Repackaging the RSS

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>Title: Repackaging the RSS

>Author: Manini Chatterjee

>Publication: Indian Express

>Mar 15, 2003

>

>Last week in Nagpur, the RSS inducted new faces in a bid to

>invigorate its organisational muscle. But it may not be easy to

>insulate the shakha from the real world, says Manini Chatterjee

>Mohan Madhukarrao Bhagwat, re-elected Sarkaryavaha (general

>secretary) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the all

>India Pratinidhi Sabha of the organisation in Nagpur last week,

>bears a striking resemblance to Doctor Saheb, many a RSS

>worker gushingly insist. Doctor Saheb, of course, refers to Keshav

>Baliram Hedgewar, who founded the organisation in 1925 and became

>its first sarsanghchalak. None of the RSS swayamsevaks of today was

>around when Hedgewar died in 1940. But the frequent comparison

>between 53-year-old Bhagwat and the founder of the RSS is telling

>it not only indicates the veneration in which Hedgewar is held in

>RSS ranks, but also reveals the hope vested in Bhagwat to revamp

>the organisational muscle of the RSS at a time of great political

>and social churning.

>

>Although K S Sudarshan remains the sarsanghchalak (supremo), it is

>Bhagwat who is emerging as the real leader. His aversion to the

>media, cultivated aloofness towards politics, and total emphasis on

>organisational matters are qualities that make his resemblance to

>the founder more than just physical. A veterinary science graduate,

>with a pronounced dislike for political animals, Bhagwat is a third

>generation pracharak whose grandfather was among the first batch of

>volunteers who formed Hedgewars RSS.

>

>This time round, a generational change of sorts took place, with

>Bhagwat expanding the national executive from a 16-member to a

>22-member body, and inducting several new faces in the team. While

>Suresh Soni and Suresh (Bhayyaji) Joshi from the old team were

>elevated to the key posts of sah sarkaryavah (joint general

>secretaries), a number of relatively young men in their 40s and

>early 50s were brought in among them Dattatreya Hosabale, K C

>Kannan, Adhish Kumar, Laxmanrao Pardikar, and the new young

>spokesman Ram Madhav. Explaining the change, Ram Madhav said,

>Four or five youngsters make a lot of difference. In view of the

>growing requirements of the organisation, we need the guidance of

>seniors and the vigour and enthusiasm of the youngsters. (see

>interview)

>

>That men past 40 can be called youngsters is a telling comment

>on the real challenge being faced by the RSS, an organisation that

>prides itself on youth power. On the face of it, both RSS

>membership and spread is impressive. It remains, arguably, the

>biggest NGO in India today, with its own members as well as a

>plethora of front organisations working in every field of civil

>society in the country. According to the latest figures presented

>at the Nagpur meet, the total number of RSS upa shakhas (the

>primary unit) stands at 45,960. With 15 members on average per upa

>shakha, there are close to seven lakh men and boys who daily don

>their khaki shorts and attend the shakha. In addition, there are

>7,923 Saptahik Milans (weekly meetings) and 7,200 Mandalis

>(meetings of volunteers who do not attend daily or weekly shakhas.)

>Apart from the daily drill at the shakhas, the RSS also runs a

>gamut of social welfare activities. According to the annual

>report presented by Bhagwat to the delegates at Nagpur, RSS

>volunteers run 36,320 service programmes 809 organisations/

>trusts are involved in this activity which run 19,480 educational,

>4,977 medical, 7,477 social and 4,396 self-help programmes.

>

>It is this massive network that Bhagwat and his team want to

>strengthen and build on over the next three years. Delegates who

>attended the Nagpur session maintain that the discussions revolved

>only around organisation issues, with representatives from across

>the country reporting on the nature and progress of their shakhas

>and service programmes. Though the RSS remains the ideological

>mentor of the Hindutva forces, it is its organisational prowess

>that holds the key to its power. With the BJP in power at the

>Centre and the VHP making all the noises on ideological concerns,

>Bhagwats brief is to convert the conducive atmosphere into an

>instrument of social consolidation through the shakhas.

>Beneath the impressive statistics and gung-ho optimism, there is

>growing concern about how to attract young people to the shakhas,

>and more importantly, how to maintain the gunvatta (quality) of

>swayamsevaks. Though the number of shakhas has registered a rise

>each year, the average number of attendants has been on the

>decline. RSS members are loathe to give out figures that do not

>suit them, but they do concede that not enough young people are

>being drawn to the disciplined life of the swayamsevak. There are

>around 4,000 pracharaks (full time workers) but the base from which

>to draw them is decreasing.

>

>An RSS swayamsevak blamed the three Ts television, tuitions,

>and technology for the decline in the number of new recruits to

>the Sangh. The primary recruiting ground of the RSS has

>traditionally been students, preferably secondary school students.

>The five-fold division of the shakhas reflects this obsession: The

>first stage is the shishu shakha (6-10 years), followed by bal

>shakha (10-13), kishore shakha (14-21), tarun shakha (21-45) and

>praudh shakha (45+). There is no rigid compartmentalisation on the

>basis of age, but most RSS-BJP leaders of today, including Vajpayee

>and Advani, entered the RSS before they stepped into their teens.

>Many apolitical boys are first attracted to the shakhas because of

>the many games, sports and exercises that form the daily ritual,

>and are then slowly politicised (or poisoned, as their detractors

>prefer to put it) into the ideology of Hindutva. But with

>increasing competitiveness in society, coupled with consumerism and

>round-the-clock entertainment, young men prefer to watch cricket on

>TV or surf the net or swot for exams than play kabbadi and kho kho

>in the shakhas every evening, bemoans a former pracharak. The RSS

>has tried to keep up with the times by introducing other games

>(they no longer frown on cricket, for instance) and opening up chat

>rooms and websites dedicated to their activities. While the latter

>has increased RSS influence among NRIs, it hasnt quite compensated

>for the declining attendance in real, as opposed to virtual,

>shakhas.

>

>The other major cause of worry is the politicisation of the

>swayamsevak, thanks largely to the ascendancy of the BJP. The RSS

>has always claimed that character building is its primary aim

>and politics is anathema to it. Both Hedgewar and Golwalkar were

>keen to keep the organisation insulated from the corrosive effect

>of electoral politics, though the RSS under Golwalkar controlled

>the Jana Sangh right from its inception in 1951. His successor

>Balasaheb Deoras shifted gears and blessed the Jana Sanghs merger

>into the Janata Party. The BJP, born as it was as a result of the

>dual membership issue, was inextricably linked to the RSS and the

>umbilical cord is yet to be broken.

>

>The BJPs rise to power is, however, proving to be something of a

>double-edged sword for the RSS. At one level, its members attribute

>the rise of the BJP to the work done by the RSS both at the

>ideological and organisational level and want the BJP to follow

>their dictates. The frequency with which Sudarshan and Dattopant

>Thengadi has attacked policies of the BJP (Sudarshan even demanded

>the resignation of Brajesh Mishra, only to be snubbed by the PM)

>has shaken the image of the Sangh Parivar as Indias foremost Hindu

>Undivided Family. The greater cause of concern for the RSS,

>however, is not the occasional differences aired publicly but the

>corrosion in the quality of the average swayamsevak, who wants his

>share of the fruits of power. RSS members and fronts have figured

>in both the petrol pump and land allotment scams, and favour

>seekers at the lower levels are on the increase.

>

>Even while this phenomenon is dismissed as a minor aberration,

>BJP leaders concede that the real power of the RSS within the

>Parivar lies in its apolitical and incorruptible image. Pramod

>Mahajan, often regarded as a lapsed swayamsevak, likens the RSS to

>the third umpire. The Sanghs authority, he says, comes from

>its neutrality, its ability to have the last word when members of

>the family fight among themselves. But its word as third umpire is

>law because its strength comes from sacrifice, from a simple

>lifestyle, from objectivity, from ideology. Dismissing notions

>that the Sanghs authority over the BJP is on the decline, Mahajan

>says, This strength will always be there so long as they have

>these qualities. But there is a rider for these qualities to

>remain, the Sangh must eschew electoral politics. Mahajan quotes

>Golwalkar who reportedly said, A man can slip anywhere but

>politics is like a bathroom where the floor is that much more

>slippery. Though a veteran on slippery slopes, Mahajan would hate

>to see his erstwhile brethren in the RSS go on the same path.

>BJP vice-president Pyarelal Khandelwal, also an RSS man, echoes the

>same sentiment. The majority of RSS cadres has nothing to do with

>election politics. Those who want to do election politics do not

>remain pracharaks. If he joins politics, he will have to resign,

>and therefore the respect for the pracharak remains intact within

>the parivar, says Khandelwal.

>

>For all their avowals against politics, the RSS is and has always

>been an intensely political organisation, closely interacting and

>often interfering with its electoral wing, the BJP, from the mandal

>level upwards. It has also prospered greatly through the BJPs

>control over state power. Despite its tentacles in civil society,

>the RSS has always stood in fear of hostile governments (the

>leaderships efforts to get the ban on the organisation lifted in

>both 1948 and 1975 are testament to this) and taken advantage of a

>sympathetic government. The RSSs objective of creating a Hindu

>rashtra cannot bypass state power, and its leadership knows it.

>The challenge before the RSS is how to balance the benefits of

>power with the corrosion it inevitably brings. As Organiser editor

>and former RSS pracharak Seshadri Chari puts it, Applied ideology

>is likely to be different from theoretical ideology. The pulls and

>pressures of applied ideology are bound to affect the core

>ideology. What is important is to insulate this core ideology from

>fundamental distortion.

>

>He and many others view Mohan Bhagwats leadership as the

>much-needed insulator against the possibilities of a

>fundamental distortion in the RSSs austere style of functioning.

>For Bhagwat himself, the answer lies in going back to the shakhas.

>In a rare interview to the Organiser in March 2000, he said, We

>believe that the individual is the best instrument to effect change

>in the society. And shakha is the best instrument to create such

>individuals. Hedgewar said the same thing, but then he did not

>have the three Ts or indeed the three Ps (power, pelf, and

>politics) to contend with.

>

>

>

 

 

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