Problem with RSS

by Rishi Sat May 24, 2014 10:10 pm

The Sangh Parivar and Hindu nationalism

Literally from the first time that I met Sita Ram Goel, and until the very last, sometime before his death in 2003, he was critical of the Sangh Parivar. He chided them for being mediocre, knee-jerk reactive, repetitive, and anti-intellectual. This was not a matter of mere temperament among the RSS leaders, but a deliberate choice since the beginning, and founded on a kernel of truth. As RSS activists are wont to say: "It doesn't require a book to love your mother", and similarly, a nationalist movement can be devoted to the Motherland without any ideology or media presence. So, like Mahatma Gandhi, the RSS worked on people's patriotism and related fleeting emotions, whereas the Communists worked on people's minds with lasting effect. That is why far fewer Communists have been able to change the face of India while the RSS with its mass of activists has always been impotently reacting to changes imposed by its enemies.

The boy-scout attire of the RSS, Western-colonial in inspiration, symbolizes the RSS's juvenile political attitude compared to the adult world in which the Nehruvian secularists function. "Do well and don't look back", the boy-scouts say, and they don't care if behind their backs the enemy is giving them a bad name. But to function in the modern world, reputation is important, and with no media presence, you leave the field to the enemy to establish for you a very negative reputation. The real-life consequences are very serious: many doors remain closed, many potential friends that should have flocked to your cause remain distrustful, everyone anyhow related to you always has to justify himself and has commensurately less room for maneuver. During the BJP regime of 1998-2004, refusal of the allied parties in the coalition to support any item of the specifically Hindu part of the BJP's stated agenda was cited as the reason for not implementing any of it; but their mental association of anything Hindu with intolerable evil was the result of decades of anti-Hindu opinion-making, itself facilitated by the RSS's decision not to practise any serious pro-Hindu opinion-making.

However, I would like to put this criticism in perspective. The RSS and its daughter organizations do get things done. During natural disasters, RSS relief teams are always first on the scene, a fact carefully hidden from the public by the media. During the Partition, RSS workers saved the lives of Congress politicians stuck in Pakistan, often only to find that these same politicians, once safely in India, condemned "the communal forces", meaning the RSS. During the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in autumn 1947, it was RSS workers who held the Srinagar airport until the army arrived to start its reconquest. During the Chinese invasion of 1962, the RSS through its services earned its exceptional presence at the subsequent Republic Day parade. During the Emergency, when numerous secularists came out in their true anti-democratic colours and made the

Constitution declare India a "secular, socialist" republic, RSS workers defended democracy. Till today, the commitment of RSS workers is such that they risk their lives for being known as Hindu activists: in some regions, Communists or Muslims regularly kill RSS workers. So, there is no lack of courage or dedication among the rank-and-file of the RSS and its daughter organizations.

The problem is that this large mass of people, purportedly the largest NGO in the world, is not given proper direction. When you criticize the RSS, the answer you usually get from its spokesmen is that they have such great manpower, so dedicated, so disciplined – all true. But this mass of disciplined and dedicated workers is like a headless monster. It doesn't know where it is going.

The RSS is like the traveler in a Chinese story. He stopped his chariot at an inn and said to another traveler that he was speeding towards the south. "But you won't get there", the other man said. "Why should I not get there? I have the newest chariot in the land", our traveller boasted. "Still you won't get there", said the other. "But I have the best horses, and an expert charioteer", said our man. "Why should I not get to my destination down south?" Pat came the reply: "Because you're heading north!"

The RSS is also blinded by a kind of hubris, thinking that it is the leader and awakener of Hindu society. Objectively, it makes common cause with the secularists in identifying any Hindu activism with the long arm of the RSS. It therefore also thinks that because of its merits and its pivotal role, it is entitled to use people – one of Sita Ram Goel's objections to it. But the main flaw he saw in the RSS was its docility, its herd instinct, all while pretending to give the lead. It never provided a realistic analysis of the forces in the field, nor even of the battlefield itself, the world in which contending forces have to function.

A few people close to the RSS leadership recognize the problem, such as the late

Dina Nath Mishra, MP for the BJP. During a conversation we agreed that the RSS was behaving "like a brainless dinosaur", but he expressed belief in a solution just around the corner, viz. to "infuse a brain into the dinosaur".

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/

by bw Sun May 25, 2014 7:03 pm

ugh@rajeev srinivasan. i used to enjoy his writing on rediff but his content and agenda soon turned unbearable.

by truthbetold Sun May 25, 2014 7:39 pm

RSS, being better than congress , is not a long term answer to India and its people's problems. Can modi pull off a Deng like miracle in India?

(Deng moved communist china to capitalist economic ways and his followers maintained it for more than 30 years).

So the question is can modi lead india to a semi developed nation with democracy intact?

by confuzzled dude Sun May 25, 2014 8:04 pm

truthbetold wrote:RSS, being better than congress , is not a long term answer to India and its people's problems. Can modi pull off a Deng like miracle in India?

(Deng moved communist china to capitalist economic ways and his followers maintained it for more than 30 years).

So the question is can modi lead india to a semi developed nation with democracy intact?

What it takes for India to become a semi developed nation, a 10% consistent growth rate for full 20-year [elected] term of Modi Ji's in conjunction wth importing Chinese technology. Haven't you heard it shouldn't be that lofty a goal given Modi Ji's multi-faceted persona and sagacious genius.

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