The despair of RSS

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat ended his Dussehra speech of this year on Vijayadashami day, declaring the BJP agenda for the next election.

When BJP, the political arm of RSS, has completed four years in office, and the country is moving towards the next election before the next Vijayadashami day, his annual talk at Nagpur was one that spelt out the weapon that the Sangh parivar would use for the next parliamentary election – although there is no definite vision or concept about future India. And that is nothing but the building of Ram Temple. After demolition of the Babari masjid, and building of a 'temporary' temple for permanent use, the Sar Sangh Chalak is taking out of the dust the mission of building the temple – which either the Vajpayee government that ruled in two turns, or the current Narendra Modi regime in the last four years, has not accomplished. Bhagwat has warned that testing the patience of the society for no reason will not do any good to any one, and construction of the temple is essential for regaining the honour of the country and will lead to national unity and amity.

After saying that there is no dispute about the ownership of the land, or about the place being the birthplace of Ram, Bhagwat called upon the government to obtain appropriate and essential legal validity for building a large temple there. Then, stating that the government should not yield before the ill-advised moves of unwanted litigants, he also explains how the court verdict should be, by declaring his disapproval of the Sabarimala judgement. He is of the view that judgements without considering the local traditions and their beliefs and without paying heed to religious saints or the faith of millions of devotees, will not make a solution, but only problems. He has also raised an emotional question why the Hindu society alone is subjected to such insults about their beliefs and traditions. Let alone the fact for a moment that the same RSS had earlier given encouragement for women's entry into Sabarimala, the RSS chief who made a somersault in the matter of Sabarimala, is going on record that court judgements have to be with due regard for popular sentiments – evidently a far-sighted move with the Babari case in mind. Thus, through this ultimatum that at any rate Ram temple has to be built, Mohan Bhagwat is preparing the grounds for Sangh parivar in the next election.

The Dussehra speech in a way betrays the despair of not having any gains to show case from a Sangh parivar rule, despite the four-year rule by RSS's own Indian government, that treads as per RSS's own road map. The spech also reflects the sorry plight of having to highlight the same old issue of Ram temple, which the BJP had to advocate ever since its infancy. The Sarsanghchalak, who has taken upon himself the mission of issuing fiats to the country's ruling party, has nothing to propose to the government of India on any model of governance in the interest of the citizens' welfare, or any solution to the myriad problems faced by the country in several aspects, right from local to the international levels. In his elaborate lecture that dwells on internal and external threats, the solution put forward for jihadi-urban naxal threats is one of iron-fisted suppression. Bhagwat points out that urban intellectuals and thinkers influencing tribals and scheduled caste, is harmful for national interests. While repeating the hackneyed refrain that government schemes fail to reach the lowest denomination at the grassroots, he also blames that in the policy implementation in backward and tribal areas, there is no transparency or welfare-orientation. But he does not explain what his own government, ever obsessed with nationalistic frenzy has been doing over the last four years in this regard. Not only that, even when Modi government's 'achhe din' is running into its fifth year, the grouse that problems are still galore is biting back the Sangh parivar.

In September, during the lecture series at Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi, Mohan Bhagwat had introduced the RSS philosophy to the public and claimed that the Sangh is broad enough to include all sections. There was also a pronouncement that RSS workers need not work necessarily in BJP alone. The trumpet-blowers of the Sangh had gone to the extent of holding this up to publicise that Mohan Bhagwat was implementing glasnost in RSS. And in the backdrop of all these, his commentators were waiting to see what direction his Dussehra talk would take. But now disappointing them all, he has harped on the same old, and much-repeated, Hindutva slogan. The RSS ideologue also openly states that only followers of Hindu religious tradition can become Hindu and only such Hindutva can save India. He concluded his lecture with an exhortation that people's franchise should be exercised in tune with that objective. All put together, the answer is clear: RSS, which claims an epic tradition of thousands of years, has no contribution to offer in statesmanship or governance, other than capturing power. And even for continuance of government, there is no other path open before them save that of communal politics with hatred of the other.