Mohan Bhagwat's Speech Confirms That RSS' 'Open Licence' to Modi is Under Review

Multiple instances now cast a shadow on the once harmonious relationship between the RSS and the BJP.

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat addressing an RSS gathering in Nagpur. 

(Photo: PTI)

The BJP's impatience and overconfidence ... The party paid a heavy price for its haste, arrogance and some strategic blunders.

It is likely that if quizzed on who might have made this statement and when, almost every reader would confidently assert that this is an analyst’s line in the course of an article or a sound bite, dissecting reasons behind the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) relatively poor performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, compared to 2014 and 2019. However, that would be an incorrect call, for the line is from an issue of the India Today magazine, dated 24 May 2004, its first edition after the stunning defeat of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP. 

In those polls, called six months earlier because he had been lulled into believing his electoral hegemony, one of the reasons why the BJP unexpectedly lost power, was the lack of eagerness to campaign for BJP candidates within the cadre and leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

On Mohan Bhagwat's Speech

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s recent statement from the organisation’s headquarters in Nagpur, at the conclusion of an important event, carries a sense of déjà vu. However, unlike the Sarsanghchalak in 2004, KS Sudarshan, known for his outspokenness and giving a ‘provocative copy’ or ‘juicy bite’ for the print and TV media respectively, Bhagwat is given to speaking in nuances. 

Even by his standards, however (although he did not name anyone), Bhagwat has publicly shared his dissonance with the way the BJP brass conducted itself during the elections.

The only proper noun used by him was Manipur, and on that, there was only one thing to say — it is more than one year since the state has been rocked by violence and it was high time that the resolution of the conflict was prioritised.

There is little doubt regarding who he had in mind when laying down the necessities for anyone to be called a “true sevak”. Those attributes are now certainly that of the person who calls himself the country’s Pradhan Sevak and not Prime Minister.

Bhagwat also thumbed down the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, saying that there must be “limits to pushing” adversaries out of the race besides ensuring that the “contest was not based on lies.”

From making claims that the Congress manifesto was effectively that of the Muslim League to asserting that the Congress party would seize valuables of the poor and distribute it “among those with more children,” Modi’s speeches were a string of untruths or at best half-truths. Bhagwat did not specify who he accused of lying but also did not ensure that listeners did not draw their own conclusions. 

He also added that in a democracy, there are two sides, like in a coin, and the opponent should not be called virodhi (hostile adjective to describe an opponent) but should be seen as the pratipaksh (anti-thesis or counterpart). Since 2014, the adversary, political opponent, or dissenters have been routinely depicted as anti-nationals, as only the official version is considered the truth.

Furthermore, he came down heavily on leaders who developed arrogance after executing particular projects. “She/he should work, but should not display conceit for having performed the designated role.”

Not Just Bhagwat, Look at What Others Have Said

Bhagwat’s statement has to be seen within the context of several couched and not-so-couched assertions and articles by people within the Sangh Parivar. Firstly, former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, while addressing graduating students of the Institute of Rural Management in Gujarat, as the Chief Guest of its 43rd convocation, said that "there is a message in the election, and I hope that people understand the message."

Naidu’s argument was unambiguous, that the “values, work for the downtrodden, taking care of the oppressed, suppressed, and depressed people, Gandhiji’s Antyodaya, Ambedkarji’s Antyodaya — taking care of the poorest of the poor — that should be top of our mind.” 

Given that economic reasons and livelihood concerns of the people were significant factors behind the BJP’s considerably reduced tally, it is evident that according to Naidu, the verdict delivered a message regarding the same to the BJP brass.

Days after the results were declared, an RSS veteran who was once deputed to the BJP, Ram Madhav, wrote an article in the Indian Express in which he confessed to being “flabbergasted by the results,” especially in Uttar Pradesh which was the “biggest setback and embarrassment for the ruling party.” The BJP now had to begin with “serious introspection”, although from that day, as evidenced in the victory speeches of Modi and JP Nadda at the party headquarters in New Delhi, this is clearly not being done.

Referring to the return of coalition politics, Madhav recalled that Mahatma Gandhi, who introduced Indians to coalitions, succeeded due to “humility and civility, qualities that the Indian polity is in dire need of.” He, like Bhagwat, neither singled out anyone for this message nor did he exclude anyone from this. Readers are free to draw the assumption that the one pushing his own cult, with slogans like Modi Ki Guarantee and Modi Ka Parivar, should be served a reminder about the Gandhian way. 

At around the same time, the tonality of an article in the RSS’s weekly organ, The Organiser, was also clear. Headlined, Modi 3.0: Conversation for course correction, the article, written by a writer/thinker associated with the Sangh Parivar, was definite that this verdict was “an indicator that BJP needs to go in for course correction.”

The Tightrope That Modi Has to Walk on Will Become Tighter

All the aforementioned instances now casting a shadow on the once harmonious relationship between the RSS and the BJP, were preceded by the startling interview that Nadda gave to the Indian Express. In this, he bluntly stated that “Shuru mein hum aksham honge, thora kum honge, RSS ki zaroorat padti thi, aaj hum badh gaye hain, saksham hai, toh BJP apne aap ko chalati hai.“ (In the beginning, we would have been less capable, smaller, and needed the RSS. Today, we have grown and we are capable. And so, the BJP runs its affairs on its own.) 

The assertion was little but a boast about the BJP’s ‘arrival’ and that there was ‘no longer’ the necessity of any assistance from the RSS. More than the leadership, this got the goat of the network of swayamsevaks. Bhagwat’s statement is just not a reflection of this, but is also a confirmation of the functional parting of ways, even while the two remain part of the same ideological fraternity. 

For the past several years, the RSS disagreed with the emphasis on the vyakti (individual) over the sangathan (organisation), a principle that is paramount within the RSS credo. The RSS accepted Modi's undoing this for two reasons.

One, the Modi government pursued programmes most commonly perceived as the Sangh Parivar’s primary objectives: the Ram temple, the abrogation of Article 370, the pursuit of a nationwide Uniform Civil Code, altering study material and curricula, and so on. 

The second reason why the RSS did not resist the Modi style of governance and managing the BJP, was that numerous people drawn from the Sangh Parivar ecosystem were suitably placed in crucial state positions from where they could influence ideological narratives in Indian society. 

The open licence to Modi came under review and was eventually withdrawn once the RSS realised that while it had long-term objectives, Modi and his core team were driven by imperatives of his tenure and at best, facilitating succession by a member of Modi’s core team.

Even though curtness between the two organisations has a history, the relationship between the two has clearly hit rock bottom. The ball is undeniably in the BJP's court if it wishes to restore the relationship to what it was prior to the changes in this period. 

Although Modi is, as he once dramatically declared to a journalist from the Reuters news agency, an instinctive “Hindu nationalist”, he also is against the collegial style of functioning and works for the concentration of power on only one pair of hands. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Modi’s BJP will aim to make its ties with the RSS harmonious once again. It, however, is also unlikely that the RSS will campaign against the BJP of the day and weaken the party.

But the RSS will also no longer rein in the nearly forty affiliates that are active in different sectors of society, be it organisations for professionals like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh to economic groups like Swadeshi Jagran Manch and those engaged in the realm of religion, like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, and the Hindu Rashtra Sena.

A discrete message to leaders of these outfits that they are free to further their interests and not hold back because it may jeopardise the government’s position, would be all that is required for Modi to face political challenges. 

After losing his majority in the Lok Sabha, Modi will have to ward off trials from three fronts: The Opposition, coalition partners, and Sangh Parivar affiliates. This will make the tightrope that he has to manoeuvre, tighter.  

(The writer’s latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)