Saffron winter

FORMER Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh chief Rajendra Singh, popularly known as Rajju Bhaiyya, died here on July 14. And Rajju Bhaiyya8217;s pre...

FORMER Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh chief Rajendra Singh, popularly known as Rajju Bhaiyya, died here on July 14. And Rajju Bhaiyya8217;s predeccesor Balasaheb Deoras lived here for four years. This is no fancy address that the saffron brotherhood gives to its famous faces but an old age home in a middleclass neighbourhood of Pune.

Founded in 1984, Kaushik Ashram was built as a retirement home for RSS members who had spent their life serving the cause, choosing organisation over marriage and other such everyday attachments. It was the property of late Dadasaheb Apte, the first general secretary of the Vishwas Hindu Parishad, who donated it to the RSS in 1978.

Diwakar Pande, one of Kaushik Ashram8217;s trustees and the housekeeper, is reluctant to call it an old age home. 8216;8216;You can call it a home of the RSS family. Please don8217;t call it an old age home where unwanted and abandoned senior citizens are generally sent.8217;8217;

At present only five members live in this 11 room house. In keeping with RSS routine, the open backyard is shakha space, reserved for morning prayers and exercises. And while the interiors of the home are plain enough, Kaushik Ashram does have a VIP room. Till the other day, this was where Rajju Bhaiyya stayed.

Babanrao Petkar was an RSS pracharak in Nashik and is, at 89, the senior-most resident of Kaushik Ashram. He explains the unegalitarianism of a VIP room, 8216;8216;We had to have something special in this room, since so many celebrity visitors used to come.8217;8217; He rattles of the names of regular visitors to Rajju Bhaiya 8212; L. K. Advani, Narendra Modi, Murli Manohar Joshi. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Shankaracharya of Kanchi too came calling.

And the VIP room is fancy, by Kaushik Ashram standards8212;wooden panelling, a television set, plush sofas and a special bed. 8216;8216;Balasaheb Deoras also used to stay in this room,8217;8217; recalls Petkar, 8216;8216;so it has become the VIP room.8217;8217;

While the stream of visitors has thinned since Rajju Bhaiyya8217;s death, the RSS veterans draw some satsifaction from the Sangh8217;s growth. In their lifetime it has moved from fringe to mainstream.

Manohar Pant Dongre, 80, used to be a journalist in Hindustan Samachar, a newspaper once published by the RSS. Today those years of struggle are only memories, 8216;8216;When Guru Golwalkar was suffering from cancer and was admitted to the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, not a single politician visited him. How times have changed. There was queue of politicians for Rajju Bhaiyya8217;s funeral.8217;8217; M.S. Golwalkar was the RSS chief from 1940 till his death in 1973.

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Inmates of Kaushik Ashram lead a regimented life. Whether it8217;s Anna Ghayal, aged 81 and a pracharak since 1947, or Mukundrao Gore 8212; formergeneral secretary of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and at 66 the youngest member of the Kaushik Ashram family, the RSS old guard are early risers.

They are up at 5.30, spend their day reading or watching television 8212; from mythological serials to sports programmes to, of course, news. Like in any Indian household, a good part of the day is spent discussing politics.

Strange, about the only equivalent of Kaushik Ashram would be a commune for CPI or CPIM veterans. The Party, like the Sangh, looks after its own.