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The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the BJP, has been left disenchanted with the June 4 verdict, so much so that it is now almost convinced that Narendra Modi is perhaps not the right man to realise its dream of Bharat.
The cultural resurgence that RSS envisages for India in its worldview, has taken a beating in the hands of Modi-Amit Shah duo. There is active thinking in the Sangh headquarters about a change in the political leadership at the top.
But the problem with the Sangh is it cannot go around announcing its discomfort. It can only convey its feelings in private to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and hope that they would, out of regard for their parent organisation, pay heed.
“We obviously cannot go and hold a press conference and let the world know what we want. But if they ( BJP leaders) come to us we will definitely tell them what we think,” a senior RSS functionary, who is well respected in the Sangh hierarchy , told this writer over phone.
This senior RSS leader, who did not want to be named, said the organisation had been left shocked by the losses in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. “We definitely did not expect this outcome. Now when we look back we realise that perhaps the way the entire election process was handled by the BJP was not correct,” he said.
According to him, the Sangh was overall satisfied by the direction which the BJP government had given the nation in the last ten years, but it floundered in the last leg when the election process began. When asked why the RSS did not intervene in time to course correct, he said that is not their job. “ If they had asked us, we would have told them, but they didn’t,” the RSS leader said.
Here it may be noted that the Sangh has been uneasy with Narendra Modi from the very beginning because he makes everything so personalised, so much so that sometimes ideologies take a back seat. But it has allowed him to continue because it approved of the overall direction that he was taking.
However, when the election process began, he went overboard in his enthusiasm and things started going wrong for the BJP. The RSS especially did not like the way Modi made this election a referendum on his own leadership. “How can everything, from ideology, to vision be only about guarantees from one individual only, “ the RSS leader asked.
The problem that the Sangh faced was the complete absence of discussion and dialogue. “We cannot interfere until they ask. Our job is to focus on rashtra nirmaan and their job is to run the government. The two should run parallel, and in tandem. We cannot be expected to keep reminding them at every step of what they should or should not do,” he added.
But to be fair, according to this leader, the government had moved along the right track, except for minor aberrations, which are natural corollaries of political compulsion.
“For the last 75 years after Independence and 200-250 years before that, under British rule, India had taken a different direction which was alien to Indian ethos. Now for that to change, at least 20-25 years are needed. We have only worked towards this for ten years so there is still time,” he said.
In his opinion, while Narendra Modi had set the path, now it was time for somebody else to take it forward. “If they ask us we will tell them what we think,” he said, refusing to elaborate.
This effectively means that the RSS now wants Modi to make way for somebody else. Here it may be noted that BJP president J. P. Nadda had said in an interview during campaigning that the BJP was now strong enough to take care of itself and did not need the RSS to shepherd it.
This was not taken well by the RSS and their displeasure was seen in the abrupt manner in which it had withdrawn from the ground during campaigning, and even on voting days.
Ground level reports suggested that RSS functionaries, who otherwise used to be actively involved in door-to-door campaigning, distributing voters’ slips, helping people reach their respective booths, helping the old and infirm cast their votes, had suddenly disappeared because they “did not receive any message from the organisation.”
In the RSS’s scheme of things, the second tryst with destiny which began in May 2014, needs to be taken forward, but not by the same leader and not in the same manner.
