Rss 360° Page 19

  Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is a distinct organisation in student movements of India and is known for its nationalistic approach and agitations in support of issue related to education and national security. A charismatic teacher, Prof. Yashwant Rao Kelkar, an ex-prachaarak, founded ABVP in 1948 along with some other colleagues, including Dattopant Thengdi. In a way, this was an offshoot of the ban on RSS in 1948-49 when many senior activists decided to create new organisations for national renaissance rather than sit idle. Within years it became a dominant student organisation, winning over young students with its agitational but positive approach to student problems, national problems and due to its nationalistic orientation. It went on to win most of the student council elections.

  Incidentally, ABVP was the first organisation to start the trend of beginning a function with ‘jyoti prajwalan’ or lighting of the lamp. Till that time, ribbon cutting was the norm. Among many agitations it conducted, one was against infiltrators from Bangladesh much before it had taken alarming proportions. I could mention many more of their agitations but there is no space here. After the initial help it took from RSS with full time organisers or prachaaraks, it was successful in creating its own methodology to influence young students to become full time volunteers or prachaaraks for ABVP. At a time when there is a unifocal approach of most students on careers, to be able to persuade them to give precious years for the nation is quite an achievement. ABVP was one of the rare RSS related organisations not banned during emergency and all of us used this platform to carry on the struggle for democracy. Arun Jaitley was one of the star student leaders of ABVP and toured India extensively. Prof Bal Apte, vice president of BJP in last active phase of his life, was one of the key activists during Emergency.

  ABVP’s most important contribution to national integration is its trail blazing programme ‘Students’ Experience in Interstate Living’ or SEIL. Under this scheme, young students from North East Indian states were escorted to places like Mumbai and Pune etc. They stayed with ordinary middle-class families who hosted them and put them to schools along with their own children. They would finish the schooling and return to their native land, taking with them lovely memory of India as their motherland and affection of other citizens of the country for them. They carried with them the message of national integration. We are aware that many of our friends talk of North East and its citizens as if they are from another country and refer to them in a derogatory manner. This movement attempted to reverse the trend and succeeded to a large extent. Many politicians of these North Eastern states have gone through this experience and their approach to local problems is more nationalistic, to whichever party they may belong. Bringing to the fore the plight of Arunachal Pradesh and the Chinese policies to dominate the region was possible due to such elements in North East. There are hostels now in Maharashtra catering to North East students. Thus, today we have a large contingent of such youth who fight with separatists and terrorists in their regions and keep the flag of national integration flying.

  Bharatiya Jan Sangh (Indian People’s Organisation) was born in 1951. I do not consider it as the first off-shoot of RSS in the sense that it was not initiated by it or its members. However, it was the first experiment for the RSS to send out its tried and tested people into another organisation to help them organise their activities outside its scope so far, in another sphere of social life. Some key RSS leaders did toy with the idea of floating their own political party as a strategy when the ban on RSS was not lifted inspite of being given clean chit by CID and the courts. on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, a peaceful satyagrah by its members and presentation of written constitution as demanded by the government. A background paper for it was circulated within senior members and also deliberately ‘leaked’ to mediators and police to give an idea how they could hit Congress where it hurt most – decimation of monopoly politics of Congress. They had also noted that during the fierce political onslaught on RSS after the Gandhi murder there was hardly any support from any politician when RSS was banned and falsely implicated in assassination of Gandhiji. In this backdrop other senior members persuaded Guruji to help organise the proposed political party that Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee wished to float. Thus, when Dr Mukerjee approached Guruji to help him for the proposed political party Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Guruji agreed to support him in his endeavour, though rather reluctantly. He firmly believed that politics or government is not the answer to the development needs of this country, and this required social action and dedication of the society itself.

  Dr Mukerjee was a fierce nationalist and had resigned from Nehru cabinet as the Railway Minister on the issue of the 1949 Delhi Pact with Pakistani Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan. He wanted to hold Pakistan directly responsible for the terrible influx of millions of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan, who had left the state fearing religious suppression and violence aided and abetted by the state. He opposed Nehru’s decision to allow Kashmir to be a special state and have its own flag and prime minister. In order to oppose this decision, he announced, “Ek desh mein do Vidhan, do Pradhan and Do Nishan nahin chalenge” (A single country can’t have two constitutions, two prime ministers, and two national emblems). He was incensed by Nehru’s virtual abdication of responsibility on integration of Kashmir with India even as he took over Kashmir issue from Sardar Patel, stopping the march of Indian troops to trounce the first attack in 1947 through infiltrators by Pakistan and then taking the issue to United Nations inspite of the opposition from leaders like Sardar Patel. Later, after the formation of the Jan Sangh, he organised a protest march to Kashmir in 1953. He died an unnatural death due to lack of treatment, rather, due to mistreatment of the state government run by Sheikh Abdulla, the then Chief Minister and grandfather of the current Chief Minister, Omar Abdulla. L K Advani is quoted in a Zee News report 11-7-2011, Nehru did not even set up an enquiry to find out exactly what happened to his former cabinet colleague.

  The involvement of young prachaaraks led by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay led to steady consolidation and growth of Jan Sangh over years. With more and more involvement of the RSS prachaaraks like Jagannath Rao Joshi in Karnataka, Bachcharaj Vyas in Maharashtra and more in other states it became a sister organisation of RSS. It was merged in a newly formed entity, Janata Party in 1977 following the Emergency and on advice from Jai Prakash Narayan. Its new avatar, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into being in 1980 as the erstwhile members of Jan Sangh had to leave the party due to shenanigans of the socialists within the then Janata Party. Many non-Jan Sangh members of the party also left Janata Party and joined BJP as they felt that the Janata Party had not stood by its principles.

  It is worth noting that Jan Sangh was not founded to establish ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or Hindu nation. There was a hard-core Hindu party like Hindu Mahasabha with illustrious leaders like Veer Savarkar to advocate ‘Hindu Rashtra’. Infact, Dr. Mukerjee was a member of Hindu Mahasabha before he charted his own course. He laid strong stress on nationalism and non-partisan politics where policies were not based on religion and all citizens got an equal opportunity of progress.

  Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay gave the Jan Sangh a truly Indian economic theory of Integral Humanism based on his years of study of Hindu ethos and working at the ground level as a Sangh prachaarak. If I were to summarise the theory, Integral Humanism sees the individual as the centre of an outgoing spiral where the individual is a part of family, society and the nation in an integral manner. All these units are interlinked and do not form concentric circles, disjointed with each other. It says that all economic policies should take into account not just physical needs of the individual, but also his all-round progress and spiritual and emotional fulfillment. They should reach out to the last individual standing in the societal hierarchy. It talks of total development of human beings of the society on the basis of ‘chaturvidh purushartha’ – four fold fulfillment of an individual – on the basis of fulfilling ‘dharm’ (spiritual needs and ethical practices) ‘arth’
(economic needs), ‘kaam’ (physical and material needs), and ‘moksha’ (nirvana or liberation from the cycle of birth and death). Before this philosophy could be turned into a practical theory of development, he was murdered and case was never properly investigated by the government. Inspite the efforts to create a viable economic model by various scholars and research on the subject with the help of Deendayal Research Institute it has not taken a concrete shape yet, though DRI has used it to create its own applied model of development with various successful experiments in rural transformation, under the leadership of late Nanaji Deshmukh.

  Deendayal Upadhyay used a term ‘chiti of the rashtra’. An equivalent term in English would be a mix of inherent spirit, intellect and soul of the nation. He proposed that every nation must have an economic and political system which is close to its ‘chiti’, only then will that model succeed. You cannot impose a system which is alien to its ‘chiti’. We can understand now, why the half-baked socialist system failed in India and why communism has not been able to grow and infact, shrunk to two-three states. It also explains why unbridled Capitalism will not succeed in India. Marx gave a theory of historic evolution of economic model but even in his case, there was no practical model. Many models were developed but no successful model has come by so far. In case of the Sangh school of thought, the application of this theory was in the domain of Jan Sangh and then BJP has at the most, paid it lip service. However, a plethora of inclusive economic policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi tell us that he is trying to put Integral Humanism into practice by reaching out to the last man in the queue with various schemes.

  Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) was established in 1955 by Dattopant Thengdi, a rare combination of an organiser who was also a hands-on leader with feet firmly on ground and a theoretician. He came up with a dynamically different philosophy in trade union field. Its basic philosophy is “Industrialise the Nation, Labourise the Industry and Nationalise the Labour”. Dattopant Thengdi worked in first INTUC on invitation from its President Mr P Y Deshpande to gain experience of the trade unions before he launched BMS. From day one it was visualised as a trade union whose base sheet anchors would be - Nationalism, working as a genuine trade union, keeping itself scrupulously away from party politics. It is a known fact that all the national trade unions were, at that time, linked to one or the other political party, overtly or covertly. Another differentiator of BMS was that they considered themselves as stake holders in a company so, as a policy; they would not damage any machines or premises where they worked even if they went on a strike. It struggled its way up slowly in an area highly dominated by Communists and Congress party. It speaks volumes about its staying power, long term vision and depth of its work that it held its first national convention only in 1967 after 12 years of hard work on the field. At the time the number of its affiliated unions had reached five hundred forty one and total membership was nearly two hundred fifty thousand.

  The BMS insignia symbolises the rhythm between human controlled industrial development and agricultural prosperity. This is clearly depicted by impression of strong, confident and erect thumb of fist in between moving wheel and sheaf of corn. Incidentally, BMS is the first of all trade unions to use a human organ as a part of its logo. It promoted a dynamic and daring economic stance that the income-ratio in India should be one and ten.

  Over years it became number one trade union in India rising against the labour unions entrenched in the field for decades. It has its presence in all sectors of economy. Bharatiya Kisaan Sangh (Indian Farmer’s Organisation) was born out of BMS, with specific focus on farmers’ issues. It has a major presence across several states of India. Bharatiya Shram-Shodh Mandal’ (Indian Labour Research Group) formed by BMS is a research based institution, established in 1980, to promote objective studies based on objective examination of facts and developments in the industrial field. An important practice initiated by BMS is to observe traditional Vishwakarma day, celebrated traditionally by artisans of India, as the Labour Day for Indian labour. According to BMS, Vishwakarma had more significance for Indian labour than May Day.

  It would be interesting to note that D B Thengdi had written an epitaph of Communism way back in sixties when it was at its peak. He predicted the breakdown of Russian system somewhere in late 1960s or early 70s. I heard him in an RSS training camp in 1973 giving a detailed analysis about his thesis. I believe that his monograph on the subject is still available. He had a firm belief, based on his in-depth theoretical analysis and available data, that Communism will fail and so will Capitalism in its present form. The second part of the prophecy has also turned out to be correct as the events of last few months show. He gave theoretical underpinning to the RSS view that only Hindu philosophy has the right answer to civilisational problems of coming times as it is the most scientific and integral thinking on temporal issues that govern human behaviour. This is the only philosophy which talks of material needs as well as spiritual needs for all round happiness of a human being. As famous Russian author Dudintsev said, man does not live by bread alone. Other economic theories of the left and the right treat a human being only as a consumer with physical needs. This is the prime reason they fail to give a complete solution for happiness. His enunciation of philosophy of ‘Integral Humanism’ (Ekaatma Manav Darshan) espoused by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay used to be the high point of any camp or workshop.

  Media has, for years, been talking of ABVP and BMS as student and labour wings of the BJP, either out of ignorance or bias. I had been active in ABVP during the emergency period and had been attending its meetings, known many of the members and teachers associated with it for years. Similarly, I have been meeting BMS leaders during some joint meetings of associate organisations, where all these make presentations and discussions are held. Never can anybody doubt that these are autonomous organisations and BJP has no influence over them in matter of policies or programmes. It is possible in highly politicised cities like Delhi that some BJP members, especially former ABVP members, may be helping ABVP members in student body elections. But, to imagine these big organisations as wings of BJP is baseless and laughable. It is true that many ABVP activists who leave ABVP and wish to have a political career end up in the BJP because, for them, BJP is a natural party to enter politics. They couldn’t possibly go to socialist groups which have more parties than members; or to the INC as they had fought its erratic and pro-Communist and communal educational policies for years; nor is it easy for parties following political apartheid to accept ABVP members easily. Many of them have gone on to occupy powerful positions in the BJP. The fact remains that ABVP, as an autonomous organisation, does not listen to BJP on its policy and programme and is in no way its subsidiary. There has been lot of cross traffic between RSS, ABVP and BJP, yes. Many ABVP prachaaraks have joined RSS after they passed their college years that forced them out of student life and have naturally taken up responsibilities in the RSS.

  BMS is a fiercely independent body and it resisted all attempts to merge with other trade unions as suggested by Janata Party after the election win of 1977. Its opposition to BJP on many policy issues is in public domain

  A media created myth says that Rashtra Sevika Samiti (Indian Women Volunteers’ Association) is a subsidiary organisation of RSS. All such critics have missed the dynamics of the RSS. If they took care to read the history of Rashtra Sevika Samiti, they would realise that it was started by a self-motivated lady Smt Laxmibai Kelkar, popularly called ‘Mausi ji’ in 1936. A lady with a modern outlook, who had lost her husband at a young age, she was highly appreciative of the work of RSS. She wished to start a similar organisation for women in times when tradition bound a woman to her home and hearth, and she nurtured no independent identity. Smt Kelkar wished to fight this marginalisation of women, and chose to end it with the establishment of the organisation. She was convinced that the woman of the house was the one who initiated and nurtured value system or sanskaar in the society. and she needs to be made aware of
her responsibility. A woman is more than only a wife, mother or sister. With this in mind she had met Dr Hedgewar and argued for an organisation on lines of RSS. Doctorji conveyed his inability to organise such an organisation for women as it was beyond his knowledge and talent. But, he assured full co-operation to her if she were to start such a parallel organisation for women. Thus, Rashtra Sevika Samiti was born.

  Rashtra Sevika Samiti has its own intellectual training material and methodology which is different from the RSS, though it borrows the physical training from RSS. The Samiti is totally focused on women’s issues. It has presence across India, though not on a grand scale like the RSS. It is a cadre based organisation too, and is doing a great service by defining their important role in the society. It runs a large number of social service projects running in hundreds, focused on women welfare. It has its own prachaarikas who take the bold step of dedicating best years of their youth for social cause. In Indian society it is not easy for bachelors or single women to leave home and work for the society. When we consider the Samiti’s work and the sacrifice of its activists, it is foolish to accuse the members of this organisation as backward looking. It is unfortunate that in the name of progressive thoughts any organisation or women who preserve traditions of Hinduism and bring in modernity to these values, can be abused or tarred imperiously by the so called progressive feminists.

  It may be the right place to give a very straight answer to the accusation that the RSS is anti-woman and male chauvinist since it doesn’t take women into its fold. The RSS is not a misogynist organisation, just because women do not comprise their cadre in shakhas. But, that does not mean that they are not allowed to participate in all RSS and associated organisations. The truth is that the number of women activists working through Sangh inspired organisations would be much larger than all other social and political organisations put together. The RSS sees women as playing a very pivotal role in imparting the right value systems in the family and providing moral and physical support to social development of the society in every sense of the word. RSS volunteers show the highest respect to women and no programme of the RSS has ever seen any misconduct of any kind with any lady. A swayamsevak is moulded with noble thoughts, and deems every woman of a household he visits either as a mother or a sister. I saw a very straight and simple reason behind it as I grew from a child to a senior worker in the RSS. The intense physical activities and games played in shakha cannot be done together. Nothing more should be read behind the decision of Dr Hedgewar to organise RSS as a male organisation. As the times change, as noted above, apart from daily shakha and its related activities, women are invited to all RSS programmes. Monthly or festive gatherings see families come together for celebrations.