Vajpayee8217;s RSS cross

It is, indeed, difficult to imagine that a BJP Prime Minister should be confronted with the dual membership8217; question, much as Morarji Desai wasin 1979. And it can hardly be any comfort to Vajpayee that while the disruptive issue was posed by a staunch socialist, Madhu Limaye, in his own case it is the RSS itself which is kicking up the fuss.

Is this the end-game for Vajpayee? The answer must lie in the future, but it is time the country became conscious of the RSS-BJP relationship, for the equation between these two symbiotically-linked bodies is likely to have a determining influence not only on the political fate of the present Prime Minister, but also on his successors if they derive, as he does, from the RSS stock. It is also perhaps necessary for the country to get to understand the RSS itself in relation to the functioning of democracy in India.

If Vajpayee wins out 8212; after all, the PMO commands the machinery of the state in meeting the exigencies of a contest 8212; the RSS may find it difficult to recover from the shock, or be able to offer resistance to a future challenger from within, despite its image of ubiquitousness, based no doubt onthe traditional secretiveness of its ways. On the other hand, if Vajpayee is made to bite dust by the fountainhead of Hind-centric politics, the episode would serve to hand out an object lesson to future mavericks.

This would be the case even if it turns out that what we are witnessing today is not organisational or ideological tension between the Prime Minister and the RSS, but something much narrower 8212; a contest of wills between an ambition-driven senior political figure, committed to hold his supreme position in national life, and the political mother that bore him. All the same, the issue has come to be framed in political terms on both sides, with strong ideological and emotive undertones.

While Vajpayee seeks to emerge as a moderniser wounded by foes within, a Prometheus straining to break his shackles, his erstwhile mentors attempt to draw blood in the name of the country8217;s sovereignty, which they, like the opposition, say is not secure with the present Prime Minister at the helm. Witness thekeenness of their attack on the government not only on economic issues like insurance and patents, but also on the quality of the security dialogue being conducted with the US after Pokharan.

The RSS , of course, is being hoist with its own petard. If it is true that Vajpayee has not for a long time been one of its favourite commanders, why was he put forward to the electorate as the BJP8217;s Prime Minister, should the party succeed to power? Was it merely cleverness, since Vajpayee was the best known RSS-BJP face to appeal to the wider electorate? Did the RSS really not approve of the things its best card proclaim in the course of electioneering and immediately after while framing the national agenda of governance? If so, why did it not make its reservations known right then?

When did it begin to feel let down or betrayed by Vajpayee? It will be in the public interest if information on these matters was made available to guide an open debate. On his part, the PM too needs to be more transparent than he hasbeen. Did he actually differ with the RSS credo all along? In that case, why did he not simply refuse to be Hindutva8217;s PM-in-waiting? Or, was it only emphasis on which he differed, not core beliefs and policy? If so, what explains the goings-on today when divergences between him and his parent organisation seem so acute?

The people need to be taken into confidence on all these things, for it is their interests that suffer if Parliament remains immobilised, policy-framing and implementation routinely face defeat, and BJP-run state governments are riven on the Vajpayee question, both factionally and on issues of substance. Until now the Prime Minister has given a glimpse of his thinking only once, and very briefly. In a late December interview on a private television channel he said he listens to the RSS but quot;simply ignoresquot; unsuni, in Hindi what he does not agree with. In all fairness to the public domain, this cries out for elaboration.

If dual membership8217; has returned to haunt Vajpayee, it iswith a poetic force. When Limaye had first raised the issue, he was challenging members of the then Jan Sangh component of the Janata Party to be loyal either to the party for which the people had so overwhelmingly voted, or to declare their choice openly for the RSS and not pretend to be members of the Janata. In effect, he was demanding they do not seek to push RSS8217;s influence by misusing the government machinery, and also telling them in no uncertain terms that if the Jan Sangh had not merged into the Janata Party, and gone it alone instead, there was no way its members could get elected to Parliament in that election.

Cut to the quick, the RSS elements pulled out of Janata Party, resolving to reassert their true public identity without obfuscating. Indeed, this was the honourable course. The Jan Sangh was resurrected under the new brand name of the Bharatiya Janata Party. None other than Vajpayee was made its first president in deference to his public standing. But he failed to galvanise either theparty or the masses, and made way for L.K. Advani who vies with V.P. Singh for the slot of the most dynamic political leader of the past decade. Nevertheless, it was to Vajpayee that the BJP and the RSS turned when it came to the Prime Ministerial stakes. This is what needs true and open explaining, for this is the cause of all the trouble in governance today. Indeed, but for this the story of the past year may well have been qualitatively different.