The Sangh Likes This Meltdown

Almost a year back, at his annual Vijaya­dashami address from the Rash­triya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquart­ers in Nagpur, beamed live for the first time on Doordarshan, RSS chief Mohan Rao Bhag­wat veered from the usual and didn’t mention any border incursions with China—always on top of the RSS agenda at all its conclaves. In October 2014, however, Bhagwat chose to slam the Indian consumers’ “penchant for Chinese goods”.

“We speak about self-dependence and standing up to China,” he said in his speech. “The new government seems to be standing up to it. But where will the government draw strength from if we don’t stop buying things from China?” Such was Bhagwat’s fury over Made in China goods (he cited China-made idols of Indian deities as an example) that he even called for a boycott of Chinese goods.

Actually, the RSS’s dislike for China had been articulated much earlier in its annual meet, the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal held in Gorakhpur in October 2011. At that meet, RSS leaders had unanimously passed a resolution that advised any Sangh or BJP leader from travelling to China as part of delegations or entertaining even business delegations from the country. Its resolution then accused China of constantly exerting “military pressure on our borders, indulging in repeated incursions into our territory and abetting terrorism and separatism from across the borders”, among other things. The RSS resolution of 2011 had even raised an alarm on Chinese technology and equipment being used for 3G and 4G services in India, “posing a serious danger to our information and communications system”. The Sangh, sources confirm, believes that “China moved from Communism to Capitalism, both abhorred by the RSS and besides other things even its economic model is a hollow pretend game where concentration of economic power only happens in urban pockets.”

For now, though, the RSS contempt for China may have been put on the backburner. RSS sources confirm that “it is true that RSS has always distrusted China and continues to do so but there is a softening of stance in some ways. The economic whizkids in the BJP government have convinced RSS leaders that a China meltdown means a boom for Modi’s Made In India campaign.

Sources also confirm that the RSS leadership, growing increasingly restless over the government’s progress on economic matters, has been told that the meltdown “would not mean even cheaper Chinese goods taking over Indian markets but would instead turn world investors to India”. A senior BJP leader told Outlook, “They have been told the meltdown has come at the right time. It is something to be happy about, not worried.”