Why Congress should limit its political antics to BJP and not train guns on RSS

“Democracy is under threat” is not just a dictum but, more importantly, a clique! Dictum, yes, but also a pontificating platitude since 2014. Clique for the fact that there is an entire cabal that expounds this maxim almost every day, to the point where the adage “old wine in a new bottle” is no longer applicable. Repeating the line “India is broken” and “Congress is here to fix it” is just another day in the life of a typical Congress worker. This can be safely extrapolated to the entire opposition, which accuses the BJP of “breaking India” and touts itself as vying for “the idea of India” that the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, stood for.

In the process of “reclaiming India” from the clutches of the purportedly “fascist regime”—which of course enjoys the landslide majority in the democratic setup of Bharat—reviling and traducing the BJP and the RSS is just business as usual. Whether it’s hurling expletives at former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or vilifying nationalist icons like Veer Savarkar, MS Golwalkar, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s centenary mother, it’s all icing on the cake for a privileged opposition that tom-toms their respective parties’ historic and democratic credentials. It does rather seem outlandish and futile for a party to contest elections in a country on the one hand, while calling it broken on the other, and believing all the while that it is not a nation but a union of states!

Recently, Mani Shankar Aiyar, a Congress veteran, claimed on Wednesday that the “Sangh Parivar” is tearing India into “tukde tukde.” “It is the people of ‘Sangh Parivaar’ who are dividing India into “tukde-tukde” on the basis of religion, language, and caste. This yatra (Bharat Jodo Yatra) is against it. We have to fight against the attempts to break the country,” Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said in a conversation with the media in the national capital.

From the infamous “chaiwala” jibe that is said to have been a pivotal factor in Modi sweeping the 2014 elections to launching a frontal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that the latter was a “low level person bereft of any culture (neech-aadmi)”. Aiyar never shied away from creating unwanted, unwarranted, and untamed controversies for his own party. During a panel discussion on a Pakistani news channel in 2015, Aiyar is seen to have urged the abdication of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the enthronement of Congress if talks between India and Pakistan were to start up again. During the 2020 anti-CAA protests, he confessed to being in Pakistan’s Lahore just days before delivering an incendiary speech at Shaheen Bagh.

The current accusations levelled against the RSS, mostly by Congress leaders and followers—a sin qua non since the RSS’inception—that it is a “communal organization” and more dangerous to the country than Communism are a travesty of the facts. This self-goal is not an one-off incident but a part of the barrage of attacks that the Congress attempted against the RSS that eventually boomeranged. The 64-dollar question is: is Congress willing to learn, or will it continue to shoot itself in the foot and shrink its own territory?

Prominent encounters

While the probe was still ongoing, on 6 December, 2010, the national capital saw the release of an Urdu book titled The Truth of 26/11: An RSS Plot? On 27 December of the same year, a Hindi translation of this book was released in Mumbai. The book had been authored by Ajiz Burney, the then editor of Rashtriya Sahara in Urdu, and 25,000 copies of both translations were printed in the first lot itself. While that was surprising, what came as a shock was the fact that both the Urdu and Hindi versions of the book were released by Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh. The book’s attempt was to say that Mossad, the CIA, and the RSS were behind the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.

On 12 September, Congress used the hashtag #BharatJodoYatra and wrote on Twitter, “To free the country from the shackles of hate and undo the damage done by the BJP and RSS. Step-by-step, we will reach our goal.” (sic)

To free the country from shackles of hate and undo the damage done by BJP-RSS.

Step by step, we will reach our goal.#BharatJodoYatra 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/MuoDZuCHJ2

— Congress (@INCIndia) September 12, 2022

Rahul Gandhi, speaking at a press conference on the 31st day of the Bharat Jodo Yatra on October 8, claimed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) was with the British during the freedom struggle and Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar received a stipend from the British.

In his seminal work, RSS 360 author Ratan Sharda notes, “M. S. Golwalkar, the RSS chief at the time, stated unequivocally at the Vijayadashami programme in 1947 that the RSS was uninterested in politics. But Nehru felt threatened by its huge popularity, especially in the north and western belt, due to its work in defending Hindus and the resettlement of refugees during the partition at the cost of the lives and property of its own workers. Nehru had threatened to crush the RSS on January 29, 1948, in Amritsar, a day prior to Gandhiji’s assassination. This heinous crime provided Nehru with the perfect excuse to outlaw the RSS. And he didn’t let go of the chance and banned RSS, though there was not an iota of evidence against it. RSS was clearly absolved by the CID, courts, and commission of inquiry, and RSS was not mentioned in any of the conspirators’ confessions, prosecution, or court ruling. It suffices to note that the RSS launched a massive peaceful satyagraha that finally culminated in the lifting of the ban with a retreat by the government, and Congress was compelled to soften its stand. Pandit Nehru probably realised his folly later in life after the shameful 1962 debacle and invited the RSS to join the Republic Day parade in 1963, where 3000-strong RSS workers in full uniform participated in the march with just three days’ notice.”

“During the 1965 war, the then PM, Lal Bahadur Shastri, a towering Gandhian leader and a Congress stalwart, invited the second RSS Sarsanghchalak (chief) to participate in an all-party meeting to discuss this issue. RSS was the only non-political organisation to be invited to the meeting,” notes columnist Arun Anand in an article.

About a fortnight after the opening of the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari, i.e., on 16 September, 1970, the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, visited Kanyakumari to participate in the two-month-long celebrations organised by the committee to mark the completion of the memorial. The driving force behind this magnificent project was RSS pracharak (full-timer) and former sarkaryavah (general secretary) Eknath Ranade. This is a publicly known fact.

The best answer to the critics of the RSS came from the current RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, in September 2018, when the RSS organised an outreach program. Bhagwat addressed an audience comprising eminent people from all spheres of society. Someone asked if the RSS ever supported any other political party or organisation. “Whoever asks for the organising secretary, Sangh gives them,” Bhagwat responded. One is advised not to fish in the troubled waters and it is high time Congress should learn this with years and decades of its pernicious stints with the RSS. It can vie with their rival political counterpart, that is the BJP but must not aim its gun against the RSS, a socio-cultural organisation. This dog whistling by the Congress against the RSS has never bode well for the latter as matter-of-factly. This must stop. Why create enmity when one can befriend?

The author is an independent journalist and columnist. He tweets with @pokharnaprince.

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