Saffron is thicker than...

The apparently contradictory statements made by Mr. Laxman and Mr. Advani on the RSS are being seen as an attempt by the BJP to keep two options open, writes NEENA VYAS.

CURIOUSLY, THE Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has always considered itself to be a super patriotic organisation, cannot explain why it never participated in the freedom struggle in any meaningful manner. It did not respond to the calls given by Mahatma Gandhi, nor did it organise any independent protests against the British. And yet, it has never tired of preaching lessons in patriotism, especially to Muslims and Christians.

The writings by RSS leaders, beginning with `Guru' M. S. Golwalkar, reek of a hatred of Muslims and Christians, and it is well known that he stopped just short of recommending Hitler's method of dealing with what he called ``the problem of the minorities''. Writing about the purge of the Jews by Hitler, he affirmed: ``Germany has shown how well nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the roots, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.''

That may have been a long time ago, but the fact remains that to this day Golwalkar is revered by the RSS, and even the present BJP leadership, including the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister, acknowledge Golwalkar as the ``guru'' at whose feet they imbibed the lessons in what constitutes nationalism. Let alone repudiate his views, the portraits of Golwalkar now adorn some rooms in Parliament House.

At the Agra camp of the RSS last weekend, its `Sarsanghachalak', Mr. K. S. Sudarshan, could not help dishing out the old and familiar views. The Christians must Indianise the church, the Muslims must accept Rama and Krishna as their heroes, and only then can they become part of the national mainstream. The view was often expressed by Mr. L. K. Advani during the days of the Ayodhya agitation.

This view is hardly different from that of Golwalkar who prescribed the five points needed to be part of the nation of Hindustan. ``In this country, Hindustan, the Hindu Race with its Hindu religion, Hindu culture and Hindu language (the family of Sanskrit and her offsprings) complete the Nation concept.'' And not wishing to leave anything ambiguous, he further wrote: ``we must bear in mind that so far as `nation' is concerned, all those, who fall outside the five-fold limits of that idea, can have no place in national life, unless they abandon their differences, adopt the religion, culture and language of the Nation and completely merge themselves in the national race. So long, however, as they maintain their racial, religious and cultural differences, they cannot but be only foreigners, who may be either friendly or inimical to the Nation.''

Mr. Sudarshan's call to Muslims and Christians to revere Rama and Krishna is a step in the direction of asking them to adopt the Hindu religion if they wished to be part of the nation. The war cries of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal on the conversions issue, the call by the Prime Minister for a ``national debate'' on the subject, all fall into place. In fact, even the review of the Constitution was a demand made by Golwalkar barely a few years after it took shape.

No wonder then that the statement by the new BJP president, Mr. Bangaru Laxman, at the party's recent Nagpur conclave that ``Muslims were flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood'' did not go down too well with the hardcore saffron constituents of the BJP. In fact, fears were expressed by some in the party that while the Muslims would not be fooled into voting for the BJP, such a stance might cost the BJP dearly by loosening its grip over the hardcore Hindutva votebank, especially in the Hindi heartland.

What happened at Agra last weekend - the reassertion of Hindutva, the ``suggestion'' to the minorities to ``Indianise'' (as if they were not Indians), the criticism of the Government's economic policies and approval of `swadeshi' economics, and more importantly the participation by the Union Home Minister - was perhaps an attempt to keep the Hindutva constituents solidly behind the BJP.

In fact, given the RSS views over the last 75 years since it came into existence, what Mr. Sudershan, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat and Mr. H. V. Seshadiri, said was no surprise. The RSS has never strayed from the Hindutva course, and one could even say, never will. The difference was that these strident speeches were made to coincide with the one year of the Vajpayee Government.

The BJP has been trying to finetune its own views and approach so as not to frighten its political friends, most of whom have a sizeable support among the minorities. It does not suit the BJP to come out strongly in support of Hindutva at the moment, not till it finds itself in a position to form a Government on its own. But Mr. Advani's presence at Agra seemed to suggest that at least he was very much in tune with the RSS views, and he could jump back on the Hindutva bandwagon.

Ironically, the party seems to have also come to the conclusion that to surge ahead electorally it cannot continue to alienate the minorities. With the total strength of minorities around 15 to 20 per cent of the population, it does not make for good electoral arithmetic to begin with a minus 15 or minus 20 mark. That explained the ``Muslims are flesh of our flesh'' appeal by Mr. Laxman.

But the new line may not have gone down too well with the BJP's own cadres, and more importantly the RSS cadres on whom the party still depends for intensive door-to-door campaigning during election time. There is a view in the party that if the minority card is played too strongly, it may lose its Hindutva votebank. And the BJP has been trying to keep the balance, alternately giving the come hither look to the minorities and then wielding the Hindutva stick to beat them with.

After the Agra camp, the strong reaction by the minorities against the speeches made Mr. Laxman jump and say that the BJP's views were ``significantly different'', although Mr. Advani had only a couple of days earlier hammered home the point that the erstwhile Jana Sangh had given up the Janata Party experiment rather than disassociate from the RSS, thus hinting that the BJP may not mind doing it again. After all, the temple- mosque politics played by the BJP to the hilt was part of the RSS' ideological stance long before the BJP's Palampur resolution on Ram temple.

The apparently contradictory statements made by Mr. Laxman and Mr. Advani on the RSS are also being seen as an attempt by the party to keep two options open - pursue the soft and on the surface moderate Vajpayee line, or go back to the hard Hindutva line which became identified with Mr. Advani after he played the lead role in the Ayodhya agitation.

More than two years of coalition politics at the Centre has naturally prevented the BJP from asserting its Hindutva agenda. In Chennai last year the attempt to deny the Hindutva agenda was resisted strongly by the party forcing the leadership to change the Chennai Declaration.

No national political party, including the BJP, can rest content with heading a coalition Government. The Prime Minister also talked about ``building an India of my dreams'' when addressing his own VHP-dominated crowd at the Staten Island meeting in New York. And surely, the India of his dreams, as much as the India of Mr. Advani's dreams. is pretty much like the India of the dreams of Golwalkar and Hegdewar and Mr. Sudarshan.

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