Why the BJP lords over the RSS

Why the BJP lords over the RSS
Neerja Chowdhury

Last week the Prime Minister gave awards to eight journalists at a function organised by the RSS weekly Panchjanya. Atal Bihari Vajpayee walked on to the stage at Vigyan Bhavan where other important leaders waited for him, including RSS chief K.S. Sudershan.

Vajpayee did not even once look at Sudershan although he sat beside him; he headed straight for the lamp which he was to light to inaugurate the function. He gestured to L.K. Advani to come along with him. Advani motioned to Sudershan to come with them as well. A diffident looking RSS chief followed and stood behind Vajpayee. After the PM had lit the lamp, Advani again gestured to Sudershan to light it.

Initially, Vajpayee handed over the prizes on his own. Sudershan half stood up not knowing what to do, betraying an unease. The organisers then nudged Sudershan to hand over the shawls, the momentoes and the cheques toVajpayee who then gave away the prizes. Later, the RSS chief showered praise on Vajpayee, hailing him as the best coalition PM. His praise came just five days after he had dubbed the PMO as "incompetent." (Although that criticism was retracted four hours later).

The episode encapsulates the changing relations between the RSS and the BJP today. It is not anymore the Sangh which is dictating to the BJP. It is the party which is asserting vis-a-vis the Sangh. The BJP leaders have emerged taller compared to those in the Sangh. In the last eight years it is Advani who has influenced the RSS thinking on important issues rather than the other way round.

The change of relationship between the BJP and the RSS started soon after the death of Bhaurao Deoras (brother of RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras) in 1992. Bhaurao Deoras often gave the BJP a political direction. He floated the idea that the Congress and the BJP must work in tandem for the national interest.

The problems between the RSS and the BJP were manageable during Rajju Bhaiyya's stewardship of the Sangh despite the party being in power. The reason: Vajpayee's rapport with the RSS chief. The PM prevailed upon Rajju Bhaiyya to continue as RSS chief for a longer period despite the latter's ill-health. At the end of the same Panchjanya function, the PM waited for ten minutes for Rajju Bhaiyya to come out of the hall to greet him. Right from day one Vajpayee and Sudershan clashed. It was Sudershan who prevented Jaswant Singh, Vajpayee's first choice, from becoming finance minister.

Since its inception in 1925, the RSS has survived bans on more than one occasion: After Mahatma Gandhi's murder, during the Emergency and in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The identity crisis the RSS faces today stems much more from challenges inside than outside the Sangh Parivar. There is little doubt that the importance of the RSS has increased with the BJP coming to power. Many of its swayamsevaks have tasted power. Others, left out of the loop, are frustrated. They have to hear taunts of "yeh to tumhari sarkar hai" but the BJP councillor, MLA, MP has no time for them.

The economics of Swadeshi, propounded by the RSS has been turned on its head. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, a trade union affiliate of the Sangh Parivar has not been given its due under the NDA government. Though unhappy with the government the RSS is unwilling to destabilise it. The alternative would be worse.

The Sangh is not clear about the extent to which it should influence the policies of the Government. Should it have a say in the kind of people who should contest for Parliament, or the kind who should become ministers, or even the code of conduct for BJP MPs Jana Krishnamurthy is talking about? It is no longer clear about its relationship with a BJP in power at the head of a coalition. The recent retraction by Sudarshan on the "incompetent" PMO is an illustration of the RSS dilemma.

There is growing resistance within the BJP to be dictated by the Sangh on affairs of the state. Vajpayee views himself in the mould of Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the founder of the Jan Sangh. Although Mookherjee subscribed to a Hindu nationalist identity yet he was wary of the party becoming an affiliate of the RSS. After Mookherjee's death in the early '50s, the RSS asserted its control over the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. The wheel has come full circle now, with the dominance of the RSS over the BJP beginning to wane.

Governments are rarely influenced by those who inspire them. Gandhi became irrelevant once the Congress assumed power in 1947. He had called upon the Congress to disband itself into a Lok Sevak Sangh. Ram Manohar Lohia met a similar fate when the non-Congress governments came to power in the states in 1967. Jayaprakash Narayan could not rein in the Janata Party Government in 1977 despite providing the vision of `total revolution'. Today the RSS finds itself in the same dilemma.