The toxicity-soaked right-wing echo-system has predictably gone in its familiar overdrive about Rahul Gandhi’s so-called controversial formulations and arguments about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi; predictably the Leader of Opposition has been accused of making “anti-India” remarks on a foreign soil.
This takes some cheek.
Just juxtapose it with the fact that during last 10 years as prime minister, Modi, on his foreign trips, regularly and routinely badmouthed India’s achievements and accomplishments as a nation-state and as a robust democracy before 2014. What is rather pathetic is that these right-wing megaphones do not realise that last June the voters took away their licence to decide unilaterally who is a desh bhakat, or what is anti-India, or when a critique of Modi is an insult to the nation.
Paradoxically when these saffronite eager beavers protest too much about Rahul Gandhi’s remarks during his current American visit, they do play straight into his hand.
What the Congress leader has tried, rather adroitly, is not to allow the RSS brass get away with the bogus notion that they are an entity different from Narendra Modi, the BJP and the new ruling coterie, dominated by corporate crooks. This narrative of differences between Nagpur and New Delhi are somehow meant to imply that whereas the voters in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections have appropriately punished the Modi regime for its record of incompetence and corruption and its communal designs, the RSS continues to retain its pristine moral credentials.
This narrative has been cleverly introduced in the political discourse after the RSS had its recent conclave in Kerala.
Suddenly we are told that the Nagpur bosses have ideological reservations about Narendra Modi and his assiduously manufactured personality cult. Somehow, we are also expected to believe that the RSS is even unhappy about the BJP’s cultivated politics of communal polarisation. This narrative is predicated on a make-believe fallacy that the Nagpur commissars were kept in the dark as Modi spent billions of tax-payers’ money on prettifying his image as a Grand Saviour, a globally-respected and admired Vishwaguru, as a strategic tactician who could advice the Indian Air Force pilots how to cheat the weather, or, a prime minister who could cynically use coercive agencies to build his image as a anti-corruption crusader, etc… It is rather late in the day for any RSS functionary to pretend that he was aware of how the prime minister was assembling, straw-brick by straw-brick, the edifice of an authoritarian-strong man.
Also read: As RSS Leaders Speak Out Against Modi-Shah’s BJP, Is the Sangh Parivar Imploding?
It is equally laughable for the RSS or its apologists to argue that Modi and Amit Shah had over-stirred the communal cauldron for narrow electoral gains and thereby the two counterfeit “Chanakyas” have besmirched Hindutva’s global image.
We are expected to believe that the RSS bosses are discovering that the doings of the Shahnshah and Shah have given Hindutva a radical image, as bad as “radical Islam.” This, too, is unadulterated poppy-cock.
After all, every junior reporter covering the BJP is aware of the omnipotent presence of the “organisation secretary,” seconded from Nagpur, at various levels, throughout the length and breadth, of the land. The RSS bosses and every Swayamsevak was an equal partner is every single political sin committed by the Modi coterie.
It must be said to the credit of Modi that since his days as chief minister of Gujarat he has had the measure of these self-styled moral guardians. Many in Gujarat have admired how he was able to suborn the over-hyped “simplicity” and over-hawked “integrity” of the busy-bodies among the swayamsevaks. And, these swayamsevaks were very much in Modi’s corner as he crowbarred his way to the top of the BJP pile in 2013. Since the “Hindu revolution” of 2014, the otherwise austere and unbending moral men have learnt to enjoy and appreciate the finer advantages of power. Perhaps Dattopant Thengadi was the last big presence in the leadership slate to have some kind of moral scruples and ideological principles. Now the RSS, from top to bottom, is dominated by “practical” men. And, they have winked at the Modi-Shah duo as they injected humongous amorality in the body politic. For instance, no RSS leader dare express a view on the smelling rotten eggs at SEBI, whereas the stench of that corruption has pervaded every sensitive nostril across the nation.
Also read: RSS & BJP: Father, Son and the Push towards Hindutva Agenda
In some liberal quarters there is a flickering hope that at last the RSS bosses would be able to provide a course-correction to the ruling coterie; even bring about a new order. Now that the voters have given Modi a severe hair-cut, the Nagpur bosses can also give him a dhakka (push). Nothing of the kind can happen – nor will the Modi-Shah cabal allow it to happen. Those who happen to control of the levers of Indian state have no qualms in using their enormous reach and experience in use of coercive powers against the adversary, irrespective of the colour of his cap. If it comes down to a confrontation between the Modi clique and the RSS, the outcome will be entirely to the disadvantage of the Nagpur-wallahs.
The unvarnished fact is that that under Modi, the BJP has come to resemble a sleeker version of the old Congress; the BJP leaders and activists are interested solely in self-aggrandisement. The new BJP of the Naya Bharat stands in no awe of the RSS.
In the process of rebuffing the Modi crowd, the country has also given a cold shoulder to those pretentiously upright “moral guardians” of the saffron politics. Ten years of Modi’s unhindered and absolute powers have also shattered the illusions – or a possibility, if you prefer – of a morally-inspired Hindutva order. The Indian voter has understood that the Hindutva slogan is just a mask for all the ugly impulses and interests – small, large or super-big – to find a role in a state-rigged play. Thanks to the BJP-RSS jugaalbandi in political underhandedness and moral unwholesomeness these last 10 years, the saffron pretenses stand de-legitimised.
For once, Rahul Gandhi has got his argument right: Modi is temporary, RSS is permanent. No need for confusion. The republic has to refute and reject both.
Harish Khare is a former editor-in-chief of The Tribune.
