Right Word | How and why the relationship between RSS and BJP has worked so well

The Narendra Modi government will complete eight years in power on 30 May this year. During these eight years, the critiques and detractors of this government have often accused the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), its leader Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS) tandem of implementing a divisive agenda. Nothing could be farther from the truth and the way these detractors have changed the pitch and their stance over the last eight years regarding this narrative reminds one of chameleons. It also indicates that they have no clue about how the RSS works and what are the dynamics of relationship between the RSS, BJP and the Modi government. But first, let’s take a look at the three phases of this ‘false’ narrative. First Phase The first phase of this anti-Modi narrative started immediately after the BJP’s historical victory in the 2014 polls. A buzz was created around an imaginary tussle between Modi and RSS. The most common and utterly baseless argument was put forward as to how Modi will now dominate Sangh. Nothing of that sort happened because Modi who has spent his formative years in Sangh as a Pracharak. Both he and Sangh know each other too well. There was no dichotomy in this relationship and hence no question of any power struggle Second Phase The second phase of the ‘Modi vs RSS’ narrative had started in run-up to the 2019 polls. It was again falsely portrayed that everything wasn’t right between the RSS and Modi. This time, an attempt was made to build a false narrative that Sangh was trying to dominate the Modi government. Ironically, many of the analysts and commentators who were helping to build this narrative went overboard to highlight the role played by the RSS in ensuring a landslide for the BJP. Third Phase The third phase started with the annulment of Article 35A and the amendment of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 and gained momentum with the beginning of the construction of the Ram Temple in 2020. From 2019 onwards the detractors of Modi and the RSS built a narrative that both the Modi government and the RSS are working hand in glove with a so-called ‘divisive’ agenda to build a Hindu Rashtra. However, the BJP’s emphatic victory in the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa with support from all sections of society and the way RSS worked during Covid for providing relief across the country irrespective of caste, creed and religion have punctured this narrative also. Understanding the RSS-BJP relationship These ‘false’ narratives indicate not only deliberate mischief but to some extent a lack of understanding about the RSS-BJP relationship also. This relationship has evolved over a period of almost seven decades. Understanding this organic relationship is the key to deciphering the relationship between the Modi government and RSS. This relationship had begun with the formation of Bharatiya Jana Sangh(BJS) the erstwhile avatar of the BJP. The BJS was formed in 1951 by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee with a handful of RSS volunteers who were ‘loaned’ out by the RSS for this new political outfit to help it build up an organisational structure. [caption id=“attachment_10673401” align=“alignnone” width=“630”]  The RSS training camps would help one understand how there is a continuous inflow of highly dedicated and committed cadres with perfect ideological clarity that brings crores of swayamsevaks on the same page. AFP/File[/caption] In subsequent years the BJS continued to expand and the RSS kept on sending some of its volunteers and some of its Pracharaks(full-time workers), whenever an ask for the same, came to the RSS leadership from the BJS. Because the RSS Pracharaks had to work for building the organisation in BJS and later BJP, so they were traditionally given the responsibility of organisational secretaries. In common parleys, they were called ‘Sangathan mantri’. As the organisation expanded they were ably assisted by some deputies called ‘sah sangathan mantri’ (assistant organisational secretaries) After the BJS tasted some success in the electoral arena and formed a coalition government in some of the provinces in 1967, some of the RSS volunteers who had been absorbed in the BJS also started holding important positions in the government. While all this was happening, the RSS didn’t pursue any specific agenda or tried to exert its clout in the governments. Its one-point agenda was that of nation-building. And the organisation was confident that its volunteers who have joined politics and are holding important positions have already been well trained in the RSS shakhas to do what they need to do. So, there wasn’t any need to thrust any agenda on them. They would do whatever they could for nation-building. And if they needed any guidance, support or help, they would contact the RSS functionaries. This ‘working arrangement’ was built on the foundation of mutual trust, confidence in each other and a deep understanding that politics has its own compulsions too and hence one shouldn’t overburden the swayamsevaks with any unreasonable expectations. They would do their best for the nation being in the government or in politics. This relationship didn’t change even after the BJS merged into Janata Party that came into power in 1977. The BJS stalwarts — Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was an RSS Pracharak, and LK Advani, a former RSS Pracharak — became ministers at the Centre for the first time. But this equation between the RSS and the BJS leaders remained the same. Under the Vajpayee-led government, this idiom didn’t change and neither it has changed during Modi’s regime. What the Modi government has done is implement the promises it made in its party’s manifesto. This manifesto is a manifestation of an agenda of nation-building and not of a particular organization or ideology. The BJP and the RSS are on the same page as far as this agenda is concerned because as mentioned earlier this is an agenda of ‘nation building’ and not a parochial view of creating benefits for a particular community. The country has suffered this ‘parochial and divisive agenda’ under subsequent Congress governments since the independence of the country. What RSS and Modi have been trying to do is to undo the damage done in the past and start afresh the process of nation-building. That’s why they do not see issues from the binary lens of majority-minority. So, the BJP and the RSS are not alternative power centres, they are working towards the same goal albeit in different domains. While the RSS is trying to bring this transformation through more than 60,000 shakhas, more than three-dozen social organisations run by its volunteers and two lakh welfare projects on the ground for all sections of the society, the Modi government is utilising the resources available with the ‘state’ to do this. There is an apparent synergy between these efforts; however, at times, they might be seen as having different approaches to the same issue. The fundamentals of this approach from both sides are the same, the differences are an outcome of the fact that while the RSS working directly with society, Modi is utilising the mass base of the BJP and the state machinery to pursue the agenda of nation-building. When the tools are different, there are bound to be some differences in approach towards some issues also. Terming them as a power struggle between RSS and Modi government or between the RSS and the BJP is unfair and unreasonable. The question within the RSS has been long settled about its role in politics. After the first ban on the RSS was lifted in 1949, there was an extensive debate within the organisation as to what role RSS should play in politics. The backdrop of this debate was that no political party stood by the RSS when a ban was wrongfully imposed on it by the ruling Congress to target and finish it. Thousands of its cadres had suffered imprisonment, arson, violence, and loot. But no one spoke for it. After detailed internal discussions, the RSS had decided that it wouldn’t participate in politics directly, nor would it participate in any government; however, its volunteers can go out and work in the field of politics also. If they need any guidance and support for nation-building, the RSS will do whatever it can without any expectations. That is what the RSS still continues to do. And that is how this relationship has worked so well. The writer, an author and columnist, has written several books. 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