Against the RSS Chief’s Narrow View of ‘Bharatiyata’ and ‘Bharat’

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s two recent interventions, one on Bharatiyata in Delhi and the other one on Bharat in Kochi, must be taken note of. They make the ideological blueprint to shrink the Indian nation crystal clear. To anyone still unequivocal on intentions to break the compact that laid the foundations of modern India on January 26, 1950, you only need to tune in to Bhagwat.

A week ago in Delhi, he said, “What does it mean to be of Bharat? Bharatiyata is not citizenship. Of course, citizenship is required. But, one has to have Bharat’s 'swabhav' (nature) to belong to Bharat. Bharat’s ‘swabhav’ thinks about the whole life. There are four 'purusharth' (goals in Hindu philosophy) – 'moksha' (liberation) is the ultimate goal of life, he said. Bharat’s nature is based on ‘dharma drishti' (vision), Bhagwat added.

Framing Bharatiya to go beyond citizenship, in a specific Hindutva frame, is a perfect fit with those canons of the RSS and BJP, We, or Our Nationhood Defined and Bunch of Thoughts. These books identify those they seek to judge as Indian, by faith (Hindu, whose punyabhumi – or land where all places of worship are, is India) and people (race, Aryan).

It is another matter that in his latest book, The New World, 21st Century Global Order and India, the RSS intellectual and BJP leader Ram Madhav has steered clear of the RSS’s founders, or V.D. Savarkar, and described ‘dharmocracy’ as the desired ideal. This word is intended to sound vaguely like democracy, but is in fact the opposite – an attempt to distort the shape of India’s democracy. This proposes making India an Iran-style theocracy, with an Ayotollah at the helm. Madhav tries to distinguish between theocracy and dharmocracy but this distinction is a semantic sleight-of-hand. Any system where unelected religious authorities hold "supreme authority" over elected representatives constitutes theocracy, regardless of terminology.

As Christophe Jaffrelot writes in his review of Madhav’s book, this move to dharma would mean that “the only supreme authority” would be the Rajgurus (Brahmins who guide rulers in the Hindu tradition). The supreme authority will not be accountable to the people but to an idea of dharma. This ideal, as decided by the RSS or affiliates, would move to defining Indianness by faith and belief. India as a confluence, an ocean of diversity, can be considered cancelled if this were to prevail.

What was the idea of being an Indian citizen?

In the momentous and charged years just following its bloody partition, India chose to constitute itself as a secular Republic – democratic, and not dharmocratic. Unlike the narrow nationalisms of Europe which were defeated in World War II, but had the RSS in thrall at the time, India chose a composite nationhood, which did not tie itself to either language, faith, caste, region, gender, creed or class. Being a people was possible as many kinds of people came together to realise the best of what they could be. This, because equality, freedom, justice and fraternity were held out as goals, not believing in a certain faith, speaking one language or eating one kind of food. You could aspire to thrive, irrespective of who you were.

The idea of being an Indian citizen came from that capacious understanding, which was codified in law.

The RSS would not have any of this, and this is clear by the rejection of the Indian tricolour till 2002, and anger at the Indian Constitution. The organisation's founder, influenced by European fascist movements, explicitly promoted uniformity through "the imposition of Hindi language, Hindu religion, Hindu mythology, and unquestioned loyalty to the nation".

Bhagwat then again instructed on the weekend, while speaking at a RSS educational conference in Kochi, that “Bharat must not be translated, else it would lose its identity and respect.” A direct confrontation with Article 1, “India that is Bharat”, for a start.

Also, a confrontation with the India which lives in its many iterations, translations and pluralities.

The Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar has had many unintended consequences.

One consequence is that it has triggered fundamental debates over the idea of the Indian citizen or citizenship. This is in the sequence of upheaval caused by Assam’s NRC, the CAA-NRC ‘chronology samajhiye’ events before the pandemic that were the first overt attempt to link Indian citizenship with religion, and now the widespread attacks on Bengali-speaking poor migrants in states run by the BJP on the charge that if you are Bengali speaking and Muslim, you are ‘Bangladeshi’. This could only reflect desperation, perhaps after securing just 240 MPs in the last general election, to somehow “elect a new people” (apologies to Bertolt Brecht).

Bhagwat’s Bharat and Bhartiyata reveal the wellspring these mothballed ideas of exclusive nationalism are bubbling up from. To speak of an India belonging only to those the RSS can certify as okay with its ideas, is another way of putting India in reverse gear, down a dark and narrow alley, and down one it managed to evade with great effort and good sense 75 years ago.

The RSS's "chronology" is unfolding in plain sight through legislative capture (eg. CAA), administrative violence (eg. mass detentions), and ideological preparation (eg. Bhagwat's speeches). The only effective response requires equal clarity from India's democratic majority, which must reject the RSS's false choice between Hindu hegemony and national weakness. True patriotism lies in defending Article 1's twin identity, preserving both India’s civilisational heritage and its constitutional pluralism. The alternative is the death of the republic by a thousand cuts, in which the India envisioned by its founders – diverse, democratic, and belonging equally to all its citizens – will no longer exist.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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