COVER STORY

An RSS action plan

The RSS national executive fixes a time-frame to revive aggressive mobilisation to advance the Hindutva agenda; it also appears to be planning moves to replace A.B. Vajpayee as Prime Minister.

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
in New Delhi

A WEEK before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government began its first anniversary celebrations, the Akhil Bharatiya Prathinidhi Sabha (national executive) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) met in Lucknow to deliberate on the questions of ideology and organisation that confront the Hindutva combine at present. The Prathinidhi Sabha, an important supervisory body of the Sangh Parivar, unfolded a three-pronged action plan: a movement against the conversion of Hindus to other religions, especially Christianity; and agitation against Western-oriented economic liberalisation policies, which militate against swadeshi economics; and moves to revive the Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura temple agitations.

K.S. Sudershan, joint general secretary of the RSS, said that the first two items on the agenda would get top priority in the near future; however, he could not say what "near future" meant. Sources in the RSS maintain that the programmes will be launched after three months.

These decisions that can possibly have a far-reaching impact on the future of the Government. However, according to Sangh Parivar insiders, the most interesting discussions revolved around the personality conflicts in the Government, particularly the conflict between Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani.

In a sense, the outcome of the Lucknow meet was a reiteration of the ideological and policy thrusts identified by RSS sarsanghachalak Rajendra Singh at the Chinthan Baithak (introspection meet) held in Nagpur in December 1998. Rajendra Singh could not attend the three-day Prathinidhi Sabha that began on March 11 owing to ill-health, but the meeting continued the "churning process" initiated by him. The Nagpur meet, which was attended by all constituents of the Sangh Parivar, was followed by separate conclaves of its wings, including the BJP, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and the Bajrang Dal. The basic objective of these meetings was to find ways and means to overcome the political and organisational reverses suffered by the Sangh Parivar under the Vajpayee Government, especially the defeat in the November Assembly elections in some States.

The VHP and the Bajrang Dal had at their meetings identified the rise of elements owing allegiance to alien philosophies as the root cause of the problems facing the country. They asserted that the country could be saved only by throwing these forces out. Such forces included "Christian and Muslim missionaries who were converting innocent Hindus, the so-called secular leaders of Opposition parties who supported conversions, particularly those like Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi, who herself was a Christian, and alien economic precepts like the policy of liberalisation."

SUBIR ROY
RSS general secretary
H.V. Seshadri addressing the meeting of the Akhil Bharatiya Prathinidhi Sabha of the RSS in Lucknow.

While these political and social factors were publicly enunciated, there was an unpublicised sub-text. That, according to Sangh Parivar activists, involved an attempt to replace Vajpayee with a candidate who is more amenable to the implementation of a certain agenda. This became obvious from Sudershan's statement at the Chinthan Baithak on the ill-effects of liberalisation and his criticism of the Government for succumbing to pressures from international financial agencies, and the projection - sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle - that the Prime Minister and his supporters, and not the entire Ministry, were responsible for the aberrations. Recent statements by Dattopant Thengdi, leader of the RSS and the BMS, on the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill and other policy matters of the Government carried personal attacks against the Prime Minister.

According to a senior VHP activist from Uttar Pradesh, sections of the Sangh Parivar had expressed the opinion at the Chinthan Baithak that the personality tussle in the BJP at the top level would be settled in a manner that was most suitable to the Sangh Parivar leadership before the Budget session. Many RSS activists believed that the top brass would face the Prathinidhi Sabha with a "positive outcome". However, events between December and February belied their expectation.

SEVERAL participants of the Prathinidhi Sabha meeting felt that the decision to go for the agitational mode over conversions and economic liberalisation as well as the setting of a three-month time-frame for such action was significant. One of them told Frontline: "There was a pointedly critical reference to Vajpayee's wishy-washy attitude on conversions, including the statement that he did not think that forced conversions took place in the country." Although Vajpayee's call for a national debate on conversions was applauded (RSS general secretary H.V. Seshadri even echoed Vajpayee's call for thrashing out the issue), the general tone of the discussions was that he was not doing enough to advance the interests of Hindutva.

A bureaucrat close to the Prime Minister said that "the revised time-frame is an admission by the anti-Vajpayee campaigners of a setback that they suffered, as they had expected to finish the job by February." Sources in the RSS say that Vajpayee fought the moves on expected lines: he rallied round the BJP's allies - the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the Trinamul Congress, the Lok Sakthi and the Telugu Desam - by granting them their demands. "All that was expected. But the unexpected stroke was the bus journey to Lahore, which seemed to have generated a lot of goodwill and popular appeal for the Prime Minister," an aide of Sudershan said.

SUBIR ROY
Delegates at the session.

The overall assessment at the Prathinidhi Sabha was that Vajpayee had emerged more powerful since December at least within the ruling coalition. The RSS is cautious against making a move against him now. That is why Sudershan talked about an agitation after three months, a pro-Vajpayee Minister in the Uttar Pradesh Government told Frontline.

The Prathinidhi Sabha discussions apparently reflected the well-known differences of opinion over who should succeed Vajpayee. While, Thengdi and H.V. Seshadri prefer Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, for leaders such as Rajendra Singh Advani is the natural choice. Advani continues to be the front-runner for a variety of reasons: he enjoys the confidence of a large number of RSS leaders, has a better mass appeal than Joshi, has the ability to please both the moderate and hardline sections of the BJP.

Meanwhile, Vajpayee's supporters have gone on the offensive. Even as the session was in progress, AIADMK leader Jayalalitha deplored Advani as an associate of Islamic fundamentalists. The provocation for this statement was apparently the withdrawal of the provisions of the National Security Act against Abdul Nasar Mahdani, in jail for his alleged links with the Coimbatore blasts. Clearly, Jayalalitha was sending a message across to the RSS, and the timing and content of her statement have not been lost on the organisation's top brass. This, and the oft-repeated statements by leaders of the Trinamul Congress, the Lok Sakthi and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), indicate that they are more than keen to take up cudgels for Vajpayee. The situation will be clearer three months from now.