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<h1 class="gmail-native_story_title">A new RSS?</h1>
<h2 class="gmail-synopsis">It’s unlikely, given the deep tension between RSS philosophy and individual freedoms and rights.</h2>
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<div class="editor" id="gmail-storycenterbyline"> Written by <a href="https://indianexpress.com/profile/columnist/ashutosh-varshney/" class="gmail-bulletProj" id="gmail-written_by1">Ashutosh Varshney</a>
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Updated: October 5, 2018 12:01:42 am </span>
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</span><span class="gmail-custom-caption"><img class="gmail-size-full gmail-wp-image-5363632" src="https://images.indianexpress.com/2018/09/mohan-bhagwat7.jpg" alt="RSS, Mohan Bhagwat, Mohan Bhagway speech, RSS event, Ram Madhav on RSS, Indian Express" style="display: inline;"><div id="gmail-inhouseimg" class="gmail-imghalder" style="min-width:300px;padding:0px;display:block;width:640px;text-align:center"><span class="gmail-imgclose" style="background:rgb(0,0,0) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;color:rgb(255,255,255);width:20px;height:20px;border-radius:20px;padding:0px;font-size:12px;text-align:center;line-height:18px;box-sizing:border-box">X</span></div> Bhagwat now believes that children should be educated in their mother tongues, including regional languages. (File)</span>
<p>Since mid-September, a new political discussion has made its presence
felt. The sarsanghchalaks (chiefs) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), unquestionably the BJP’s mother organisation, have spoken in
public before, but mainly to comment on specific policies and
programmes. They have rarely, perhaps never, spoken at length about the
ideological underpinnings of the organisation. Over three days of public
appearances in the heart of Delhi, Mohan Bhagwat, the current RSS
chief, has changed all that. Some are hailing it as a veritable
“glasnost”.</p>
<p>How momentous is the change? Answering this question requires probing
two analytically distinct issues: Ideological and organisational. In
what ways has Bhagwat made an ideological departure? And would his
statements, if they deviate from the conventional ideology of the
organisation, change the RSS?</p>
<p>We can’t really answer the latter question yet. It is futuristic at
its core. But we do now have elaborate public pronouncements about the
current ideology of the RSS. I will concentrate here on two things that
constitute change, and two that, despite appearances, fundamentally do
not.<br>
On language policy and affirmative action, Bhagwat’s position was a good
indication of how far the RSS has come. In its early days, the RSS used
to be not only anti-English but also, effectively, against regional
languages, for it would advocate imposition of Hindi on the entire
country — an essentially European idea that India’s freedom movement, by
embracing linguistic diversity, rejected, but the RSS, by espousing a
one-language-one-nation European concept, accepted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Bhagwat now believes that children should be educated in
their mother tongues, including regional languages. Moreover, English
should not be removed, but kept, though not unduly privileged (angrezi
hatao nahin, angrezi rakho, per yathaasthaan rakho). Finally, children
should also learn Hindi, for it is spoken by a huge plurality, if not a
majority.</p>
<p class="gmail-_yeti_done">This is simply a restatement of the three-language
formula that the Congress party put into operation, but the old RSS
opposed. Hints of change have been coming for some time, but they were
never articulated so clearly. All Indian languages are mine (Bharat ki
saari bhaashayen meri bhasha hain), said Bhagwat.</p><div id="gmail-mainContainer" style="width:640px;height:480px;background:rgb(0,0,0) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;overflow:hidden" class="gmail-_yeti_normal gmail-_yeti_video"><span class="gmail-_yeti_mute gmail-muted" style="width:20px;height:20px"></span></div>
<p>Bhagwat’s support for affirmative action also constitutes a
substantial, if not a total, departure. If for thousands of years our
society has rendered a part of the community completely disabled
(poornatah nirbal), said Bhagwat, then the upper castes should bow down
for 100-150 years — as a duty to those who have suffered. The RSS had
originally opposed affirmative action because, in its view, it divided
Hindu society. Note, however, that Bhagwat’s statement endorses Dalit
reservations, not OBC reservations. He has only spoken about society’s
“ek ang”, not “kayee ang” (one part, not several parts). His term
“poornatah nirbal” (completely powerless) covers Dalits, not the OBCs.</p>
<p>On two other matters — Muslims and India’s Constitution — Bhagwat’s
arguments are contradictory. Does the RSS now accept Muslims as an
integral part of the Indian nation, and does it also fully believe in
India’s Constitution? On Muslims, Bhagwat does not evince the outright
hostility of M S Golwalkar, the second RSS chief (1940-1973).</p>
<p>But his ideological departures are minor. Despite claiming that he
fully accepts India’s diversities, including the diversity of gods (devi
devataon ki vividhta) and the diversity of diets (khaan paan ki
vividhta), Bhagwat insists that Muslims should call themselves Hindus
(for the term Hindu, he says, describes the Indian nation, as the RSS
has always claimed); that Islam attacked India (Islam ka aakraman); that
beef eating is unacceptable and cow protection is a national duty.
Bhagwat also does not believe in the concept of minorities (alpsankhyak
shabd thheek nahin). Finally, his extensive telling of Indian heroes,
some cited repeatedly in the speeches, included Shivaji, Hedgewar,
Golwalkar, Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, Gandhi and Tagore. The speech
referred to no Muslim heroes — no Akbar, no Kabir, no Azad.</p>
<p>His is not a discourse about the full and equal citizenship of
Muslims. It is hard to escape the inference that for Bhagwat, Muslims
may be Indians, but they are secondary Indians. They have produced no
Indian heroes; their religion “attacked” India; they must give up beef
eating because Hindus are offended by it; accepting Ram as
“Imam-e-Hind”, they should agree to a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, or the
fingers of suspicion will continue to be pointed at them. The welfare of
the Muslim community, in other words, depends on Hindu pleasure, not
constitutional principles. There is no conception of rights.<br>
This also leads us to examine Bhagwat’s statements about India’s
Constitution. As is well known, the RSS was opposed to the Constitution
when it was promulgated, something true until as late as the K S
Sudarshan period (2000-2009). The RSS argument was that India’s
Constitution represented western ideas, not India’s ethos. Now a hero, B
R Ambedkar was an outright villain in the 1950s.</p>
<p>In contrast, Bhagwat clearly said that the RSS accepts the
Constitution. But he was also emphatic that India is a Hindu nation, an
unconstitutional idea; he did not accept the concept of minorities,
enshrined in the Constitution; he repeatedly said that laws and courts
are inadequate instruments for social change, and organised social
action is necessary. The pursuit of a Hindu India through social action,
until the Constitution is changed, is an unconstitutional project.</p>
<p>At another fundamental level, too, there is an ineradicable conflict
in Bhagwat’s acceptance of the Constitution and the underlying RSS
philosophy. The latter, according to him, says that individuals should
not think of their own interests, but dissolve their existence in the
service of society. This argument goes against the concepts of civil
liberties and fundamental rights, which are individually based and
constitutionally anchored in India. They are also integral to
democracies in general.</p>
<p>Autocrats often speak of society’s interest as the only reality, and
individual interests as a misleading falsehood. Hitler demanded complete
immersion in German nationhood, and while launching the Cultural
Revolution, Mao called for the creation of a new Chinese man —
unacquisitive, unselfish, thinking only of China.</p>
<p>Democracies demand civic spirit, but they also defend individual
rights, guarding against the possibility that governments might use the
idea of collective interest to crush citizen rights and individual
spirit. If the RSS endorses India’s Constitution, it also needs to ask
whether it believes in individual freedoms and rights.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>