The Sarsanghchalak's Vijayadashami speech on October 2 gave a full-throated regime validation, particularly over Modi govt's handling of Operation Sindoor
The annual Vijayadashami speech of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) supremo — its Sarsanghchalak — is a much-anticipated affair for believers. It presents the ‘party line’ for the year.
RSS watchers also keep an eye on it to figure out the organisation if they can, but words coming from the Hindu-supremacist core are seldom to be taken at face value, and observers are frequently misled. As for the adherents, they know how to interpret the instruction and are also guided by their local leaders.
This October 2 was even more special, with the media hanging on to Mohan Bhagwat’s every word as the organisation he leads celebrated its centenary. This is primarily because the RSS, which now has a much higher profile than before, is presumed to be the power behind the throne when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power at the Centre.
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After all, the BJP is the RSS’s creation, its political arm.
The reality of the RSS-BJP interaction, when the party holds national power, turns out to be more complex than is commonly supposed, and is nuanced. It is on account of this that Bhagwat's Vijayadashami thoughts this year claimed more than the usual attention.
On account of this derived clout, the RSS chief now even gets to address the faithful from the Vigyan Bhavan! The prestigious convention centre in the national capital is typically a venue for high-grade official events. Access of this nature will ordinarily be beyond the reach of a mere “cultural” — and supposedly a do-gooder— outfit of volunteers, even if it says it speaks for the country’s predominant religious community.
RSS-BJP relation: It's complicated
But, seen dispassionately, being extended such privileges is a part of the trappings of radiated power — no more than that. The reality of the RSS-BJP interaction, when the party holds national power, turns out to be more complex than is commonly supposed, and is nuanced. It is on account of this that the Sarsanghchalak’s Vijayadashami thoughts this year claimed more than the usual attention.
It is interesting, but not wholly surprising, that the key issue appears to have got lost in the melee of things that Bhagwat spoke about. Perhaps the crux of the matter was knowingly obfuscated. That shouldn’t discomfit the RSS chief since he’d know perfectly well that the message has registered where it matters.
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It wasn’t much of a centenary celebration speech, with a telescopic quality and recall of past glories. This organisation’s past is, in fact, strewn with controversies, including whether Nathuram Godse had ever abjured his past association with the outfit, and it’s safer not to go there.
What Mohan Bhagwat touched and what he didn't
Bhagwat’s speech ranged widely but seemed to cover a much narrower time frame than a century, as though its purpose was narrower. The RSS top leader spoke of widening economic inequality and the need for “swadeshi”; he pointed to the recent violent youth uprising in Nepal and in other neighbouring countries causing regime change; he deplored violence and flagged the need for democratic methods; took favourable notice of the suppression of Naxalites, and touched upon the environmental degradation in the fragile Himalayas.
Not least, Bhagwat pondered who the country’s real friends were globally, based on the degree of support they extended to India after Operation Sindoor earlier this year.
So, what is the RSS celebrating while seeking to reach a compromise with Modi? Evidently, there isn’t too much to cheer, other than alleged electoral skulduggery.
These were unstructured thoughts without a particular focus, just ramblings in fact, for the aim appears to be to ever so lightly touch upon the real message so that the recipient figures it out but not the general public — and the chief gets to save face.
A non-hagiographic reading of the Vijayadashami speech, made from the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, makes it plain that in his long-running discord with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RSS leader has now chosen to sue for peace, for a declaration of truce. This was a message that came through without ambiguity. And the message was most evident in Bhagwat’s remarks in the context of terrorism and the April 22 Pahalgam attack by Pakistani proxies, leading to Operation Sindoor.
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According to a report by The Indian Express, the RSS supremo said: “.....After careful planning, the government of Bharat gave a fitting response to this attack. During this entire period, we witnessed the heartening scenes of the firmness of the country’s leadership, the valour and war-readiness of our Armed Forces....”
Such full-throated regime validation should gladden the PM’s heart, for in much of the recent past, the RSS chief has done much sideways sniping at Modi — speaking in different voices or different registers with words that can mean different things to different audiences.
RSS's diversionary tactic
The various issues recited by Bhagwat — other than the key message about extolling the current “leadership” — would appear to be diversionary, in fact. Over the years, the RSS has never concerned itself with these vital subjects in any meaningful way. For instance, it has at no stage concerned itself with matters regarding the environment.
Opposition to the Modi regime's policies to obliterate forests and other hotspots to be handed over to the big sharks, usually capitalist cronies, in the name of development — for mining or other industrial activity — have not been a part of RSS agendas.
In the past 10 years, one disaster after another has overtaken the Himalayan region, particularly Uttarakhand, when roads are widened or other “development” plans executed, but the Modi government has been given a pass. The RSS has elided over the suffering of the people that has ensued.
What does RSS's 'swadeshi' mean?
The RSS's talking about income inequalities, the deep disparities resulting from the government’s economic policies, are so tokenistic as to invite ridicule. The reference to “swadeshi” in the RSS chief’s annual address is no doubt an example of the resuscitation of an old hobby horse. But the Hindu-first paramilitary corps is yet to explain what it means by “swadeshi”, a word it uses with glibness when it is found suitable to give a gloss to its “nationalistic” credentials.
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Does “swadeshi” mean autarky in the RSS's vocabulary? How is it different from certain aspects of Gandhian values, or from the ideas of import substitution advanced by the Left or through the Congress government's policies at a certain point?
There have been no discussions or debates emanating from RSS forums on these important questions which have been shared with the people.
In the past 10 years, one disaster after another has overtaken the Himalayan region, particularly Uttarakhand, when roads are widened or other “development” plans executed, but the Modi government has been given a pass. The RSS has elided over the suffering of the people that has ensued.
As for the espousal of constitutional or democratic values, the record of the RSS is one of not upholding it, for at the fundamental core of these sits the idea of non-violence of which no better exemplar than Mahatma Gandhi can be conceived of in the 20th century.
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Leading lights of the Hindu Right have been seen to extol Godse who killed Gandhi because their thoughts were antithetical. The idea of mass mobilisations intent on violence is hardly unknown to the RSS.
RSS's contrasting stand on Operation Sindoor
Indeed, it is plain that the fulsome praise of the leadership on Operation Sindoor now by the RSS chief stands in sharp contrast with what happened during the four-day operation. When the short fighting in May was called off (although officially labelled “suspended”), the RSS leadership didn’t say much but the rank and file appeared angry and let down. It was presumably they who flooded social media with vitriol against the government.
They had taken it for granted that, with “sanskari” (one who observes the Vedic rituals) and patriotic Modi at the helm, the Indian forces would swamp Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) this May and fight on until POK’s incorporation into India was achieved.
From 1948-49, the RSS's propaganda has been that Indian troops could have held or taken the territories that are now POK, but the pusillanimous Nehru government — under international pressure — let it go and signed on a UN-guided ceasefire commencing January 1, 1949.
And now, the Modi government had done the same — letting go the opportunity to capture (and retrieve) POK.
For the faithful, this was deep shock and sorrow rolled into one. US President Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that he had got the fighting to stop, made matters worse.
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Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri bore the brunt when he formally announced the cessation of fighting. Even his family were insultingly attacked and threatened on social media.
Deafening silence over Col Qureshi's insult
Colonel Sofia Qureshi, an army spokesperson who was prominent on television, was called a “sister of terrorists” by Vijay Shah, a senior BJP leader and minister in Madhya Pradesh. The Modi regime defended neither the foreign secretary nor the spokesperson.
The usually loquacious external affairs minister seemed tongue-tied. The garrulous home minister who fights Modi’s little domestic disputes across the board also had no comment. And the prime minister opted for sepulchral silence.
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This is the backdrop to Bhagwat’s unstinted praise for “the leadership” for its handling of Operation Sindoor and its implication. It is, therefore, hard to miss seeing it as an attempt to make it up to the prime minister. According to The Indian Express, the Sarsanghchalak also noted that events of the recent past had “both strengthened our faith and hope”.
What recent events? Unemployment and prices are not letting up. Social fractures are being exposed through government actions against members of specific communities. The BJP lost the Ayodhya parliamentary seat just a few months after the inauguration of the newly constructed Ram Temple in early 2024, and Modi himself came close to surrendering his Varanasi seat. BJP’s Lok Sabha numbers declined precipitously.
So, what is the RSS celebrating while seeking to reach a compromise with Modi? Evidently, there isn’t too much to cheer, other than alleged electoral skulduggery, which made the BJP win state polls in Haryana and Maharashtra — surprising observers — after its way-below-par showing in the last Lok Sabha election.
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Why has the RSS top leader chosen, for now, to stop skirmishing with Modi?
Here we need to look for a structural answer. It seems that when the BJP is not in government, the RSS organisation has the critical say. But when a leader of the RSS — like Modi or Atal Behari Vajpayee before him — becomes the prime minister, he is automatically invested with an inordinate degree of all-embracing authority that emanates from the Constitution of India.
Vajpayee, unlike Modi, was at the mercy of many parties in order to survive and yet gave short shrift to the RSS chief at the time, KS Sudarshan, once his government got into its stride.
The RSS’s strength is its strong corps of volunteers spread across most states. They are engaged in ideological propaganda for a “Hindu Rashtra” every day of the year and are an invaluable resource for the BJP at election time.
But with Modi’s 10-year tenancy of the most important position in the country, it is widely believed in the RSS circles that the cadre by now look up to the prime minister for sustenance.
This has the effect of bringing about a degree of ambivalence in their current approach to the leader in Nagpur.
The PM thus gains a bargaining counter vis-a-vis Nagpur. In Hindutva circles, Modi has also gained considerable equity since he has used his tenure to fulfil several long-held RSS agendas, such as the building of the Ram Temple and the reading down of Article 370, thus denying constitutional autonomy to Kashmir.
Bihar poll results will have a say
If the ruling National Democratic Alliance does well in the upcoming Assembly election in Bihar, the PM is likely to gain further strength in relation to Nagpur; if not, Bhagwat’s position is likely to be reinforced.
The RSS’s words are frequently taken literally. The realisation is generally absent that the leader’s address is also meant to leave an impact on the general public to boost the Hindu nationalism narrative. That makes the much anticipated Vijayadashami address a gigantic and convenient PR exercise in this day of social media.
Its language, therefore, needs cautious parsing. Sometimes what is absent in a given context is what matters. The faithful are, of course, conditioned to figure this out. They grasp politics only too well. It may also be the case that what is stated is open to interpretation in several ways and therefore aimed to fit several situations, depending on the exigency of the situation.
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It is clear that, as an organisation, the RSS has learnt to operate in varying conditions, including being a banned organisation. It has learnt to adapt and inch forward when needed, or stay quiet when needed, and then make forays by leaps and bounds. It has also by now grasped how to conduct its affairs when one from its own ranks becomes the prime minister. Dealing with power pockets and factions within is part of the RSS's upbringing.
The nearest parallel is that of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in some Islamic countries. The supposed nationalism bred by religion is at the heart of their endeavour. For both the RSS and the MB, there have been spectacular failures as well as spectacular successes.
The RSS may be deemed to be in a phase of high ideological success since the arrival of Narendra Modi on the scene as prime minister. Much of its cherished agenda nursed for decades has found fulfilment as Modi himself started out as an RSS pracharak or whole-time volunteer. But there is also a catch. Modi has done exactly as he has pleased without kowtowing to the RSS leadership. And this is because he derives his institutional strength from Parliament and the Constitution, not from former underground shelters.
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