RSS role is no Centre-state issue

A new twist has been given to the RSS issue by those in power at the Centre and their friends outside the Sangh Parivar. It has been sough...

A new twist has been given to the RSS issue by those in power at the Centre and their friends outside the Sangh Parivar. It has been sought to be projected as a Centre-state issue. The Gujarat government8217;s decision to let its employees join the organisation of a controversial character is no longer defended outright by New Delhi. With no takers even among most of its allies for the theory about the RSS being an apolitical or non-political outfit, the BJP rulers have beaten a hasty retreat to a position that their ruling partners can share. They have all taken the plea that the Centre cannot intervene in Gujarat and influence the state8217;s BJP government under Keshubhai Patel into reversing the decision, that it cannot do so without flouting a basic principle of federalism. Important Central leaders, including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L. K. Advani, may have reacted to the controversy initially with spontaneous certificates for the RSS as a strictly socio-cultural body, but theCentre8217;s emphasis has subsequently shifted to the state government8217;s right to have its own rules for its own staff. The defence was not durable.

The prolonged impasse in Parliament on the issue has forced the non-BJP components of the National Democratic Alliance to ask for something the BJP has been trying to avoid. It is being asked to intervene without setting any Centre-state precedent. The advice deserves to be accepted and acted upon without undue delay. The DMK8217;s M. Karunanidhi, facing flak in Tamil Nadu for an un-Dravidian8217; softness on the RSS, asked first for the BJP tackling it at the party level. The allies have followed suit after the NDA consultations in the Capital, urging the leadership to take up the matter with the Gujarat unit of the BJP. The advice cannot be rejected without making the Centre8217;s revised stand appear a mere ploy 8212; to let BJP-ruled states do something the coalitionary arithmetic would not allow in New Delhi. To those who consider the BJP itself only as a front or, to use a by now more familiar term, mask8217; of the RSS, the idea mooted by the allies may seem absurd. To those who indignantly reject such an insinuation,however, the suggestion should make eminent sense. It can, in fact, be welcomed as an opportunity to prove the absence of a BJP-RSS political connection of the kind alleged by the critics of both. Will the opportunity be seized? Or, will it be lost 8212; along with the lesson of the experience of the fall of the first Janata government at the Centre on the dual-membership8217; issue?

Hopefully, the counsel for the coalition8217;s stability will prevail upon theBJP leadership. Hopefully, too, the leadership is not fully represented in this regard by Venkaiah Naidu who had earlier argued that federalism prevented the party8217;s intervention as well in Gujarat. It is time the impasseis ended, taking advantage of the RSS announcement of its readiness to give up the Gujarat issue. Paralysis of Parliament for an indefinite period and the prospect of growing strains at the Centre would appear too high a price for the party to pay for an uncompromising stance on this score.