As US snub stings and old foes China-Russia turn into uneasy partners, RSS struggles to reconcile its 100-year global Hindutva vision with harsh new realities
While it prepares to celebrate its centenary anniversary on October 2, and 11 years of control over the Union government in Delhi, the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is probably faced with the biggest conundrum of its 100 of existence.
The organisation, which has slowly emerged from the shadows of socialism and communism, and built a strong Hindutva pitch over the years, while spreading its wings in the West, has few takers for its ideology, mostly in the wake of Donald Trump’s cold shouldering of India, anti-India sentiment in the West and the Narendra Modi government’s turn towards communist China and Russia for succour.
Vision of ‘Hindu Rashtra’
For a long time after the RSS was formed in 1925, the world appeared to be far from accepting the idea of religious nationalist forces coming to power. The communist parties were at an advantage almost till the early 1990s, and the RSS was against any idea of socialism, let alone communism.
With Russia witnessing a revolution in 1917, China in 1949, and the shift of most of Eastern Europe and Far Eastern countries to socialism, the phase wasn’t very suitable for the RSS to establish its goal of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ – a rather impossible proposition.
At that time, its only hope was the Muslim world sticking to the theocratic state ideology.
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The RSS believed that Hindu mobilisation was essential to counter Islamism in India and the world over. The hatred of its founders towards Islam was based on the religion’s 1,000-year rule over India. The RSS knew that Islam was under the grip of spiritual fundamentalism and hence wanted a fundamental Brahmanic Hindu nation to counter it.
How the dominoes fell
♦ Trump snub leaves Hindutva project without Western backing
♦ Russia and China reject religious outreach from RSS-BJP
♦ Global push triggers anti-India sentiment in Western nations
♦ Sangh faces internal confusion over shifting global ties
♦ Swadeshi pitch clashes with India’s corporate and global ambitions
Countries in the Christian West, by the end of World War II, were either moved into secular democratic statehood or were vacillating between liberal democracy and socialism. Theocratic statehood in the Christian West looked out of question.
Gradually, many RSS-BJP supporters migrated to the West. Many gurus aligned with the Hindutva ideology settled in America, teaching yoga and the concept of moksha to the Western world. Many rich Europeans and Americans were influenced by these teachings, which in turn led to a euro-dollar mobilisation by the branches of Hindutva.
RSS’s ascent to power
However, the believers and propagators of Hindutva ideology had to live a life of political powerlessness till the post-Emergency era, more so till the post-Mandal phase. They sensed that the anti-Mandal upper caste media, upper caste capitalists, and high-end public and private educational institutions were against OBC reservations. They correctly estimated that all those forces would stand by the diversionist Hindutva agenda.
The Congress, the communists and the socialists – the upper castes among all parties – saw the RSS as a saviour from the Shudra/OBC ‘reservation grabbers’.
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Mandir against Mandal was seen as a new panacea. When PV Narasimha Rao, a soft-Hindutva man, was the prime minister, the unachievable was achieved. Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992.
From there on, the RSS’s chariot moved from the opposition side to the ruling side — from having some influence in a few states to grabbing power in Delhi. The Lal Qila (Red Fort) was captured by the saffron army. It also put paid to the hope of communists that they would hoist their red flag on the Red Fort one day. Now, communist parties are almost dead in India.
Fresh life from Emergency
From 1925 to 1999, the Congress party’s one-party dominance left the RSS ranks largely confined to issues like anti-Muslim rhetoric, communal clashes, and the demand for the abrogation of Article 370. They stuck to offering social services in urban areas and temples till the Ram Janmabhoomi issue in Ayodhya gave them a new purpose in the 1990s.
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The RSS’s ideology of Sanatana Dharma and the hope of establishing Hindu Rashtra survived mainly among the Brahmin caste and around the temple economy. The RSS’s political wing, Jana Sangh, was no consequential force in the electoral field till the end of the Emergency in 1977. The Emergency gave RSS a new life. Even the socialists and communists joined hands with the Jana Sangh in a situation of desperation because of the Emergency.
Had Indira Gandhi resigned as prime minister in 1975 and allowed a Shudra leader to take her place, the history of Congress and the RSS would have been different.
That did not happen, and the RSS charted its path to power, forming a stable government at the Centre in 1999. The five-year rule under Atal Bihari Vajpayee marked a real turning point for the Sangh. That was the Sudarshan-Vajpayee era. (KS Sudarshan was the chief of the RSS from 2000 to 2009.)
Vishwaguru campaign
The Mohan Bhagwat-Narendra Modi team’s 11-year control over Delhi from 2014 to now is well known. Interestingly, it is during this era that the Sangh Parivar floated its new campaign of making India a ‘Vishwaguru’ (global teacher) on the strength of the RSS-BJP’s Hindutva ideology.
The ruling BJP has subtly followed the same campaign in most of the Union government’s ministerial tours in foreign countries.
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The international wings of the RSS have actively and confidently pursued this campaign in many countries like the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia after the BJP’s win in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Modi, in his capacity as prime minister, has been touring foreign countries and addressing systematically planned and mobilised NRI meetings by giving a subtle message that Hindutva is going to capture global spaces. Subtle messages about the spread of Hindutva have also been delivered to all Christian and Islamic countries.
Trump delivers a blow
However, the very act of propagating a religious ideology under the brand of ‘Vishwaguru’ has also sent a negative message to countries with their own sets of beliefs. Both the Muslim and Christian worlds have spiritual fundamentalists with their own evangelical aspirations. In America, Donald Trump’s team has many such fundamentalists.
That the Hindutva ideologues underestimated their influence on Trump became evident recently when his so-called camaraderie with Modi failed.
When the American President smashed India’s dream, Russian President Vladimir Putin played his card well by selling crude oil at a cheaper rate to New Delhi. This type of oil business was conceived amid comprehensive sanctions imposed by the US and European countries in the context of the Ukraine war.
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The RSS-BJP never expected Trump’s America to snub the right-wing Indian ruling and business class. They expected that he would not turn against Putin, as he was not against him during the first term. In fact, Trump had faced criticism over Putin’s alleged help in his winning the American election in the first term.
When Trump poured cold water on the RSS-BJP’s Viswaguru campaign, they were forced to seek Putin’s shishyarikam (discipleship).
No takers for Hindutva in Russia, China
But, the Vishwaguru concept had no takers in either Russia or China – countries which have strong roots in communism, even though formal communist ideology has now been reshaped into a capitalist one-party rule.
The one-party rule complements a formal election system where one leader slowly captures power for his/her lifetime. Both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have declared themselves as lifelong presidents. Putin wants to follow Joseph Stalin’s legacy, and Xi wants to follow Mao Zedong’s legacy without any communist blood in them. They abandoned the communist ideology of proletarian dictatorship and now believe in one-man dictatorship with full control over their respective parties.
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Yet religious dogma is not popular in either nation. These countries do not allow babas allied to the BJP and RSS like Jaggi Vasudev, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, or yoga camps and temple buildings, as was entertained in America, Canada, the UK, and Australia.
Confused cadres
Hit by these setbacks, the RSS and BJP also face the tough job of explaining the unexpected turn towards Russia and China to their anti-China and anti-Russia cadres as well.
In its 100 years of existence, the RSS has hated communism, apart from hating Islam and Christianity as foreign religions. Their leaders’ dreamland was America. Most of their leaders’ children are sent to American universities. And they cannot think of sending their Hindutva ideologues to form organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America and the Hindu American Foundation as they did in America, in either Russia or China.
At this juncture, the only way out for our Delhi government is to survive in the changed world order.
Anti-India sentiments
Meanwhile, the idea of Vishwaguru seems to have acquired notoriety in the West and the Muslim world, creating a perception that the RSS is trying to spread its Hindutva ideology worldwide.
The evangelical Americans also seem fully aligned with Trump’s anti-BJP-RSS stance, potentially fuelling anti-India sentiment in the US, Canada, and Australia. This threatens the IT and NRI-driven economic gains, including outsourced jobs and remittances that the RSS-BJP relied upon over the past 11 years through the migration of its Hindutva techies.
Swadeshi pitch offers no succour
The top business monopolies of India are also less likely to be happy with the new RSS-BJP’s Gandhian pitch of “Swadeshi” – used as an answer to Trump’s hefty tariffs.
Also read | Why 'Swadeshi' chest-thumping falls flat against production numbers
The fundamental principle of Gandhian Swadeshi would not support the Adani-Ambani kind of crony capitalism, let alone capitalism itself. A Swadeshi economy does not support the new highways, airways, and ports that Gautam Adani built and is still building.
The bottom line is that the RSS top gear, with their ambition to make India Vishwaguru as soon as possible, has been defeated by Trump. With India having lost Trump’s patronage and taking refuge in the friendship of Putin and Xi, there is little scope for the RSS or the BJP to propagate any Hindutva-related activities in their countries.
With Bhagwat and Modi having overcome their 75-retirement deadline by mutual appreciation, and putting the so-called moral obligation of promoting the young generation aside, the next line of leaders, when they take over, will be faced with the troubling prospect of juggling ties with their historical enemies – the ‘comrades’ – and fulfilling the vision of making India a Vishwaguru.
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