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The Union government’s uncalled-for decision to lift the almost five decades-old prohibitory order on government employees participating in activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has to be placed within the context of the plummeting ties between the Nagpur-headquartered ideological fountainhead and the Bharatiya Janata Party, especially the equation between sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At the outset, it needs to be comprehended that the forgotten order, dated to 1966, ten months after Indira Gandhi assumed the office of prime minister, and its subsequent renewals in 1970 and 1980, also during her separate tenures, did not remotely hinder the rise and growth of the Hindutva-advocating outfit in recent decades.
The order may initially have had a crushing impact on the aspirations of the RSS, which till the mid-1960s, undeniably carried the stigma of being accused in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, an event that led to the first of the bans on it. The other two occasions when the RSS was banned by the Centre were during the Emergency and in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s demolition.
However, in recent decades, the mainstreaming of the Hindu nationalistic political consciousness (courtesy of the ceaselessly increasing popularity of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement through the 1980s and later decades) continued unabated, paradoxically even through the decade-long rule of the United Progressive Alliance. This has only been given official sanction since 2014.
It is a known fact that the RSS brass has had access to the highest echelons of the government, and the participation of public servants in shakhas or other programmes of the organisations is no longer essential for enhancing the influence of the Sangh Parivar. In fact, the influence of the RSS on policymaking has increased manifold over Modi's two previous tenures.
That this has continued over the past decade despite the initial order dated 11 November 1966 being in place, indicates that the RSS has long made the directive irrelevant. The growth and spread of Hindutva demonstrate that the shakha and other scheduled functions no longer act as the fundamental driving force for the organisation’s growth.
Instead, more effective methods and tactics have been used, both within the mainstream socio-political process through the 40-odd-affiliated organisations of the RSS, and also outside the formal network where the insidious Hindutva ideology is fanned by groups and people termed naively as ‘fringe forces'.
The RSS and the politics it advocates is given a far greater impetus by an official action like the Uttar Pradesh government’s order for the display of stall-owners’ names along the Kanwar Yatra route, than by shakhas attended by sarkari babus in towns and cities that fall in the way of this "religious journey".
Instead of merely fretting solely over the fact that the line of separation between religion and its representative institutions and the state should be inviolable, it would be prudent for analysts to pose an inherently political question: If non-participation of government employees did not so far impede the rise and growth of the RSS and its affiliates, why did the first coalition government under Modi risk another volley of criticism from its allies, like the Kanwar Yatra matter?
Related to this is another matter – has the government’s decision to issue the ‘office memorandum’ dated 9 July, in any way gladdened the RSS leadership to an extent that they would stop hurling not-so-disguised barbs at Modi personally?
Since 2013 itself, it was evident that Modi’s acceptance as the BJP’s electoral mascot was deemed tactically necessary by the RSS brass. As Modi consolidated power in his hands after ascending to the PM’s seat, there was no doubt that his approach of giving primacy to himself, or the individual (vyakti) over the organisation (sangathan) (in RSS parlance), was disapproved by the organisation’s leadership, including Bhagwat.
Yet, it was also noted that Modi had decided to pay a ‘price’ for building a cult around his personality. This was in the form of ideological purity on the majority of socio-political programmes — turning a blind eye to the false narrative of Love Jihad, the rise of vigilantism against falsely accused Muslim traders of cows and their meat in the early phase of Modi 1.0, the serial initiatives starting with the bill against Triple Talaq, the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of the Citizens’ Amendment Bill.
The government under Modi also took care of deputing key functionaries and academics associated with the Sangh Parivar in crucial positions within the system. Besides propelling Modi-centrism as the cornerstone of governance, the prime minister also brooked no interference on his economic policies, choices, and initiatives.
In spite of that, it was evident that Nagpur’s acquiescence would not be infinite and that sooner or later there will be resistance to Modi’s ways, only that this would get triggered by fear that the prime minister was jeopardising the regime.
As the Lok Sabha election campaign gathered momentum earlier this year, a sense began spreading that the euphoria over the Ram Temple consecration had dissipated, and if not disinterest, people were unwilling to wow the rituals performed by Modi. For all his ability to read the political hawa, Modi stumbled in realising that after the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict of November 2019, the temple was considered a ‘given’ and it could no longer be milked electorally.
Soon, anecdotal reports began circulating which spoke about the absence of the RSS karyakartas in the electoral campaign. The worryingly low turnout in the first phase of polling and Modi resorting to depicting Muslims as “those who have more children” are signs now recognised as the point of realisation that the electoral narrative had slipped out of hand.
At almost halfway point into polling, Modi's camp, instead of placating the RSS leadership and cajoling them into campaign mode. For example, JP Nadda made a statement steeped in haughtiness, “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. The BJP runs itself.). That’s the difference.”
Only those with little awareness of the control that Modi exercises over loyalists would contend that the BJP president made the statement of his own volition. In all likelihood, the statement was a deliberate tit-for-tat move in the mistaken belief that Modi was still the undiminished political giant of 2019.
It did not take long for the RSS to hit back. Days after the BJP’s stunning electoral reverse, Bhagwat made five primary points while addressing a formal RSS function:
That a true sevak is never arrogant and works without hurting others;
That the Sangh was unnecessarily dragged into a controversy during the campaign
That elections should be viewed as competition and not war
That the Opposition should never be depicted as virodhi paksh but as pratipaksh
And that during elections, basic decorum must be maintained but this was missing in 2024
The sarsanghchalak also raked up continuing violence in Manipur and expressed displeasure at the BJP leadership’s decision to allow the violence to linger on.
Days ago, there was confirmation that the RSS leadership’s continuing pique was over Modi’s ways, especially his propensity to drape himself with a halo of holiness. Besides the barb on man projecting himself as God, in which the intended target was obvious, the RSS chief also said that “a karyakarta' (worker) should think that although he has done a lot, but still, much is still pending because there is always scope to do more. The solution will only come if the development is done continuously.”
The statement marked a divergence between the Sangh and Modi. While the former views issues in the long term, Modi is a man of the moment.
Quite obviously, the order rescinding the participation of government employees in its activities has not exactly led to the RSS camp declaring a détente. Despite the order not impeding the organisation’s growth in recent decades, its withdrawal marks another step in ‘the formal’ recognition of the RSS as a ‘legitimate’ organisation.
Regardless of the course of events in the ‘divided’ saffron family, we must also recognise that the RSS camouflages itself as a cultural organisation. The actuality, however, is that the RSS at its core is a political organisation, despite not being a direct player in electoral politics.
Its ‘symbioticness’ with the BJP and the fact that both its prime ministers so far, AB Vajpayee and Modi, were former pracharaks, and that it routinely deputes its whole timers to the BJP, clearly establishes the RSS as a political organisation believing in and propagating Hindu majoritarianism. Its identity also overlaps the domain of religion because the RSS credo often uses religion and culture as synonyms.
Opposition to the withdrawal of the 1966 order has to be cautiously articulated and its character should not provide any opportunity for the fractured Sangh Parivar to close its ranks by citing ‘threat’ from ‘enemies’ of the nation – a phoney narrative that Modi is a master in pursuing.
(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.)
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