RSS Arm-Twists BJP Into Pursuing Communal Agenda Stridently

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

IT could not have come at a worse time for the BJP and for the whole of what is called the Sangh Parivar. Whatever happened within the Parivar at the Hardwar conclave of the RSS, and whatever happened before this conclave, has proved beyond doubt that the entire Sangh Parivar is currently facing a crisis of sorts, which it can resolve only at the cost of its own standing among the people.

To frankly put it at the very outset, one need not harbour an illusion about the possible fallouts of the wrangling that is currently taking place within the saffron brigade. If the Parivar is not going to rein in the VHP, nor is it going to give up the BJP. For, if “it is the BJP which needs the Sangh for its survival,” as Pankaj Vohra says in Hindustan Times on November 8, it is also equally true that the RSS needs the BJP in no less measure. And this two-way relationship would continue if the RSS does not decide to discard the BJP and (1) float a new party in its place, (2) adopt a ragtag outfit like Balraj Madhok’s Jan Sangh, or (3) give up its façade of being a “cultural (!) organisation” and itself become a political party. Needless to say, all the three options are closed for the RSS in equal measure. 

TWO POINTS TO NOTE

YET it is undeniable that something serious is indeed taking place within the BJP individually and within the Sangh Parivar as a whole, and one has to fathom the meaning of these happenings that have far-reaching implications for the whole nation. It is not enough to say that a party that was fond of projecting itself as “a party with a difference,” of course without any basis in reality, is today being seen as “a party with differences.” This is how more than one newspaper has dubbed it.

On the face of it, the differences within the Sangh Parivar are centred on the charge that, for the sake of power, the BJP had deviated from the Hindutva agenda which it was duty-bound to push when it was in power in the last six years. Thus the demand today is that the BJP must revert back to its “basics” and push the communal agenda as stridently as possible. It is this demand that has given rise to what has been variously called differences, rifts or fissures within the brigade.

But the issue is not so simple, as we will see. Two points are noteworthy. First, the BJP never deviated from the communal agenda, in the first place. As we pointed out on several occasions, it was the BJP whose regime presided over the killing of a large number of minority people. To take two examples, large-scale attacks were made against the Christians in various parts of the country --- for the first time in the history of India where they have been living in peace for two millennia. This process finally reached its peak in a village in Orissa where a mob of Bajrang Dal goons burnt alive a priest and his minor sons. And then came Gujarat where more than 2,000 Muslims were butchered in a span of just four months; the cries of those slain in the state are still echoing in courts and in public discourse all over.   

Also, several BJP leaders went on record saying that they had not given up but only postponed their agenda till the time they got a majority of their own. The indication was clear --- as a party in power, the BJP had to take the compulsions of realpolitik into account. However, even these compulsions did not deter the so-called moderate Vajpayee from pontificating on the need of a national debate on conversions when the real need was to promptly act against the killers of Graham Staines and his sons. Nor did he refrain from praising Modi for having brought the Gujarat situation in control though the genocide went on for over four months.   

To reiterate, the contention that the BJP had deviated from its communal agenda is a thorough misrepresentation of the reality.

However, and this is the second point to note, all the pleadings by BJP leaders about their compulsions did not deter the rabidly communal VHP from baying for Vajpayee’s and Advani’s blood. Here we take one example. In November 2001, Advani said in Lok Sabha that India had always been and would remain a secular country and that her secularism was not a gift from any particular party. Though he made this statement under the duress of the situation and to placate an agitated opposition, VHP’s Ashok Singhal and Giriraj Kishore went to the town asking for Advani’s scalp even though Advani has always been known as the leader of BJP hawks. Also, after the BJP-NDA’s humiliating ouster from power, when Vajpayee lambasted Modi, dubbing him as responsible for the party’s rout, the same VHP leaders abused Vajpayee no end. And it was not in the least surprising. Singhal had already claimed that the Gujarat “experiment” (massacre of Muslims) was a success and should be repeated in other parts of the country.    

THE GIST OF THE DISPUTE

IN sum, it is not that the dispute between the BJP and VHP has suddenly erupted in recent past; it has always been there since the BJP came to power in 1998. But it is also true that the dispute is not of a fundamental kind. Just as a section of media wanted us to believe that Vajpayee was a “moderate” among the hawks and many well-meaning people had fallen prey to this propaganda, in the same way some of them want us to believe that there exists a kind of gap between the BJP and, say, VHP. For instance, the Hindustan Times editorial on November 8 says that “for BJP president L K Advani, the task is actually simpler than it seems: set the party house in order, while sending out the signal that loony squatters are no more welcome. Unless, of course, it is the VHP which calls the shots.”

The problem lies precisely here. For, the elements whom the editorial writer calls the “loony squatters” are being backed by no less than the RSS, the ruthless patriarch of the whole family. In fact, compared to him, the paper’s correspondent S S Jaiswal seems to have got closer to reality. Reporting from Hardwar where the RSS national executive was in session, he wrote, “Saturday’s developments lent credence to the view that the VHP boycotted the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal meeting on Friday with the tacit approval of the RSS. RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said almost as much when he remarked that the VHP representatives had taken prior permission for staying away” (Hindustan Times, November 7).

This makes two things amply clear. One, the ongoing dispute is about whether the BJP must implement the communal agenda in a more restrained way or go whole hog about it. Implementing the agenda or not is, in itself, not in dispute; the dispute is more on how to go about it. In fact, this was the issue VHP leader Prafulla Goradia had sought to precipitate by quitting the BJP and joining the rump of a Jan Sangh. 

Finally, then, what happened at Hardwar was that VHP leaders, who had boycotted the RSS meet on November 6, joined it on Saturday after the “pusillanimous” BJP leaders Advani and Venkaiah Naidu went out of it. And, to put it in the words of The Hindu editorial (November 8), “The meet ended with the RSS issuing ‘a return to Hindutva or else’ ultimatum to Mr Advani.” 

PLIGHT OF NDA ALLIES

SOME of the commentators have sought to put it as the BJP’s dilemma regarding whether it should stick to the coalition called the NDA or go it alone. But even if there is an iota of truth in this contention, it is only a part of the story. The fact is that, as the record from March 1998 to May 2004 goes to show, the BJP has had little care for the sentiments of its allies. When the NDA was in power, the BJP alone had as many as 57 members in the council of ministers while the two-dozen odd allies shared a paltry 21 berths. Poor Sharad Yadav of JD(U) kept crying for one more cabinet post for his party, and was not obliged. Also, if an ally was given a cabinet berth, the BJP tagged to the minister one of its own men to have a tab upon the working of the concerned minister. But, far more importantly, the BJP consistently ignored its allies in policy formulation in all spheres from the economy to Kashmir to foreign policy --- as if these allies simply did not exist. 

And this was what it could be. For, even if other NDA partners were numerically in a position to make the BJP heed their voice, they never cared to assert and cared only for the power and pelf that they were enjoying. Whether it was the attack on Christians or the Gujarat genocide, they at the best made faint murmurs, not taking a forthright stand on the issues affecting national unity and communal harmony. NDA convenor George Fernandes, a known windbag in politics, not only acted as the BJP’s trouble-shooter whenever an allied party feigned to be angry, he even went to the extent of giving the Bajrang Dal goons the certificate of innocence after they burnt Staines and his sons alive. Also, he was the first to falsely praise Modi for having brought the Gujarat pogrom under control in three days. 

Was it without reason that the NDA partners also suffered rout along with the BJP?

Yet, it seems the allies have not yet learnt any lessons from their rout. Be it Navin Patnaik or Chandrababu Naidu or Nitish Kumar, they have only said that they would judge whether or not the BJP has deviated from the NDA agenda. While the whole world has seen that the RSS has finally prevailed upon the BJP to stick to Hindutva, the allies are still to judge where there remains nothing to judge! Nitish Kumar is also on record saying that the JD(U) will continue its alliance with the BJP till the Bihar and Jharkhand polls are over. In sum, electoral gains remain their overriding concern, even if national unity is in peril. Not surprisingly, the BJP knows their weakness and has been giving them a short shrift at every turn.

DISSENSIONS WITHIN BJP

APART from its strained relations with the RSS and RSS controlled outfits, the BJP is also facing internal dissensions of late. To quote from The Indian Express editorial on November 8, “Power is the glue that keeps political entities together and individual ambitions in check. It should surprise no one, therefore, that BJP --- a party that had always projected itself as a “disciplined” entity --- today finds itself both out of power and the sight of numerous mutinies.”

There is no need to go into details of the mudslinging by Ms Uma Bharti, Mahajan and some other second rung leaders against one another. But what appears more or less certain is that if the RSS has given the BJP’s reins to Advani following the party’s rout in Maharashtra, it can only be a stop-gap arrangement. The fact is that, to the RSS, Advani’s anointment as BJP president was the only option available to bring the party out of the unenviable plight it is in. But it also means that, given Advani’s and Vajpayee’s age, sooner or later a war of nerves is likely to erupt in the second rung leadership of the party. As The Indian Express says, the imminent “vacuum has, in turn, unleashed individual ambitions as the second generation of leaders within the party position themselves and jostle for control.”

However, this power struggle within the BJP is not something to gloat over. For, no matter whoever wins in this struggle, it is the RSS that will be calling the shots. It is true that, as the Hindustan Times wrote, the BJP “lost the national mandate not because of too little Hindutva and too much good governance, but because of too much Hindutva and too little good governance.” But yet the paper’s advice to the party about how to regain the lost ground is simply misplaced. Today the party is bereft of any real issues and, moreover, the burning problems facing the people are, to it, no issues. On the other hand, as S S Jaiswal reported from Hardwar, “The Ram temple had always been an issue dear to the RSS, he (RSS general secretary Mohan Bhagawat) said. The VHP will launch a movement for it with the RSS blessings. However, it was up to the BJP to support the movement or not, he said.”

Thus the RSS has made clear as to what it wants from the BJP. It thus appears that the earlier division of labour between the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits --- in which these outfits were pushed ahead for communal rabble rousing while the BJP was doing realpolitik by roping in other parties for the sake of power --- is going to get somewhat obliterated. VHP leaders are on record saying that the BJP won the Gujarat assembly polls in 2002 only because of Hindutva plank; the implication was that the BJP should have adopted the same course of action at national level. And it is clear that this is what the Parivar’s patriarch also thinks. RSS chief Sudarshan’s refusal to meet Vajpayee and Advani at Jhandewalan in New Delhi, VHP’s boycott of the RSS meet at Hardwar in protest against Advani’s presence, Pravin Togadia’s statement about the RSS having given the BJP an ultimatum to return to Hindutva, and the RSS ‘clarification’ that it had not issued any ultimatum to the BJP but only asked for “course correction” --- all these are unmistakable indications of how the RSS has arm-twisted the BJP into openly coming out in favour of the rabidly communal agenda instead of only covertly pursuing it.

But this also spells out dangers to what is valuable in the whole Indian ethos.

Yet, it would be the height of ingratitude on our part if we do not salute the masses of this country for their role. Our masses are poor, illiterate, underfed and underclad, but they are secular to the core and, moreover, they have seen the real face of communal combine in action. That is why, despite the wide network of more than 10,000 RSS controlled outfits from the national to the local level and for all age groups, the masses of this country have inflicted upon the BJP a humiliating defeat --- twice in only five months. In fact, if the BJP is currently facing a crisis of sorts, it is because the masses have refused to be swayed by communal campaign. Now, if the Parivar thinks it can retrieve the lost ground by running a still more strident campaign, it does pose a danger to our secular fabric and civilised existence, but yet we rest assured that the common Indian mass is well aware of the Parivar’s threat and will give it a still more powerful rebuff. The only need today is that, on the issue of national unity, secular forces must put their mutual differences behind and come forward to rally the masses in defence of our ganga-jamni culture.