Why RSS betting on Modi ?

The rise of Narendra Modi, an outsider to Delhi, as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, which is almost certain to be announced this month, is RSS’ revenge on BJP, its prodigal son. It is precondition of healthy democracy that the incumbent party must be keen to repeat its victory but prepared to leave, if leave it must after a fair election. Similarly, the opposition party must be self-confident; it must put its own house in order and be in shape to helm the ship when required. While the Congress-led ruling UPA seems just keen to pay to Aam Aadmi to buy votes despite an economy that has gone belly-up, the BJP is facing an internal turmoil unprecedented in its 33 years’ history. Election 2014 is becoming odd-maker’s nightmare. Trouble in the BJP originates from its external obligation to RSS, which, though a “cultural organization” on paper, governed BJP, or the Jan Sangh, its earlier avatar, much like how the USSR under Lenin or Stalin had ran the world communist movement—through remote control, that is. However, though regarded as the paterfamilias of the Sangh Parivar, RSS, over the last few decades, was losing grip over BJP, its political son. Democracy was making BJP create its own stars—Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani—who shone way beyond Nagpur’s limited sky of Hindutva philosophy. While Vajpayee led a government for six years, both he and Advani became stalwarts of Lutyen’s Delhi. RSS smarted under it. The rise of Narendra Modi, an outsider to Delhi, as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, which is almost certain to be announced this month, is RSS’ revenge on BJP, its prodigal son. Modi could rise in national politics as much as he has with the support of RSS and a couple of other factors. These developments are severely impacting on BJP. The party today is a perilously divided house. It is divided between a cautious group, obviously led by the octogenarian Advani, which is of the view that, by declaring Modi as BJP’s ace up its sleeve, the party is slamming its door, forcefully and finally, on several potential allies who are “Modi negative” but “BJP positive”, like Naveen Patnaik, Jagan Reddy, Mayawati, and, who knows, Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar. The Advani groupies want NDA, and not BJP, to decide who’d lead the government. But the new RSS wants its cards to be shown without delay. The man who started the process of direct supervision was late RSS chief K. Sudarshan, who madly envied prime minister Vajpayee during the NDA regime. The present RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat installed Nitin Gadkari as the BJP chief and wanted a second term for him too. When Advani torpedoed it through what is known as Lutyen’s Establishment. The IT department swung into action and Gadkari shown the door. Bhagwat was left with no choice but steamrolled all internal opposition to Modi by making him chairman of the party’s campaign committee, which is actually the penultimate step to his being declared the party’s candidate as prime minister. This step is likely to be crossed this month, after the monsoon session of Parliament ends and Election Commission notifies the dates for assembly elections in five states. Nowadays, the party’s new brigade of Modi supporters brusquely remind followers of Advani: chadte sooraj ko salam karna seekho (learn to salute the rising sun). Modi’s stenciled face has begun appearing on walls across northern and central India, with the words: nai soch aur nai ummeed (New Vision and New Hope). It is possible that BJP, with Modi leading the charge, will end up with more seats in the next Lok Sabha than what it could with Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley or even Advani (assuming his age will permit contesting). But, so deeply etched in public memory is Modi’s image as a man of little commitment to democratic values, that it will be extremely difficult for his party to bridge the gap between its tally, and the number required to form government, unless he is able to swing votes in a big way. Whether Advani and his ardent supporters spread over in every state like it or not, Modi is a reality. He is BJP’s mascot for 2014. As Arun Jaitley aptly put it: The hand of destiny has touched Modi.” It’s a different matter that none in the BJP is able to put the number of seats party’s new mascot will be able to deliver in 2014. But is RSS bothered ? RSS is a complex organization as it has a world view entirely different from that expressed through the Constitution of India. Realizing that the rules of democracy, as set by the 1950 Constitution, could be alien to it, it allowed a party of its making, Jan Sangh first and BJP later, to pursue it independently. But now a powerful group in RSS has decided that its ideology should no longer be segregated from the political fortunes of its protégé. And no one in the BJP comes closer to RSS’ own thought process—its patriarchal views, and its inherent dislike of pluralism—than Narendra Modi. Nor could it be better timed, as UPA-2 government’s policy paralysis, bordering on helplessness, has driven popular faith in democracy to its nadir. Viewed from Nagpur, India in 2014 is a political laboratory, rather than a government to be won. It would be too happy to get back its political son who had been hijacked by Atal-Advani duo. (The author is National Editor of the Lokmat group of newspapers based in New Delhi)