After a five-day visit, RSS president Mohan Bhagwat concluded his tour on Monday by cold-shouldering chief minister Yogi Adityanath in his backyard and giving Sangh cadres advice that highlighted the increasing rift between the BJP and its ideological leader.
During his roughly six sessions with RSS members from Awadh, Kashi, Kanpur, and Gorakhpur, Bhagwat highlighted the following issues, as per Sangh sources:
The RSS is designating “shatabdi vistaraks” (centenary expansionists) around the nation in advance of its centenary celebrations next year. These individuals will establish the organization’s presence in every village by interacting with locals and hosting shakhas.
The country is in peril because of the widening societal differences in recent years. It is the Sangh’s responsibility to fix this. All castes will be invited to communal feasts that the RSS will host around the nation. Bhagwat made no mention of religious groups.
Each and every Hindu has to honestly uphold the principles of the faith. To maintain Hindus under its control, the RSS will continue to follow the route set by Maharana Pratap and Chhatrapati Shivaji. (Both were Mughal-fighting warrior kings.)
Hindus are not allowed to practise untouchability or discrimination. Protecting Hindu culture, elevating India to the status of Vishwa Guru, and transforming it into a Hindu Rashtra all depend on this.
An unnamed RSS official clarified how the Sangh’s disenchantment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP was reflected in the significance of Bhagwat’s directives.
“We are back where we were in 2014. The government was in a position to do anything it wanted for 10 years but involved itself in promoting an individual at the cost of the resources of the RSS while not honestly following its ideology,” he said.
“The RSS had united Hindus over many years but they again got scattered in the last 10 years because the politicians disappointed them.”
He added: “Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s governments had an excuse for being unable to push our agenda — they were coalition governments. Modi’s government kept working on peripheral issues amid its own politics of the canonisation of one person. And now there’s a coalition government again, and it will be unable to do anything except enjoy the fruits of power.”
Thus, following ten years of political reliance, the Sangh will now need to resume its job, the RSS chief stated.
Over the course of the previous week, Bhagwat has subtly criticised the “arrogance” of the Amit Shah-Narendra Modi government and counselled RSS leaders and cadres to go back to their “original task of helping the people,” implying a break from the BJP.
Situated in the Maniram Chiutaha region of Gorakhpur, just 12km away from the Adityanath-led Gorakhnath temple, Bhagwat took up residence in the S.V.M. Public School. However, he did not meet any BJP leaders; all demands for such meetings were graciously declined.
Several Sangh and BJP leaders confirmed to this publication that they were informed that Adityanath will see Bhagwat on June 15 on Wednesday, the day he landed in Gorakhpur. However, despite Adityanath’s presence in his temple on Saturday and Sunday, no such meeting took place.
A political observer in Gorakhpur, who wished to remain anonymous, speculated that the alleged divide between the BJP and RSS might be a staged incident intended to “keep the real Opposition on the periphery”.
“Bhagwat cannot blame his workers or Modi. The Sangh allowed its workers to mingle with BJP politicians after Modi became Prime Minister,” he said.
“Bhagwat himself accepted Z-plus security from the government in 2015 and sent a message to his cadres that things had changed. They should remember that K.S. Sudarshan (RSS chief from 2000 to 2009) had refused any security from the Vajpayee government.”
He added: “Whatever the RSS is doing now may be a trick. It may be trying to build the façade of an opposition against the Modi government to keep the real Opposition on the periphery.”
He explained: “The Opposition was weak from 2014 to 2024, and so the Sangh didn’t need to do so. But now the Opposition is stronger after this year’s Lok Sabha elections.
“The Sudarshan-led RSS had similarly played the role of a (proxy) opposition during Vajpayee’s tenure, when the real Opposition was strong. The RSS would criticise the Vajpayee government for failing to build the Ram temple or abrogate Article 370. Perhaps the time has come for a repeat by the RSS because it cannot afford to discard the BJP in the long run.”
