New Delhi: The first major impact of the BJP winning a clear majority on its own became evident on Friday when Mohan Bhagwat, in a first for any RSS chief, came on Doordarshan and some other national channels to give his spiel on Hindutva and the kind of society the Sangh wants to establish in India and the world.
There was no direct reference or talk of setting up a Hindu rashtra in the RSS chief’s annual Vijayadashmi speech --in which he sets out the roadmap for the organisation---but, read between the lines and the corollaries that flow from seemingly harmless expressions are evidence of which way he wants the country to head.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
But first things first.
There are at least four key takeaways from the RSS chief’s hour-long dussehra speech — an annual feature since the RSS was set up in 1925---and the socio-political and economic significance they hold for the country. These include fighting infiltration in West Bengal and Assam, boycotting Chinese goods, checking terrorism and applauding the new Modi regime.
Checking infiltration
A laudable objective when taken at face value but it should set the alarm bells ringing, particularly in West Bengal and Bihar which are scheduled to go for assembly elections in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
After Bhagwat’s speech there is little doubt that the Sangh and the BJP would make infiltration from Bangladesh a major election issue in the state polls and its workers would have already started working on it at the ground level.
Loosely translated, Bhagwat warned that infiltration is increasing in Bengal and Bihar. What is worse is that the state governments overlook it and some sections of the society facilitate the amalgamation of infiltrators into the local population by getting them ration cards etc for the sake of building a vote bank. "The Hindus are in danger and the law and order is under threat," he warned, while calling on people to do their 'duty' in safeguarding the country.
But in the RSS-BJP scheme of things, an infiltrator is a Muslim from Bangladesh while the Hindus who sneak into West Bengal, Assam or Bihar are generally termed as refugees. Bhagwat, of course, used the term 'infiltration' in a generic sense without going into details of the religion of the infiltrator in his speech.
The dangerous undertone of the infiltration campaign is that it smacks of a communal polarisation of people in general and the electorate in particular in the poll bound states. Signs of it were manifest in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal but then Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had, with her brazenly pro-Muslim moves, also provided a fertile ground for the saffron force to put its roots there. The BJP won one seat in the state but it sees this as a starting point for itself since it is still too early for the Left to stage a comeback and there is an anti-Mamata, anti-Left constituency to be tapped.
Likewise, in Bihar, the BJP put up a stupendous performance in the Lok Sabha polls but was pushed back in the bypolls when the RJD, JD-U and the Congress joined hands. But it hopes that the issue could help it cut across the caste divides.
With Bhagwat expressing concern over unchecked infiltration, the Sangh cadres are likely to work overtime both in Bihar and in West Bengal to make it an electoral issue. Unlike the recent UP bypolls, in which they did not participate and BJP’s move to make 'love jihad' an electoral issue failed miserably, the Sangh workers are expected to give a boost to the BJP in the assembly polls. Add the Modi factor to the determined bid that the party intends to make and the challenge before Mamata or Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad may be formidable.
Playing Chinese Chequers
The RSS chief has, in sum and substance, called on the people to boycott Chinese goods. "Stop buying Chinese goods," he exhorted the assembly of RSS workers who had gathered for the annual speech at Nagpur, the city which houses the Sangh’s headquarters. In a way, Bhagwat found it contradictory that while, on the one hand, all attempts are made to fight back and foil Chinese incursions on the border, it is allowed to flood the country with its products. In a nutshell, the two approaches cannot exist simulteously; they have to be in harmony where the protection of the territory and border is as important as safeguarding the economy from predators.
"There is success (safalta) as long as you are self-reliant; there is prosperity (sammpanta) only when a country produces its own goods," he said in another context.
Checking Terror
Battling terror formed a large chunk of Bhagwat’s speech in which he blamed state governments for not taking enough or effective action to tackle the menace and, in a reference to global terror, held the West responsible for the growth and spread of a 'new incarnation' of terror, namely the Islamic State, in West Asia.
He saw the Jehadi and naxal terror groups posing a serious threat to national security and even though jehadi atrocities were increasing in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the state governments have not been acting effectively enough. In both states, the BJP is weak even though the RSS has a strong base of its own in Tamil Nadu. In the coming days, the Sangh workers are likely to make their presence felt in trying to build a base for the BJP. The space in Tamil Nadu has opened up to some extent with J Jayalalithaa in a Bangalore jail, the reins of the government in the hands of her aide O Panneerselvam and assembly elections slated in 2016.
In a direction as much to the Modi government as to state administrations and his own workers, he called for breaking the vicious cycle of terror and blamed the 'selfish interests' of the West for the emergence of a new terror body in India’s neighbourhood. "Self centred collective greed gives rise to exploitation, suppression, violence and fanaticism. The basis of selfish interests by the Western countries is fully responsible for a new incarnation of terror and fundamentalism that has emerged in West Asia in the name of ISIS which is terrorizing the world," he said.
Backing Modi
Modi, for one, would have been glad to hear Bhagwat’s speech before making his own thereafter on the radio. By patting him on the back for the direction his government has been taking, Bhagwat has nipped all speculation in the bud but there could be points of friction between the two given the fact that Modi was building himself up a personality cult—evidenced most recently during his US trip where frenzied supporters went 'Mo-di, Mo-di' ---and the other strongly believes in submerging one’s personality in the task of building the society and the nation in line with the Sangh’s thinking.
"The new government is not even six months old but there are positive signs from time to time which gives up hope," he said, appreciating the steps the PM has taken on national security, economy and international relations. He said that the new regime has to be given time to deliver. "We have to wait, have to give time. No one has a magic wand," he said, in a clear signal that Modi is the RSS’s man of the moment. But until the last person feels secure and prosperous the government’s job is not done, he added.
RSS, Hindutva & the Pandora’s Box
No Vijayadashami address is complete without an exposition on the RSS and Hindutva which is defined in terms of unity in plurality and which calls for elimination of religious, caste and other discriminations and divides and building social harmony (samajik samrasta).
Here again the face value of the statements is vastly different from the interpretation that is given to it at the ground level, where the call to remove all forms of distinctions is used to steamroll all plurality into a single entity and a marriage of a Hindu girl with a Muslim boy is viewed with a jaundiced eye, seen as an attempt at conversion and branded a 'love jehad'--- a holy war undertaken under the subterfuge of love—but to which Bhagwat made no reference in his speech.
"We have not changed anyone’s sanskriti (culture)," claimed Bhagwat, adding that the Sangh accepts the existence of different faiths. He was clearly addressing sections which believe otherwise about the RSS. "Sab hamare apne hain, sabko sweekar karo," he said, in an attempt to reach out to the minority communities, particularly the Muslims who are wary of the Sangh and its philosophy which they feel has no place for them.
In his speech, Bhagwat also urged the gathering to do their duty by their Hinduness by inculcating and teaching its values, ethos and culture to its young population starting from within the four walls of their homes with families sitting together, eating together and discussing together by keeping cricket and cinema out of this ambit. "We have to focus on our parivar and sanskar," he exhorted if the country has to build its inner strength. And if his message has found takers, the coming days might see an increase in RSS shakhas, its smallest unit, whose proliferation would lend muscle to the parent outfit and helps spread its ideology. After all, that was one of the main reasons behind the TV address.
But there is little doubt that by allowing Bhagwat’s Vijayadashami speech to be telecast Modi has stirred up a hornet’s nest and opened up a Pandora’s box. The coming days may see other outfits demanding their share of air time on the national hookup.
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