By Faraz Ahmad,
The relationship between Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi is symbiotic. Modi fulfills the basic agenda of the Sangh in successfully converting India into a majoritarian Hindu Rashtra. Essentially breaking the quarter century old Dalit-Muslim / Muslim-OBC alliance in the Hindi heartland, particularly UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, through Hindu-Muslim communal polarization to re-impose Aryavrat rule, lost to the subalterns by the B team of the Brahmanical order, the Congress party in 1991.
Nothing else, therefore, matters.
All other issues become secondary, even the contrarian policies.
On October 29, the front page of Indian Express (Delhi edition) carried a news item about Sangh top brass summoning Modi’s ministers and lamenting to them the plight of workers, farmers and tribals under the new dispensation. Page three of the same edition carried a half page advertisement by ASSOCHAM – the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India – along with a message by its president Rana Kapoor detailing how the Centre ought to dilute – rather render the labour laws of the country redundant – to ensure the success of Modi’s pet plans of ‘Make in India.’
The RSS top brass Krishna Gopal, Suresh Soni and others from its various affiliates – the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), the Laghu Udyog Bharati (LUB) and the Sahakar Bharati (SB) – summoned Modi ministers, with past Sangh upbringing such as Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Radha Mohan Singh, Prakash Javadekar and the ‘hero’ of Muzaffarnagar carnage Sanjeev Kumar Balyan. Also present were Sangh nominees in the BJP, Ram Lal, Ram Madhav and Murlidhar Rao.
The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to impress upon the Modi ministers the adverse impact of Modi’s “pro- business reformist” moves on livelihood of the industrial workers whose interest BMS seeks to represent, the farmers whom BKS claims to represent, VKA constituency the tribals inhabiting the forests, and the small businessmen and entrepreneurs represented by the LUB and SB.
And therein lies the contradiction. The Rising India a.k.a. Aryavrat is not the least uncomfortable with the Sangh’s vision to subtly alter secular democratic India into majoritarian Hindu Rashtra. (But) at the same time, it has enthusiastically backed Modi all along, who unhesitatingly is pushing the reformist agenda.
It will mean toning down labour laws to the extent of making these irrelevant and superfluous to the needs of the working class; slowly and subtly withdrawing all subsidies starting with diluting MNREGA, reducing and slowly withdrawing the MSP to the farmers. Needless to add, there will follow similar treatment to the tribals, the dalits and other subalterns whom the rising classes consider wasteful dregs of the society, who in their perception should slowly be pushed out at least from the electoral college so that the right to vote and decide who should rule this vast country be restricted only to the educated People Like Us (PLUs).
General Mohammad Ziaul Haq had done it – he had restricted the Electoral College to the educated graduate Muslims, including those graduating from dubious Wahabi madrasas patronized by the Mullahs in Khaki, and simultaneously disenfranchised the religious minorities in Pakistan in the name of proportionate representation. So had the Sinhala establishment done it in Sri Lanka – by systematically disenfranchising its Tamil population.
A report prepared by ASSOCHAM seeks to alter or abolish the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; Payment of Wages Act, 1936; Standing Orders, 1946 on engaging workers on fixed term contract; Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition Act, 1970); amending the Factories Act, 1948 to extend the working hours from existing 9-11 hours at the maximum to 10-13 hours through amendment; amending the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and lastly, just do away with the multiplicity of labour legislations.
The ASSOCHAM proposals cannot be dismissed lightly for the grapevine has it that it is the ASSOCHAM – and not either FICCI or CII – that enjoys Modi’s confidence. In fact, most of the foreign assignments too are now being handed down not to the CII or FICCI but to the ASSOCHAM.
The report gives us a good idea of what to expect from the Modi government in coming days, particularly during the impending winter session of the Parliament, Sanghis be damned.
So while the high powered Sangh delegation beat their breast against Modi’s reformist agenda, Modi is moving ahead unmindful of these little pinpricks and will eventually have his way, fully aware of the limitations of the Sangh beyond a point. For, apart from him, none could have converted India into an Aryavrat state so successfully, so swiftly.
As for them, well, Modi has been more than generous. All the plum postings are going to the chosen ones from Vivekananada International Foundation (VIF), the Sangh think tank from Chanakyapuri diplomatic enclave in New Delhi. Starting from the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Nripendra Mishra to his National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval to the latest Prasar Bharti chairman A Surya Prakash, all come from the VIF.
And, apart from the success of or attempts at “converting India into an Aryavrat state”, the apparent reason that works for Modi is his smart strategy. He chooses his favourites from among his Sanghi brethren only and thereby creates a constituency of loyalists among the Sanghis. Others are damned. He did it successfully in Gujarat and those who dissented with him such as Praveen Togadia or Gordhan Zadafiya fell by the way side. Again in Delhi, he cares two hoots for the criticism of Sanghi ideologues such as K N Govindacharya when he has Uma Bharti genuflecting to him all the time.
(Author is a senior journalist and regular contributor to TCN)