No room for complacency – A warning that BJP can’t deny

By MR Lalu

The Sangh (RSS) and the BJP are known to sing from the same hymn sheet. Both, being the proponents of the same nationalist view, holding the nation to be supreme, with its adorable motherhood, an ideal that they frequently declare that their lives are made to make a sacrifice for, have recently developed a slight ideological rift. The RSS began to feel that the BJP’s transformation under the powerful popularity of Prime Minister Modi has, to some extent, been underhanded and the results of national election 2024 evidently made this sense of understanding surface. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS Chief made unequivocal remarks on the power that the BJP was building around, and the party mechanism, according to him, needs to undergo an ideological overhauling. The drying up of the BJP’s electoral exchequer in the Hindutva heartlands especially in Uttar Pradesh might have triggered an intellectual churn in the Sangh. And the unambiguously uttered statements of the RSS Chief in the event held at Nagpur the other day must have pricked the BJP leadership.

His views being put for analysis, pundits seem to have understood the predicament that the saffron family, in the larger context, might have sensed. An electoral defeat to this magnitude was sure to invite criticisms and the RSS being a thought movement believes in dialogues and corrections. As for Narendra Modi, the Sangh cohorts understand the fact that he had never hesitated to express his association with the RSS as a pracharak (full time worker) and even today his ideological bonhomie with the organization is intact. His predecessor Vajpayee had been alert and conscious while he drew from the pages of his RSS days. He was certainly aware of the coalition compulsions. Probably, the congeniality of the coalition structure of politics made him choose the middle path of a conscience keeper among the alliance partners. He preferred to keep his Sangh ideology a personal brand of understanding but he was sure to keep it aside when coalition dharma needed a larger platform to create consensus. Modi never had to face such coalition compulsions. He has no experience of working under the compulsive dynamics of an alliance as his party always under him performed far better than its allies. Therefore, the question on how his administrative temperament and strict visionary zeal of being an unquestioned power center would support him run the coalition did not arise.

Vajpayee had a humorous way of handling his partners and he was ready to make policy adjustments in decision making. The RSS, being the largest ideological entity in the Sangh parivar, seems to have sensed Modi’s unchallenged wave of power that controlled the government for a decade. Coalition partners remained mute, invisible and frozen as and when the government decided to go with its earth shattering reforms. Modi’s unquestionable power rose to immeasurable heights as his party won 303 seats in 2019. His party and the RSS too, probably accepted the larger than life image of the Prime Minister. The statements of the RSS Chief passed tremors of discontent as it was possibly ignored and literally sidelined by the overconfident BJP leadership. There have been strict and decisive imprints of dissatisfaction in his words as he shed light on the horror that the state of Manipur has been through for more than a year. Indirectly, Mohan Bhagwat was holding the Modi government responsible for its failure as it was unable to chalk out a credible solution to check the ruthless bloodshed in the state.

Bhagwat’s strike on the BJP was precise, straight and unexpected. As usual, he was composed and kept the manners of great intellectualism of an orator. His words were loaded with humility.  But, of course, they intended to warn the political party that was born and grown as an ideological offshoot of the Sangh. “A true sevak (one who serves the people) does not have “ahankar” (arrogance) and works without causing any hurt to others,” he said. We have no reason to be confused as the statement was a straight shot from the quiver of dogmas of the Sangh and the target was the Prime Minister. The poll campaign this time was verbally violent and disrespectfully shot in haste on the opponents. Neither the Prime Minister nor his cohorts in the party nor even the opposition paused for a restraint. The aggressive narrative war brought the entire campaign down to mere mudslinging. The RSS chief’s critical examination further reiterated as to who a true sevak is. “The one who maintains decorum does his work, but remains unattached. There is no arrogance that I did this. Only such a person has the right to be called a sevak,” he said.

The writing on the wall is clear. The RSS, though it never hesitates to support the BJP, has now come out with warning signals against the personality cult in the party. The Sangh believes with certainty that organization is above people. It also believes with conviction that nobody in the doctrinal framework of the Sangh Parivar enjoys the power of an emperor. Highlighting the pre-poll gimmicks of the ruling party indirectly, the Sangh chief’s words were to set the thought process in the BJP right. Stressing hard on the need for consensus in the parliament, Bhagwat appeared to have literally passed a leaf of reminder for the BJP and its leadership. That the government without consensus being built cannot push for reforms. Elected members, irrespective of their strength in numbers, hold complete right to know the policy mobilization and ‘consensus’ is the catchphrase that in practice makes the government run smoothly. Bhagwat’s decisive remarks force us to go back to the days of Vajpayee’s coalition government. Politics, being an art of compulsion, demands Vajpayee’s accommodative, inclusive and consensual behavior.

Prime Minister Modi, in the last decade of his administration had never been forced to change his self-willed and as he is frequently criticized, his independent style of functioning. Moreover, the most critical element that sticks out with uncertainty and waiting for a way to get enhanced in the coalition regime is his party’s hardcore Hindutva ideology. Bhagwat, politely reminding the government and its leadership about the value of consensus, does a great service. He doesn’t ask the party to sit back and cry. But his ammunition is aptly dropped on the arrogance that the party was loaded with. While trying to understand the tectonic ideological shift in the RSS, it was Bhagwat whose outreaching efforts to the Muslim clergy recently made headlines. Almost a hundred years now, the RSS and its present chief realize that the BJP, if left without being strictly toned down, would become a political catastrophe. The ‘Congressization’ of the BJP has already begun. The Sangh seems to have taken its ‘Tutor’s Stick’ to teach the party a lesson. The RSS wants the saffron party to survive in power.

(Author is freelance journalist and social worker based in Kerala. The views expressed are personal opinion of the author.)