Why, in the run-up to and in the wake of the Ayodhya judgement, has the RSS chosen to operate through its variegated front organisations of sadhus and trishul-wielders and the rabble-rousing VHP rather than involve its political arm, the BJP? Observers would also have not failed to notice the sidelining of the party’s senior leader, Lal Krishna Advani, who has, since the 1990s, been inseparably identified with the Ayodhya movement, being in fact its very maharathi and one who stood watching as frenzied mobs razed the Babri Masjid in 1992. Advani, for his part, has remained silent on the issue in recent months. So has Narendra Modi, not one given either to reticence or tactful moderation. The BJP, too, hasn’t galvanised itself for action; all it did was hold a core group meeting led by its president, Nitin Gadkari, at which a resolution was adopted, blaming judicial delay for the Ram temple not coming up till now at the site of the demolished mosque.
On the other hand, the front organisations—activities of such groups are always indicative of the larger intent of fascist forces when their main political wing maintains studied silence—were buzzing in the run-up to D-day, trying to drum up a religious frenzy and a vituperative anti-Muslim campaign. Floods of hateful SMSes. VHP leader Praveen Togadia’s tours and public meetings across the country. Organised chanting of Hanuman chalisa in thousands of temples to invoke the ultimate Rambhakt. Threats from sadhus like Vasudevanand Saraswati of Jyotishpeeth that there could be dire law and order problems following the verdict. VHP leader Ashok Singhal’s statement that the Supreme Court “saved itself” with its go-ahead signal for the verdict, implying the apex court’s judges were being cunning, rather than fair. The pacifism and magnanimity put on after the high court gave a favourable verdict were not much in evidence earlier.
Keeping the BJP at arm’s length from the campaign was a tactic deliberately crafted by the RSS, its purpose clear from sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s speech of August 16, more than a month before the scheduled verdict. Launching the Hanuman Shakti Jagaran campaign, he said, in effect: “The country’s powerful community of sants has launched this campaign, in which we must participate for our own selves, not for the sake of any party, institution or organisation. We must all work together as envoys of Ram (the connection to Hanuman was made elsewhere in the speech), so that we may see a grand Ram temple with our eyes.”
Some obvious explanations for the adoption of this tactic come to mind. The RSS has realised that all the political advantage for the BJP in the Ayodhya issue has already been squeezed out. Worse, the communal mobilisation of the 1990s, its failure to pay dividends in the long run, the complacence of the BJP in power, the dilutions it had to make owing to the contingencies of coalition politics—all this caused a linking of the Ayodhya movement to a cynical pursuit of power on part of the BJP, and by extension, the RSS.
In the eyes of the Sangh leadership, this has been the cause of the dissipation of the intensity of the Ayodhya movement. In addition, the breaking of the law—through hate speeches, rioting, acts amounting to contempt of court—had resulted in long-drawn litigation that sapped the energies of BJP leaders and led to fractiousness in the party. Lastly, all that communal drum-beating had led to the BJP getting trumped even in Uttar Pradesh, where it all began.
The temple issue had been kept alive by the Sangh parivar since 1949, but became a political live wire only in 1989, after the Shah Bano judgement and in the aftermath of the Punjab and Kashmir insurgencies, which created a siege mentality in a section of Hindus that was exploited by the Sangh parivar. It was only after this that the BJP was brought into the picture. The RSS knows well that, as a single issue, Ayodhya doesn’t cut much ice, but as part of a cluster of issues fashioned with a Hindu-communal-nationalistic edge, it might become a useful flashpoint.
So one can be sure that this time around, too, the BJP will be brought into the picture when the RSS decides the opportune moment has arrived. It’s a long game for the RSS, but don’t mistake the symbolism of a campaign evoking Hanuman. Wasn’t he the envoy who left Lanka scorched and gutted? ‘Pseudosecularists’ like me, for whom the Sangh parivar reserves special affection, had better watch out—even if everything seems quiet for the time being.
