The message of
unstinting support by the RSS for the NDA government at the Centre, at a
meeting of its Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) in Nagpur,
signals the continuation of the pragmatic view taken by the organisation
and its leadership towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his
government.
A pragmatism which saw it first approve
his candidature as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013 despite
not exactly warming up to him. And now declaring that it backed the NDA
government’s participation in Jammu & Kashmir as well as backing
the Land Acquisition Ordinance, despite severe reservations against it
by affiliate organisations of the Sangh Parivar.
This pragmatism stems not just from the
personality of current Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, who during his
apprenticeship for the sarsanghchalak’s job dealt for years with the
Vajpayee-led NDA government, when ideological clashes between the Sangh
and the government were common, but also the realisation that RSS is on
the cusp of an opportunity to mainstream its ideology like never before.
That project can be possible only through
the exercise of state power, by capturing academic and other public
institutions and provoking debate on what have been considered settled
questions of Indian public life. Even if the debates go against the RSS’
ideological framework, the very fact that established dogma in history
will be up for debate will be a victory.
Ghar Wapsi, conversion, cow slaughter are
all issues which are now centre stage; whichever way the debate goes,
it’s no longer fringe. A subtle distinction has been drawn even in the
fringe, so while Ram Sene has been banned entry in Goa (a BJP-ruled
state), VHP is very much a Sangh affiliate. Some fringe is being owned
up to, not all.
The Sangh had started about its business
to capture intellectual space from the largely Left-leaning academic
eco-system in India by setting up think-tanks like the India Foundation
and Vivekananda Foundation. It was the realisation stemming from six
years of Vajpayee government that while the people running the
government could be BJP men, the system was largely Congress-centric
with great in-built resistance to the Sangh’s ways.
Vajpayee was aided by Brajesh Mishra, with
whom running battles became the stuff of legends. Modi, by contrast,
has a PMO peopled by personnel with whom the RSS has a better equation,
many of whom were part of the Sangh-led think-tanks. On the face of it,
the actions of Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Syed
may seem to violate some fundamental principles of the Sangh ideology,
but the fact remains that the PDP-BJP government is a triumph for the
Parivar, and the entry of the BJP as a ruling party into the Kashmir
Valley.
The Land Ordinance issue was a tricky one,
in the sense that the Sangh, for all its rightward social agenda, toes a
different line on economic policy, making it indistinguishable from the
Left. In this case, the Sangh’s negotiations with the government led to
several amendments suggested by them being adopted by the government as
part of the bill now cleared by the Lok Sabha.
It is said that the Vanvaasi Kalyan
Ashram, a Sangh-affiliated organisation, has serious issues with any
attempts to amend the Forest Rights Act. They have been told, during the
ABPS, to resolve matters through “conversation rather than
confrontation”.
After being banned in 1948, following the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the Sangh’s climb to political
prominence in 1977 was a long hard slog, only to be sent back to the
drawing board when the Janata experiment failed. The Ram Janmabhoomi
movement gave it an ideological direction, but the structure of the
state apparatus still eluded ideological capture.
Cases regarding Hindu terror against its
members further convinced the RSS that being in power in state
governments was not enough to insulate it from being ideologically
over-ridden.
At last, BJP has a simple majority in
Parliament, and RSS, long the ideological pariah looking forlornly at
inimical state institutions, has an entry point. No quarrels are to be
provoked to spoil that entry.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
No comments:
Post a Comment