Development in the Goa unit does not augur well for the RSS as it indicates a growing discontent among its cadre
When one passes through a road that houses the RSS headquarters in Nagpur’s Mahal area or takes a stroll around Smriti Bhavan, another RSS institute in neighbouring Reshimbagh, one can smell discipline in the air. And, if one manages to enter any of these buildings, one finds everything so structured and well organised that one falls in line and behaves accordingly. I have experienced that on my several visits to these places as a Nagpurian and as an unruly young reporter.
Friends in the RSS, some of whom I studied with in schools and colleges, helped me understand the concept of shakhas, which, I, as a schoolgoing kid, would take as a place for playing different games, learning martial arts, singing particular desh bhakti songs and occasionally, getting exposed to traditional weapons like swords and spears. Every Dussehra brought uniformed RSS volunteers onto the streets, marching majestically, playing drums, trumpets and flutes.
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The way they marched the streets, wielding their lathis, was always compared with our NCC drills. Sometimes, we thought the RSS volunteers were better than us in the NCC. “Sheer discipline and good training, what else,” we said from the sidelines.
RSS workers still swear by the order that their organisation sets in for them. They say that a cosmetic makeover, like changing the uniform, does not really matter to them because the very basis of their existence and success in terms of making the BJP a winning power is the RSS’ ideology. “It is because of this ideology that thousands of full-time workers who could have made careers outside the organisation have sacrificed all comforts to strengthen the RSS, and, of course, the BJP,” said a Nagpurian, whose engineering post-grad brother is now working full-time in the north-east.
Politicians who are associated with the RSS brag about the discipline or anushashan that their organisation asks them to adhere to. “The RSS will not like if we do this or that…” they say, and wilfully seek the RSS before doing anything significant. And, that made me ask them as to how would they react to a revolt-like situation in Goa where a breakaway RSS outfit is in the offing.
The reactions are mixed. Some blame the BJP, a political outfit that has over-ambitious netas that the RSS groomed for sidelined hardcore RSS workers in mainstream politics despite being equally capable. Some blame the RSS for interfering too much in the functioning of the
BJP, which has the sangh representatives holding key positions in the party organisation.
Some attribute a Goa-like situation to ego clashes between BJP leaders and senior RSS functionaries. Former Goa chief Subhash Velingkar, one of the seniormost workers in the country, has been expelled for threatening to float a new RSS ahead of the assembly elections. He is accused of staging a demonstration against BJP president Amit Shah over the issue of medium of instruction. He wants the BJP government to scrap grants to English-medium schools that were obliged by the Congress government. Apparently, Welingkar is running a feud with former Goa CM and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and is opposed to Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari’s interference in the party affairs in Goa.
Politically speaking, Welingkar represents unrest among the RSS workers who have not been allowed to take up politics by a system that the organisation has in place for selecting politics-worthy persons in its cadre. People close to Welingkar say he has been receiving support from many states where a similar discontent is brewing.
In Maharashtra, RSS leaders who have been in politics for long complain that they are ignored in the sharing of power over people who do not have any link with the sangh. BJP offices across the state are occupied
by a dejected cadre who feel cheated when their party can offer them something or the other.
Despondent RSS workers want to move out to electoral politics because of the party’s rising graph but to no avail.
Is Goa a flash in the pan or an indication of more revolts in future? In the past, some unruly functionaries were tamed comfortably. Will this time be any different?
The development has certainly made the RSS headquarters uneasy.
Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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