Although India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the most seats in the recent parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP and its Hindutva politics emerged weaker from the election. The party failed to win an absolute majority and also, it lost the election in the Ayodhya Lok Sabha constituency. This was a humiliating blow to the BJP as it had made the consecration of the Ram idol and the building of a grand temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya a central campaign plank.
There have been several interesting developments in recent months. Modi was rapped on his knuckles for his hubris by Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor; there is talk of the RSS replacing Modi. Meanwhile, the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit infighting has come out in the open. Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are said to be at loggerheads.
So, what is happening in the BJP? After over a decade of living in Modi’s shadow, is the RSS re-asserting itself vis-à-vis a weakened Modi?
Apoorvanand, a professor at the Delhi University and a long-time observer of the BJP and the RSS, shares his insights into these issues. In an interview with The Diplomat’s South Asia editor Sudha Ramachandran, Apoorvanand said that “the RSS will be happy to see a restrained Modi.”
Why is the BJP’s defeat in the Ayodhya Lok Sabha constituency in the recent general elections important? Is it a turning point?
The Ayodhya Lok Sabha constituency is actually Faizabad constituency, and Ayodhya is just a part of the Faizabad constituency. In November 2018, the BJP renamed Faizabad [a Muslim name] as Ayodhya. It was part of the Hindufication of India. It has been erasing all Muslim identities, names, and monuments. Allahabad was changed to Prayagraj, Mughalsarai Junction was renamed as Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction. Babri Masjid (mosque) was erased by demolition.
But it must be regretting the move as it brought the focus on Ayodhya. What would have been a defeat in Faizabad became a defeat in Ayodhya, the purported place where the Hindu deity Ram is believed to have been born.
The BJP’s defeat here is not a turning point. Faizabad has not been a permanent BJP stronghold. It has been a seat where candidates from parties other than the Jana Sangh (as the BJP was known previously) and the BJP won elections. Candidates of the Communist Party of India (CPI) won the seat; the CPI candidate later contested from the Samajwadi Party and won. So, the recent defeat of the BJP candidate from the Ayodhya constituency is nothing new. It is not a turning point, as the BJP has been defeated repeatedly in the past.
However, the BJP’s defeat from Ayodhya has immense symbolic meaning. The BJP had made Ayodhya the centerpiece of its election campaign. In his speeches, Modi said that he has made Ayodhya a new pilgrimage destination for Hindus. He had been warning his Hindu electorate that his defeat would mean a lock would be put on the Ram Temple, which was built on the land of the Babri Masjid.
It was on January 22, 2024, the day that the Ram idol was consecrated at the temple in Ayodhya, that the BJP formally launched its election campaign. Since the BJP made the Ayodhya temple the centerpiece of its campaign, its defeat in Ayodhya conveyed the message that Ayodhya has rejected it.
This in turn brought focus on the voters of Ayodhya. It brought visibility to its people, whose lives were made miserable by the BJP. While making the town a destination for its brand of religious tourism, the BJP destroyed people’s houses and shops to make way for roads and builders or developers. People’s lives have been ruined. The BJP will regret drawing attention to this for a very long time.
This, in turn, brought focus to Kashi or Varanasi, to the BJP’s demolition of people’s homes and ancient temples, for construction of the Kashi Corridor. So, the defeat of the BJP in Ayodhya underscored that the BJP does not care for the Hindu people.
Days after the election results, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat criticized Modi’s governance. Does this point to a rift between RSS and BJP? Or between Bhagwat and Modi?
First, we must understand that RSS is the biggest beneficiary of the Modi regime. Under ten years of Modi rule, it has been flushed with funds and gained unprecedented access to resources. I’m told that its office in Jhandelwalan in New Delhi has been renovated for millions of rupees. The RSS chief enjoys national attention. Unlike previously, his speeches are telecast on all media platforms and published prominently in newspapers. Even if his utterances are meaningless, intellectuals try to get meaning out of it and make sense of it. He has become the most important spiritual leader of Hindus. He is treated as some old wise man of Hinduism. This is unprecedented. And the RSS is enjoying this newfound fortune.
And it is not only Mohan Bhagwat but also other RSS pracharaks (propagandists) who have benefited. Their fortunes have grown. Pracharaks get easy and unhindered access to top officials like university vice chancellors and district magistrates. Officials tell me that they have access to ministry files. The RSS has deputed its people in ministries.
During my recent visit to Bihar, I was told by theater activists that the chief of Sanskar Bharati, the cultural wing of RSS, summoned them and over a cup of tea told them to join the organization. And many joined. If you don’t, you will not be awarded government projects, So the Sanskar Bharati, the Vidya Bharati, and other educational institutions affiliated with the RSS have grown manifold.
The RSS in return provided Modi with its vast army of volunteers who became his propagandists. So, without any additional costs, Modi had at his disposal hundreds of thousands of RSS people who canvassed on his behalf, brought voters to polling booths and managed them. RSS became Modi’s biggest legitimizer in the Hindutva ecosystem and silenced the skeptics. Thus there is a mutually beneficial relationship between Modi and the RSS.
The RSS knew fully well that if Modi is promoted, it will be undermined. That was the experience in Gujarat. As chief minister of the state, Modi dominated and he made the RSS subservient to him. The RSS had to tolerate it. There was a trade-off — if the RSS accepted Modi’s supremacy, they could benefit materially. Also, they would get unhindered access to the state apparatus, which will be of immense benefit to it at all times, even when the BJP is not in power.
Importantly, Modi has enjoyed the support of Indian corporates. The RSS was aware that only Modi could bring money to the BJP and RSS. So, they accepted Modi’s leadership and promoted him as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general election.
I spoke to a leading RSS functionary before the 2014 elections. I asked him why the RSS was promoting Modi when he had humiliated it during his Gujarat days. He smiled and told me that there were two options before the RSS — become irrelevant under a Congress regime or become irrelevant under the Modi regime. They made their choice; clearly, the RSS is ready to be irrelevant under Modi because they have a lot to gain from him.
Yet, the feeling of humiliation is there. So, this shadow-boxing will keep happening. Bhagwat will make indirect statements critical of Modi, which the media would construe as a jibe against Modi because the Indian media is eager to prove that RSS is a powerful and sane body. Journalists want to be convinced and to convince others that whatever Bhagwat says holds great meaning and that the RSS determines the fate of the BJP. Also that the RSS has a civilizing role to play, to keep extremist tendencies in check.
For example, during the elections when there were signs that the BJP would not get an absolute majority, the RSS started spreading stories through its media that it had distanced itself from the elections. It wanted to convey the message that it was the support of the RSS that helped Modi win a majority in the past and that with the organization withdrawing from campaigning for the BJP, the number of seats the BJP won fell. They want to keep alive the illusion that they are very powerful. Their leaders pontificate and speak in a “spiritual” way, and the media is eager to accept that they are spiritual leaders and elevate them to that status.
Yes, there is tension between the RSS and BJP. There is conflict. There is unease in the RSS that the figure of Modi has become larger than the organization that made him what he is. In the past, they have never experienced a BJP leader, be it Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Lal Krishna Advani, ignoring their diktats.
Vajpayee was seen as someone who could stride both the RSS and the non-RSS worlds. He was useful to the RSS as he had influence across political parties. Vajpayee was acceptable even to the Communist Party of India-Marxists. When people commented that Vajpayee was the right person in the wrong party, he asserted that he was primarily a Swayamsevak. He did not distance himself from the parent organization.
Modi remains primarily an RSS man. It was the RSS that deputed him to the BJP. It was the RSS that forced the BJP to make him Gujarat chief minister and to retain him as chief minister after the 2002 mass violence against Muslims. So, Modi owes a lot to RSS and he, like Vajpayee, remains a Swayamsevak.
However, the RSS will be happy to see a restrained Modi.
Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or the National Volunteers Force chief Mohan Bhagwat addresses a mega public rally in Gauhati, India, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2018. AP Photo/Anupam Nath
Does the RSS want to replace Modi with another leader?
At this juncture, unless the corporates withdraw support from Modi, the RSS is not going to undermine Modi’s supremacy. It will keep firing arrows at him. But it knows that real power comes from money and from the support of the corporate world.
Modi is Modi because of India’s corporates. They carried him on their shoulders to power in Delhi. It was Ratan Tata, then chairman of the Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, who in 2007 said Modi has the potential to become a good prime minister of India. So Indian corporates were promoting Modi from 2007 at least. The United Progressive Alliance, which was in power then in New Delhi, was enacting environment and forest laws, making it difficult for business corporations to access natural resources to exploit and grow their profits. But Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat, gave them access to rivers, land, and all public natural resources.
A lot of churning appears to be happening in the BJP/RSS in recent months. The Modi-Amit Shah combine is attacking Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Could you shed light on what is happening?
Modi wants to shift responsibility for the BJP’s defeat in Uttar Pradesh [it won less than half the seats from what has been its stronghold] from himself to someone else. Hence the targeting of Adityanath. It is a power game.
Meanwhile, Adityanath fancies himself as a Hindu leader in his own right. He has the might of the powerful Hindu Yuva Vani supporting him. It was this that forced the RSS to accept him as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, although Manoj Sinha was their first choice. Subsequently, with his bulldozing of Muslim properties, his cruelty and crudity, he proved that he is capable of being another Narendra Modi. He can match and even outdo Modi. So, RSS sees great potential in Adityanath.
But yes, Modi sees Adityanath as a threat. He is also keen to shift responsibility for the defeat in Uttar Pradesh and Adityanath is handy in this regard.
The spat between Modi and Adityanath is also useful to the latter. It has provided a boost to his stature. With Adityanath being pitted against Modi, he has become the most important person in the BJP, second only to Modi. The opposition leaders are making a big noise that Adityanath is being hounded by Modi. They are enjoying this infighting. But drawing attention to the Modi-Adityanath faceoff is elevating the latter’s stature. This is a win-win situation for both Modi and Adityanath.
We are told that RSS would be too happy this time to support Adityanath to restrain Modi. A very interesting situation is unfolding now: A diminished Modi threatened by Adityanath and RSS, a weak Adityanath being cornered by Modi, and a weak RSS trying to regain its hold over the BJP. But there has also emerged a radical Hindutva force that is not under the command of the RSS, but which the RSS is obliged to protect. That is how I see it.
Do you foresee a split in the BJP in the near future?
The BJP is the only party that has never split even once. Unlike the Congress party, the BJP top leaders have never left even if they have been relegated to the background. Vajpayee, for instance, didn’t dare leave the BJP. He could have. Lal Krishna Advani, the most powerful leader of the BJP, and Murli Manohar Joshi, were pushed to the margins. But they remained in the party.
There was opposition to Modi from within the BJP. There were challenges to his leadership from several BJP leaders. Modi dealt with this by reopening the Ayodhya conspiracy case, which relates to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992. A special Central Bureau of Investigation court framed conspiracy charges against several leaders including Advani, Joshi and Uma Bharti in 2017. It was made clear to these leaders that if they took one wrong step, they would be jailed. With the sword of that case hanging over their head, they were forced to remain silent. Once it was clear that no harm would come from them to Modi, the court absolved them of conspiracy charges. By then, they had all become irrelevant and incapable of doing anything.
How is prejudice different from Hindutva hatred?
Hindutva is a way of thinking of Hindus in which Muslims and Christians are the essential reference points. It does not think of Hindus in isolation; it is always in opposition to a Muslim or Christian. So, a Hindu in relation to a Muslim is what Hindutva is about. Apart from that it contains an element of Hindu supremacy that Hindus are the best in the world. A “Hindutvadi Hindu” is essentially one who hates Muslims.
For historical reasons, prejudice developed against Muslims and Christians in the minds of Hindus. These prejudices are very much a part of our Hindu common sense. But people have all kinds of prejudices. If you talk to a Bihari he will tell you jokingly that Bengalis are darpok (cowards). We can live with our prejudices.
But if there is a concerted effort to keep prejudices alive and make them the main element in our relationship with a community, then it becomes problematic. This is what the RSS does. It plays on the prejudices about Muslims and amplifies them to keep them alive and turns them into hatred.
For example, Shias and Sunnis have prejudices against each other. It becomes dangerous in Pakistan and Shias are in mortal danger because there is an anti-Shia ideology there that targets them. Shias and Sunnis are prejudiced against each other in India and they live with these prejudices in India.
So, Hindus and Muslims can live with their prejudices about each other. It becomes dangerous when it is turned into hate and it is very easy to turn it into hate if you make turning prejudice into hate your main work. And that is what the RSS is all about.
The RSS is not so much concerned about Hindus. It is more worried about Muslims and Christians and also about any possible proximity between Hindus and these two communities. It keeps working to ensure that Hindus do not become empathetic towards Muslims and do not see them as equal human beings. Through thousands of its schools, shakhas (daily drills), and other institutions it is churning out Hindus who are essentially anti-Muslim.
The Modi government is even changing school curriculums to inculcate Hindutva and hatred of Muslims in the minds of youngsters.
Yes, the situation is very dangerous. My students who have studied at the Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and other RSS-affiliated schools say that had they not come to Delhi University or gone to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences they would have remained Muslim haters like their co-schoolers in Bareilly or Meerut. They tell me that the magnitude of the danger posed by thousands of students who have been indoctrinated in the Hindutva ideology is unimaginable. A hate-generating machinery is in place and its fountainhead is the RSS.
Then you have Bollywood churning out film after film portraying Muslims as essentially anti-Hindu and anti-Indian, and warning Hindus to be wary of Muslims. And now you have the prime minister, the home minister, and even judges who say it is alright to hate Muslims. A judge in the Delhi High Court said that if you spread hatred with a smile on your lips it is not a crime. Spreading hatred against Muslims has become kosher.
How can this exclusivist ideology peddled by mass organizations be defeated?
Hindu society has become dangerously radicalized and now it is for us to deradicalize Hindus, humanize them, and tell them it is not good to hate and exclude people. The way out is a counter-cultural and political movement to Hindutva, one which encompasses the whole life of Hindus and deradicalizes them.
The United Kingdom accepted Rishi Sunak as prime minister. We rejoice that the wife of the potential vice president of the U.S. is a practicing Hindu. Many Hindus think that this is because Hinduism is great, not because the British or Americans have been accommodative. We think we are supreme and so they accepted us. We have to get out of this supremacy syndrome and accept that accommodation is the best way out.
So, this counter-movement needs to be undertaken with great vigor, consistency, and belief.