Title: Dissent in the
RSS - The delusions of Kalyan Singh
Author: Rakesh Sinha
Publication: The Times
of India
Date: January 6, 2000
Mr Kalyan Singh's expulsion
from the BJP and his disassociation from the RSS were neither unexpected
nor inexplicable. The UP state party unit had, in fact, been in disarray
even before the Lok Sabha elections. The rift between the pro-and
anti-Kalyan Singh factions has proved disastrous for the party. Instead
of engaging in any self-examination to set the state party in order, Mr
Kalyan Singh sought the easy way of self-exoneration by challenging the
moral authority and integrity of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and questioning
the wisdom of the National Agenda. Thus he himself put his four decades
of dedicated service to the party and its ideology at stake.
Party Discipline
Instead of taking recourse
to more positive ways of establishing better communication, he chose to
adopt an approach bereft of any consistent values. The party; though
adversely affected by the loss of the veteran, has chosen to keep a low
profile despite Mr Kalyan Singh's bitter public statements. It is
hoped that maybe his 40 years' deep association with the party will impel
Mr Kalyan Singh to feel contrite and return, somewhat like the prodigal
son.
In the past too, the
BJP, like any cadre-based party, has had to adopt strong measures to maintain
party discipline and ideological purity. The first such drastic action
was taken against the second party president of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh,
Maulichandra Sharma. His elevation to this high office was a recognition
of his role as a mediator between the government and the RSS following
the ban on the RSS in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.
Later, he had to be expelled from the party as he had begun to act too
arbitrarily. While Vasant Rao Oak, a senior RSS pracharak and his close
lieutenant, was readmitted to the sangh parivar on acknowledging afresh
his ideological and functional affiliations, Sharma was lost in the wilderness
forever. In the early seventies, Mr Balraj Madhok, who never weakened
in his ideological commitment to Hindutva and served as the party president,
was dropped by the party on account of being too full of himself.
Two other leaders, Mr Subrahmanyam Swamy in 1977 and Mr Shankar Singh Vaghela
in 1996, were also lost to the party.
Differences and clashes
are normal in any organisation but what matters is how they are resolved.
In the RSS culture, dissent is rarely rabid since it is methodically accommodated.
The episode of the third RSS chief is a case in the point. Golwalkar
himself elevated him to the high office of sarsanghchalak after a brief
period of respite and rejuvenation in the parivar. Even Mr Vajpayee,
unhappy with a new party president, Bachcharaj Vyas, boycotted the Jalandhar
session of the BJS in 1965. But his modest protest was in keeping
with democratic traditions.
Unlike the communist
culture, the RSS does not believe in purging its cadres because of inner
differences. It is this culture which led Mr Walter Anderson to use
the adjective 'brotherhood in saffron', which is a natural corollary to
the principle of ek chalak anuvratitva, on which the organisation is informally
based. It is a principle of family-like cordial and harmonious functioning.
]be RSS has evolved its own democratic norms and organisational culture.
Any keen student of Indian politics knows that the birth of the BJS was
not out of greed for power. In the post-Gandhi assassination phase,
when the RSS found itself being attacked, a number of its cadres mooted
the idea of forming a political party of its own. This led to a protracted
debate inside the organisation, which was reported in its mouthpieces,
Panchajanya and Organiser.
Minority View
Interestingly, the minority
view won over the majority led by none other than Golwalkar, the sarsanghchalak
of the RSS. Thus, the RSS ethos does not set much store by power-politics.
The RSS, of course, loans its trusted cadres to the political wing.
However, many of them have been disillusioned with politics and have chosen
to come back home and engage in service programmes. This is a special
mode of functioning whereby the RSS and the BJP continue to balance between
ontological and epistemological claims. Politics in the RSS Weltanschaung
is not an all-important job.
Mr Dattopant Thengadi
was a top BJS leader till the Emergency and is now a part of the central
leadership of the sangh. Similarly, Nanaji Deshmukh decided to dedicate
his life to rural reconstruction instead of accepting a ministerial berth
at the Centre in 1977. Mr Arun Jaitley, now information and broadcasting
minister, renounced his position in the Janata Party's national executive
in 1977 and chose to serve in the ABVP, a student wing of the RSS.
The BJP has been perceived as a movement polarising liberal nationalist
forces to correct the polity. Thus it always welcomes people with
proven credibility in public life who are in step with its ideology.
For instance, people like Mr Jagmohan and Mr Arun Shourie have due recognition
in the RSS family.
First Temptation
The RSS does not get
enamoured of people who merely chose to raise Hindutva slogans. In
the past, it distanced itself from the Hindu Mahasabha and Ramrajya Parishad.
Its political vision does not seek to raise a party which is a federation
of caste leaders or communal representatives. Mr Kalyan Singh has
erred on all these counts. His earlier decision not to join the central
cabinet and to remain a common worker was the right option for him given
the pattern of assimilating dissent in the party. However, he could
not do so for a week. His sentiment for the Ayodhya temple also vaporised
in less than a fortnight. He himself drew a Lakshman Rekha and then
crossed it at the first temptation. His has become the politics of
convenience. 'Re RSS-BJP mainstream has rejected him, like Mr Vaghela,
as an alien element.
Social engineering does
not mean casteisation of politics or compulsory caste representation.
It is a noble idea in a democratic polity when it is understood and applied
in terms of removing barriers in giving and grooming leaders of under-represented
sections of the population, castes, religions and languages. It is
an enlargement of the principle of positive discrimination. Mr Kalyan
Singh was also victim of self-delusion. He assumed that he was the
BJP in UP.
(The author teaches at
Delhi University and is writing a book on the RSS)
