The following is an excerpt from From Dynasties to Democracy: Politics, Caste and Power Struggles in Rajasthan, published by Pan Macmillan India.

Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Vasundhara Raje, two chief ministers from the saffron fold who ruled Rajasthan for a collective period of more than twenty years, had one factor in common. Both were strong personalities and liked to function independently of the RSS on occasion – this at times resulted in some political decisions being contradictory to the policies of the BJP’s ideological parent. This is not to assert that the propagation of RSS’s ideology was hindered in any way during their rule, but rather that their personalities were the main driving forces and the Sangh simply did not have as much free rein as it would have liked. This was the primary reason why many BJP leaders with a strong RSS background often did not see eye to eye with the two CMs.

In 1987, in the wake of the Roop Kanwar sati case, Shekhawat openly condemned the practice of sati after some Rajput groups defied the Rajasthan High Court order to organize the Chunri Mahotsav to glorify the horrifying incident. Despite the fact that many right-wing and Hindu outfits had supported the Chunri Mahotsav, Shekhawat took a contrarian stance. However, to ensure he did not lose favour with his Rajput community, he later criticized an ordinance by the state government against the glorification of sati, accusing them of ‘singling out Rajputs’, thus successfully playing both sides. He kept himself at a distance from protests by right-wing groups in support of the practice of sati throughout, which consolidated his image as a progressive politician.

Similarly, Shekhawat inducted several Muslim leaders into the BJP during the late 1980s and ’90s. Despite the RSS’s tradition of prevailing over the BJP in most matters, Shekhawat held his ground and encouraged leaders such as Yunus Khan to join the BJP, promoting his image as a relatively secular politician despite being part of the Hindutva fold. Khan had had no plans to join politics and was content working at the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). However, Shekhwat had been so persuasive that Khan went on to become a two-time minister and a three-time legislator. When the Shekhawat government came to power for a second time in 1990, his council of ministers included Ramzan Khan, who had won the assembly elections on a BJP ticket from the Pushkar constituency. Later in the same year, when Shekhawat saved his government with the help of the Janata Dal (Digvijay) MLAs, by his side stood several Muslim MLAs, including Abdul Hadi, Gulam Mustafa Khan and Nafis Ahmad Khan, who were formerly supporters of the BJP, with Nafis Ahmad Khan even being a minister of state (MoS) in the council of ministers consisting Janata Dal and BJP MLAs in 1990.

At the time, despite the existence of an anti-Shekhawat lobby comprising hardliners such as Ramdas Agarwal and Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi often disagreeing with his policies, the RSS would remain beholden to Shekhawat, whose stature within the party and popularity among the public could not be matched by his colleagues. In several instances, those close to Shekhawat too went against the RSS’s decisions, while the veteran leader would choose to look the other way. He adopted the same stance in the case of the Rajasthan University Students’ Union presidential election in 1992, when his nephew Pratap Singh Khachariyawas contested as an independent against Satish Poonia, the official candidate of the RSS’s student wing, ABVP. CM Shekhawat posed no objections whatsoever to his nephew contesting – and defeating – Poonia.

Shekhawat differed from the hardline BJP leaders in one other aspect – he was willing to induct non-RSS members into the party fold, some of whom even went on to become cabinet ministers. Some such protégés of the leader include Rajendra Rathore, who began his career outside of student politics in the Janata Dal and later became an important ally for anti-Congress forces.

Vasundhara Raje, whom he mentored, was no different in this aspect. In early 2004, in an interview with journalist and news presenter Karan Thapar, Raje was asked for her reaction to VHP leader Praveen Togadia’s assertion from 2002 that ‘Rajasthan has already become the laboratory of Hindutva’ and was slated to follow in the footsteps of Gujarat in the wake of the Godhra riots. Raje dismissed the threat perception, countering it with ‘Rajasthan is very clear, it’s always been very secular’. The fact that so early on in her term, Raje had no qualms about saying that her government had no Hindutva agenda – a claim that was bound to invite the ire of RSS leaders – showed that the new chief minister liked to do things on her own terms.

During her second term as CM, one of the major issues on which Raje and the RSS disagreed was regarding the removal of ancient temples from the Walled City of Jaipur to pave way for the construction of the Jaipur Metro. RSS leader Vivek Gupta criticized the government’s decision, saying that there was anger among the public at the demolition of temples. The RSS summoned nine BJP legislators from Jaipur to its headquarters in Bharati Bhawan, and demanded that they explain their ‘inaction’ in this regard. It also slammed the government for overlooking ‘societal concerns’, calling its attitude ‘worse than that of Mughal ruler Aurangzeb’.

Cabinet minister Yunus Khan continued to be a point of contention between Raje and RSS-backed BJP leaders as well. In June 2017, Ghanshyam Tiwari, a long-time favourite of the RSS who had been sidelined by Raje, demanded Khan’s resignation, accusing him of harbouring associations with the people who had chanted ‘anti-national slogan’ in Deedwana, Nagaur district – Khan’s assembly constituency. While Khan denied the allegations and affirmed his belief that the police would conduct a fair investigation into the incident, the animosity between him and BJP leaders from the RSS cabal continued to increase throughout Raje’s tenure.

However, the party’s stance shifted as the 2018 state assembly elections approached. For days, there was uncertainty over whether Yunus Khan would get a ticket, despite him being considered the number two in the government after Raje. After much delay Raje only got her way partially. Khan’s name was among the last ones to be announced by the party, but the BJP set up his election bid for failure by fielding him from Tonk, which was more than 250 kilometres away from Deedwana, citing a greater need for a suitable candidate to woo the large number of Muslim voters in Tonk. To make the contest even more unfair for Khan, the BJP pitted him against state Congress president Sachin Pilot, who was being touted as the future CM at the time. Predictably, Khan lost the elections by a margin of more than 54,000 votes. In the 2023 assembly elections, he was compelled to resign from the BJP and contest as an independent from the Deedwana assembly constituency, where he won. To this day, when asked to describe Raje in one word, the former BJP leader does not hesitate to say she is ‘staunchly secular’.

Until 2018, the RSS remained dwarfed by the strong personalities and independent working styles of leaders such as Shekhawat and Raje. But after Raje’s defeat in the 2018 electoral contest, the environment became more conducive for the RSS to move away from chief ministers who belonged to the saffron fold but did not feel obligated to follow the Sangh’s mandate. This also coincided with the ascent of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at the centre and within the BJP. Under their watch, the influence of powerful regional leaders and former chief ministers who had enjoyed long tenures – such as B. S. Yediyurappa, Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan – was majorly curbed. As soon became evident from the results of the 2023 assembly elections, the RSS was finally set to establish complete and total control over governance and administration, having eliminated all strong personalities that had the potential to pose a hindrance to its Hindutva agenda.

Deep Mukherjee is a senior journalist. He is assistant editor at The Wire.

Tabeenah Anjum is a journalist with over 15 years of experience across print and multimedia outlets.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.