Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta 
New Delhi: Is the Sangh parivar imploding from within? That’s a question many have been asking ever since Mohan Bhagwat, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s sarsanghchalak, or chief, remarked on “a lack of decorum” during the election campaign, and hinted at the glaring failure of the Union government to contain the continuing conflict in Manipur.
It was apparent that Bhagwat aimed his remarks at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose coarse Islamophobhia and uncouth canvassing generated great controversy, diverting attention from the more ideological issues of the Sangh parivar. Modi used pejorative references like “those who have more children” and “infiltrators” for Muslims, while also causing much bitterness over his repeated use of terms like “mujra”, or “mangalsutra” and “buffalo thieves” for the opposition alliance. In one instance, he even ascribed impiety to “mutton eating” to attack an opposition leader.
The RSS maintained a stoic silence during the campaign, even as reports emerged that its pracharaks showed little excitement to mobilise voters. Observers say that RSS workers must have sensed an anti-incumbency mood against the Modi government – and so chose not to put themselves in the line of fire.
However, immediately after the BJP fell short of a majority, critical voices emerged, with Bhagwat leading the brigade.
Bhagwat said that “maryada” (dignity) and “saiyam” (restraint) were not shown in the campaign, even as many within the RSS also tried to indicate that his comments were not directed only at Modi and the central leadership of the BJP. More importantly, Bhagwat said that the RSS doesn’t consider the opposition as a “virodhi” (enemy) but a “pratipaksh“ (counterpoint), in a rare show of support for a democratic political culture. He also spoke about how only a leader without ego has the right to be called a “sevak” (public servant), in a possible dig at Modi who has described himself the pradhan sevak, instead of pradhan mantri.
Soon, there was no stopping such remarks. Top RSS leaders like Indresh Kumar said that Lord Ram stopped an “arrogant” party that claims to be “Ram Bhakt” from attaining a majority in the Lok Sabha. Then, Ratan Sharda, a Sangh ideologue, wrote in the RSS mouthpiece Organiser that the electoral outcome was a “reality check” for overconfident BJP workers. Sharda distanced the RSS from the BJP by saying that the organisation was not a “field force” for the latter, while claiming that the BJP leadership did not reach out to RSS swayamsevaks to seek their cooperation in electoral work. He added that elections were not won on social media but through the sheer hard work of party workers who “were not listening to voices on the streets”.
Ram Madhav too struck a critical tone, pointing out that India has again slipped into the cauldron of coalition politics, which will need “humility and civility, qualities that the Indian polity is in dire need of”.
Senior BJP leader and former vice-president of India M.Venkaiah Naidu, too, spoke about how the electoral outcome was a message for all who thought money could win elections, even when concerns of the downtrodden are ignored. In a dig at poor candidate selection by the BJP, Naidu said political parties should only select candidates who have “four Cs – character, calibre, capacity and conduct” instead of another similar set which represents “cash, caste, community and criminality”.
Taken together, these remarks by top leaders and organs of the RSS appear to mark an all-round criticism of the central leadership of the BJP, more precisely the Modi-Amit Shah duo which has centralised all decision-making in the party. In the process, many insiders have been resentful of the sidestepping of the consultative process that was integral to the Sangh parivar.
‘No consultation’
Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was a part of the Sangh’s ecosystem earlier, believes that the RSS, which was instrumental in such consultations, has accumulated enough reasons to be aggrieved, and seems to have chosen this moment when the Modi-Shah duo is at its weakest to lay down its concerns, even if indirectly.
“These statements from Dr Bhagwat should be taken seriously. There is a tendency among certain observers to dismiss such criticisms by the RSS as deceptive,” Kulkarni, who served as the director of operations at the Prime Minister’s Office between 1999-2004 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, told The Wire.
“The RSS chief has criticised the prime minister for the first time in 10 years, for conducting a campaign that was full of lies and lacked decorum. That is a very charged statement coming from the RSS. But effectively, Dr Bhagwat reiterated what he said after the 2014 elections. At the time, he had criticised the BJP leaders for advocating a Congress-mukt Bharat,” he said.
Also read: Mohan Bhagwat Plays ‘Good Cop’ to Modi’s ‘Bad Cop’: It’s Too Little, Too Late
Kulkarni said that the concerns that are being mooted from the RSS stable currently have been brewing within the organisation for a long time. “There was a great deal of unhappiness over the government’s unilateral functioning. In the last 10 years, the prime minister and home minister Amit Shah never gave any importance to the views of the top RSS leaders. While they kept the RSS workers happy by implementing long cherished demands of the Sangh parivar like the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and abrogation of Article 370, an active dialogue with the RSS was missing; respect for the RSS was missing,” he said, pointing out the “extraordinariness” of BJP president J.P Nadda’s statement in the midst of the campaign that the BJP was no more dependent on the RSS as it used to be.
As a result, Kulkarni said, RSS workers didn’t participate in electioneering this time around, and “in fact, in some constituencies like Amethi, they actively worked against the BJP candidate”.
“The RSS believes in a style of functioning that is based on consultations with all the people who matter. That was singularly missing. A good example was how the government passed the (now withdrawn) farm bills which the RSS had opposed. The RSS was of the view that a meaningful dialogue should be resumed and the matter should be resolved amicably. But the government didn’t relent,” he said.
“The two leaders decided everything on their own,” Kulkarni averred. He added that Bhagwat had also initiated a dialogue with Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders a few years ago to initiate an engagement with the community, but “the government didn’t entertain him at all”.
On why the RSS leaders chose to vent at a time when the BJP was weak, Kulkarni said, “In the last 10 years, Modi has built a huge aura around himself, which seemed to appeal to the rank and file of the Sangh parivar. Any public criticism of Modi would have alienated the Sangh’s leadership from the workers.”
“The RSS has evolved over time into a more collective style of leadership. And whether one is in power or not, the BJP leaders have always consulted the sarsanghchalak. I have seen it myself. Prime Minister [Atal Bihari} Vajpayee or his deputy [L.K.] Advani, both always respected the sarsanghchalak, despite multiple differences. But their differences never came in the way of their respect for the RSS,” Kulkarni said.
‘Doublespeak’
Senior journalist and an expert on the Hindu Right, Dhirendra K. Jha, however, believes that the criticisms should also be seen within the larger hydra-headed structure of the Sangh parivar.
“Now that the BJP has fallen short of a majority, the RSS leaders are speaking about its failures. When Bhagwat spoke about a lack of decorum in the campaign, he was talking like the Chief Election Commissioner, ascribing to himself a position of moral authority. This is because the RSS has to necessarily align itself with public sentiment to remain relevant,” Jha said.
He said that Bhagwat’s criticism of the government on the Manipur conflict is plain doublespeak as a large number of RSS workers fomented the conflict in the state.
Jha said that the ban on the RSS, which was implicated in M.K. Gandhi’s assassination, was lifted on the promise that it will function only as a “cultural” organisation. “But over the last 10 years, it has brazenly functioned as a political organisation. Now, with the BJP’s numbers reducing, the RSS is trying to reclaim its ‘cultural’ character once again.”
He said that since the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made it a point to club both the BJP and the RSS in one box, the RSS leaders are now attempting to distance themselves from the party to avoid any further ignominy. “That is why Bhagwat also spoke against the Congress for dragging the RSS into the campaign,” Jha said.
Also read: So, What Happens to Hindutva Now?
Jha said that the hypothesis that the RSS didn’t participate in electioneering is misleading, as “on the ground, a large majority of BJP workers are originally from the RSS almost everywhere”.
Jha, however, sees in the criticisms an intra-family feud. “Ever since Modi came, the Maharastrian Brahmin lobby in the RSS has weakened. Dattatreya Hosabale, a Kannadiga Brahmin, was made the executive head of the organisation, and B.L. Santhosh, again a Kannadiga Brahmin, is currently the all-powerful national general secretary of the BJP. We should also explore the possibility of the Maharashtra lobby, headed by Bhagwat himself, trying to reclaim its influence in the decision-making process,” Jha told The Wire.
The criticisms are borne out of a fear of the rising opposition forces on the ground and also an attempt to rearrange organisational equations in the Sangh parivar, Jha said.
In both scenarios, one mooted by Kulkarni and the other by Jha, the RSS is asserting its weight against the over-centralising impulses of the Modi-Shah duo, a factor that may pan out more clearly in the near future.