The commanding win of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi assembly elections , and the almost total decimation of the Indian National Congress (INC) – couldn’t win a single seat in three consecutive elections – have surprised many people and consequently, attracted a lot of comment. All the writings that have appeared so far seem to have missed a vital aspect which this piece attempts to present.
Looked at from this perspective, it may well be that the seeds of this result were contained in the very genesis of the AAP. To get an understanding of this, one needs to go back quite some time in history.
Hindu Mahasabha and RSS
The story began in 1915 when Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya founded the Hindu Mahasabha as a pressure group advocating the interests of Orthodox Hindus before the British Raj from within the Indian National Congress.
Over time some members of the Hindu Mahasabha got impatient with its working and a group led by Dr. K.B. Hedgewar decided it was time to set up an organisation to provide character training and instil “Hindu discipline in order to unite the Hindu community and establish a Hindu Rashtra, with the aims to spread the ideology of Hindutava to strengthen” the Hindu community and promote the ideal of upholding Indian culture and its civilisational values.
Hedgewar was highly influenced by V.D. Savarkar after reading the latter’s book Hindutva – published in Nagpur in 1923 – and after meeting him in the Ratnagiri prison in 1925. This group set up the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur on September 27, 1925.
As the RSS and its influence grew, the Hindu Mahasabha faded. The RSS set up a large number of affiliates to work in different areas of what it called social and cultural work. Its influence was also spread through a network of shakhas in neighborhoods of various cities.
With its ever-expanding reach and influence, the leadership of the RSS, while continuing to call itself a social and cultural organisation, realised during the days after independence that it could do its work more effectively if it had some political clout.
It was to have a say in the political sphere that the RSS set up its first political party which it called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh on October 21, 1951, through three founding members: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal Upadhyaya.
The Jan Sangh, as it came to be called, contested elections and used to win a few parliamentary seats. Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency in 1975. It was during the Emergency period of 1975-77 that the Jana Sangh merged with several other political parties in the opposition to form the Janata Party which defeated the then-incumbent Indian National Congress in the 1977 Lok Sabha election. After three years in power, the Janata Party dissolved in 1980.
End of Jana Sangh and the creation of BJP
It was around that time that the RSS seemed to have realised that the erstwhile Jana Sangh was not in a position to serve its political goals effectively and a decision seemed to have been taken to abandon the Jana Sangh and set up a new political party. Thus, the BJP came to be born in 1980.
The first Lok Sabha election the BJP contested was in 1984 when it won on only two seats. It continued to grow stronger on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. It formed its first government, under its then-leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee which lasted for only 13 days. Subsequently, it grew stronger and stronger and the outcome is well known.
However strong the BJP became; it apparently became clear to the RSS that the BJP could not effectively dislodge the Congress from the national party image that the Congress had acquired.
It was around 2010-11 that a group of civil society organisations were actively working on getting a Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill ready and passed. A small group out of the larger one volunteered to prepare a first draft of Bill for consideration by the larger group.
This process of drafting resulted in the smaller group evolving into what came to be called first the Jan Lokpal movement and then, the India Against Corruption movement.
It was here that the RSS smelt an opportunity to counter the Congress effectively. The RSS kind-of adopted the India Against Corruption movement from behind the scenes, providing it all kinds of support through its various frontal organisations.
The India Against Corruption movement then resulted in the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party on October 02, 2012. Once formed with the generalised support of the RSS and its associates, AAP decided to take on the BJP which was, by now, the party in power.
AAP’s ideological moorings within the larger framework of the RSS
However, several of AAP’s actions during the time it was in power in Delhi seemed to indicate its ideological moorings within the larger framework of the RSS. Keeping quiet during the anti-CAA-NRC protests, public visits to temples by its leaders, and finally writing a letter to the head of RSS seeking its blessings/support just before the elections are some examples of this inclination. The subsequent events are well known in the public discourse and need not be recounted.
Arguably, by the time the Delhi assembly elections came around, the RSS realised that the Congress stands fully decimated, the AAP had served its purpose and was of no more use to the RSS and therefore, it decided to abandon the AAP. The result is there for all to see.
The perspective presented here is an alternative one, it is obviously not the standard or commonly believed wisdom. It is therefore important to highlight the caveat that this political analysis of the situation as it has played out over almost a hundred years, is however limited.
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It is not a comment on the governance by the Aam Aadmi Party. It is not ignorant of what the AAP has claimed to have done in various social fields especially health and education. It is also not ignorant of the regular road blocks that the Union government and its representative, the Lt. Governor, has been putting in the way of the AAP government in Delhi.
Just one point for those who may doubt this explanation. The phenomenon of the AAP winning overwhelming majority in the State Assembly in two successive elections but failing to win even a single seat for the Lok Sabha in Delhi is baffling.
To summarise this perspective-
- RSS has a history of setting up political parties possibly to achieve its larger objectives. It has formally set up at least two parties.
- RSS has abandoned at least one political party in the past when the party did not seem able to assist the RSS in achieving the latter’s larger objectives.
- In the light of the two points above, it is not impossible that the RSS may have been instrumental in getting the AAP off the ground, and has now decided to abandon it since it seems to have served the purpose of decimating the Congress.
This leaves us with an intriguing question: How long will the RSS continue to actively support the BJP?
Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a concerned citizen of India.
