The conscience keepers are back. Ignored and overlooked by Atal Behari Vajpayee on almost every issue they considered significant, rss hardliners are smiling again. The Tehelka exposé may have shaken the political establishment, but for them it's a blessing in disguise. The old hawks are once again confident that they can now dictate terms to the Vajpayee government. Says a senior Sangh functionary: "The rss is now in a much better position. At the same time, its responsibilities have grown many fold."
Against this backdrop, Sangh outfits like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (sjm) are once again in the agitational mode. Even as the Tehelka crisis continues to give nightmares to the Vajpayee team, the sjm opened yet another front against the government—it held a protest meeting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi last week to demand the government's withdrawal from the wto. While this is an old swadeshi agenda, the timing of the agitation is widely seen as ploy to pressurise a government already on the backfoot.
And the sjm is not the only one in a belligerent mode. rss sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudershan's direct attack on Vajpayee last week for not appointing "efficient people" in the pmo was just a small indication of the frustration among the Sangh cadre. Although rss insiders point out that Sudershan was slammed by the top brass for voicing his views in public, there was a general disapproval of the Vajpayee government's style of functioning among the delegates of the recently held rss pratinidhi sabha in Delhi. Sudershan's assertion was also a reminder to a beleaguered Vajpayee that the rss has not given up on its old demand of appointing people who go along with the Sangh's broader vision in key positions in the government.
Interestingly, there is a school of thought in the rss that the organisation, despite all its posturing of being an apolitical body, finds itself being drawn more and more into politics. Admits a senior rss functionary: "The rss has become the invisible partner of the nda government. If there was pressure on the government from the Samata Party and Mamata Banerjee, there is an equally strong pressure from the rss, the invisible partner. As long as the bjp was in the Opposition, things were easier for the rss. Now it's in a peculiar position—it can neither disown nor defend the bjp. It has to support the government because it cannot support any other party except the bjp. In the long run, this involvement in everyday politics is not good for the organisation."
Last year when Sudershan took over as the rss chief in Nagpur, he openly criticised the Vajpayee government for its anti-swadeshi economic policies and said that his bureaucracy was mainly pro-West. He demanded that pro-swadeshi economists like Bharat Jhunjhunwala and Gandhian environmentalist Anupam Mishra be appointed as advisors to the government.
Despite Sudershan's strong words, Vajpayee chose to ignore him. In the unpronounced war of attrition, Sudershan had to relent finally, which was seen as an indication of the fast-diluting authority of the rss. Recently, Tarun Vijay, editor of Panchajanya, lobbied hard to get an appointment in the pmo, only to see his hopes dashed halfway through. It was clear that the PM preferred anti-rss people like Brajesh Mishra and N.K. Singh over swayamsevaks like Tarun Vijay.
All this frustrated the rss. Interestingly, some young turks of the Sangh—particularly those soft on Vajpayee—don't agree with the parivar's barbed utterances against the PM. They believe that pushing Vajpayee against the wall on the issue of removing Brajesh Mishra will be counter-productive since it will show him in a poor light as an administrator. Sometime ago, rss joint general secretary Madan Das Devi even called up J.K. Jain and asked him to hold his horses when Jain TV was going overboard "exposing" Brajesh Mishra.
Indeed, hours after Sudershan's statements about the pmo last week, it elicited an official denial from pmo official Ashok Tandon. Sudershan had to clarify that his was a "general statement". The next day Brajesh Mishra ridiculed Sudershan's authority—albeit indirectly—at a press conference. When asked to react to the rss chief's statement about "inefficient people" in the pmo, Mishra shot back: "I don't want to comment on that because Sudershan made two statements". But now, sources say that old rss hands like K.N. Govindacharya don't want to give the pmo a long rope any longer. The oust-Brajesh Mishra-N.K Singh campaign is likely to be carried out vigorously but silently.