are being victimised. It has been testified to by senior police officers who were forced to take action against the offending officers, that the action was at the behest of the complaints by Sangh Parivar and under pressure from the Uma Bharti government.

The political atmosphere in Madhya Pradesh has already become charged, so soon after Uma Bharti’s taking over, and it is likely that the election campaign will echo the discourse of the Sangh Parivar, with the Congress either meekly showing itself the true guardian of Hindu interests or competing for the same ruling class constituents by charging that the BJP in Madhya Pradesh is not fulfilling its ‘economic reform’ agenda. It becomes easier to say this with Uma Bharti more sympathetic to the OBC constituency than many others in the BJP. Given these priorities of the Congress, there is a need for not only keeping up the pressure on the Congress, the only party with effective strength in the state apart from the BJP, but there is a need to build a secular and democratic alternative. There is but little to choose between a hard Hindutva and a soft one, although for the present elections such a choice becomes necessary. Five more years of BJP rule in the country can well arm the RSS to turn all the newly ‘acquired’ BJP states into Gujarat. Reversal of electoral fortunes hardly allow for a reversal to old staus quos once administrations have been thoroughly penetrated and communalised, as Gujarat shows.  Gujarat remains what it is whether the BJP wins or the Congress. We should not allow the same for other states as well.