Mainstream WeeklyFor long fellow journalists have been reassuring us sceptics that it is the Rashtirya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) which will soon unseat Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Man Friday Union Home Minister Amitbhai Shah for the two are becoming a liability to the RSS.
I have never taken this bait and the latest Vijay Dashmi address of RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat has only proved me right insofar as it showed how Bhagwat faithfully echoed whatever said or did.
Mohan Bhagwat’s traditional Vijay Dashmi speech at the Sangh headquarters at Nagpur on October 20 gave a clear indication that he and the Sangh stood solidly behind Modi and his actions be it the wholesale deletion of over 13 crore votes across the country of the minorities and other marginalised sections of the Hindu society while adding proportionately lakhs of dubious names in the voters’ list through the controversial Special Intensive Review (SIR) conducted by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar Gupta, or adopting Zionist Israel as “our Fatherland’ or snuggling close to US president Donald Trump.
The special invitation extended to Israeli Consul General in India Yaniv Revach for midwest region, was in effect a tacit approval of Modi pronouncing Israel as the Fatherland of all Indians. A red herring was thrown though to confuse observers by inviting former Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankar who was sacked midstream by Modi and Amit Shah. He is anyway of little consequence and perhaps that was to mislead the world outside that Bhagwat is defiant of Modi. But the speech itself was a giveaway as reported widely by the Indian Express.
Forgetting the Sangh sponsorship of the Anna Hazare movement of April 2011, and Baba Ramdev dharna thereafter against the UPA government, Bhagwat warned now that disruptive protests were becoming tools in the hands of politicians (read Rahul Gandhi and the Left). He said, “They claim that changing a regime will change the situation, but that has never happened.”
Repeating Modi’s oft stated allegations, Bhagwat claimed some foreign powers were thwarting India’s bid to become a super power (Vishwaguru) as Modi and Amit Shah have often alleged from public platforms. Upholding MoSha’s, latest tool of communalising the Indian polity by underlining the necessity to sing all the six stanzas of Vande matram, in spite of communal allusions, while sidelining the pre-eminence of our national anthem, Bhagwat too underscored the need for the entire nation to sing all six stanza of Vande Matram. As in the past he blamed the communal interpretation of Vande Matram to Lord Curzon, acquitting Bankim Chandra Chateerjea, the author of the anti-Muslim novel Anand Math and the similar theme in the last four stanza of Vande Matram.
During the 1998-2004 era of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and L.K. Advani the super boss of that government, virtually running that government, there were still signs of the RSS managing to guide that government not entirely but considerably.
In that era there was still some degree of genuine disagreement between RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan and Prime Minister Vajpayee. Soon after assuming office the then president of the BJP, M. Venkaiah Naidu was reportedly despatched to the Prime Minister to vacate the PM chair for Advani and move to Rashtrapati Bhawan. Vajpayee reportedly rejected the suggestion and chose A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at the instance of Mulayam Singh Yadav as the NDA candidate and with SP support Kalam sailed through that presidential election. Even the Congress was left with no choice but to fall in line lest it was labelled by the BJP/RSS as anti-national and the SP as anti-Muslim. Only the Left had the courage to field Captain Lakshmi Sehgal of the Indian National Army (INA) of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and oppose Kalam.
By the end of 2003, Advani had become stronger following the sweeping victory of Narendra Modi in the Gujarat assembly elections on the rabid communal agenda in his first test as a real leader. His, and the Sangh writ ran in that government with ‘secular’ allies like the DMK and Ram Vilas Paswan and even Arif Mohammad Khan then not only distancing themselves from that government but switching sides and aligning with the Congress instead. Nevertheless, I remember that meeting on the lawns of the Prime Minister’s residence where Venkaiah made that memorable speech, in which he virtually announced that the next elections due in mid-2004 would be led by Advani. And Vajpayee replied to this in sarcasm by his significant comment “na tired, na retired, Advani ji ke netritiva mein…”
My point is that the RSS considered the so-called secular allies a baggage to be thrown out of the speeding train so that their government could return unapologetically to Hindutva agenda along with right wing economic policies as also greater and evident fraternity with the United States of America, particularly with the conservative Republicans and the Zionist Israelis and enforce such policies with a vengeance. Was that the reason why the BJP led NDA lost to as yet amorphous Opposition led by Sonia Gandhi in 2004? Besides, there were many a pro-BJP/RSS journalist, who became openly critical of the scams and acts of that government. For instance, a much-respected Hindi journalist. I prefer not to name, was the one who broke the story of the Hawala dealer Amir bhai on Red Alert, returning to India after the Delhi High court judge Mohammad Shameem discharged Advani in the Hawala scam case. The Airport customs authorities detained him for a couple of days, but the CBI, naturally under Advani, despite being informed, turned a deaf ear and eventually the authorities had no option but to let go Amir Bhai.
But soon after the 2009 elections wherein the BJP faced a more humiliating defeat to the Sonia Gandhi/Manmohan Singh duo there were murmurs in the Sangh/BJP circles that Advani was not the right candidate to lead them to the next general elections. But Advani did not give up and on his behalf K.N. Govindacharya, Subramaniam Swamy and a host of other overt and covert BJP supporters including the media, specially the TV news channels started running the campaign against the UPA government as corrupt and incompetent, which was far from truth. But such was the Sangh penetration in the media that the TV channels in particular went to town each day condemning the UPA government as corrupt and incompetent.
RSS led by Bhagwat was in full steam and worked hard to discredit Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. However much as Advani and his followers in the Sangh and BJP believed they were working for making him the next prime minister. Bhagwat and many others had different plans. They had set their eyes on Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi. Soon as Modi overwhelmingly won the Gujarat assembly elections once more, the Sangh was no more in confusion that Modi was their man. Advani and his loyalists like Sushma Swaraj refused to go to the Mumbai BJP national executive to endorse Modi’s name, for which Advani was humiliated by the later day important BJP leader Tajinder Singh Bagga and his handful of followers who stood outside Advani’s Prithviraj Raj Road bungalow with a garland of chappals to greet him with if he came out. I don’t know if he succeeded eventually because I left the place before they dispersed. But Bagga was promoted thereafter, showing that the command had shifted from Advani to Bhagwat now. Modi was still to enter the enter the electoral arena for the 2014 elections.
Soon after Modi became the Prime Minister Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal proudly announced to the media here in Delhi that Hindus have finally been liberated after 1000 years. And Modi became the uncrowned monarch of the Hindutva forces. Many of those so-called principled journalists and analysts who were vocal and critical of the Vajpayee/Advani regime, were drafted in by giving them high offices. After this Bhagwat is powerless in front of Modi. Even if he wanted to question Modi, he knows two things. It will make no difference to Modi because he is no more dependent on Bhagwat for mobilising Sangh men for any occasion, like the way they came out with lathis and other arms in Connaught Place to assault the protester women and men seeking Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Gupta’s resignation for the Special Intensive Review (SIR) scam.
Therefore, the most convenient option for Bhagwat was to quietly fall in line and echo Modi mantra. And what better occasion than the annual Vijay Dashmi address.