New Delhi, June 29: Three fundamental questions need to be asked outright about the controversy surrounding the alleged theft of donations at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
First, why was the Ram Janmabhoomi Kshetra Trust not disbanded by the Central government immediately after the alleged theft came to light?
Second, why was an FIR not lodged when the matter came to the Uttar Pradesh Police's knowledge?
Third, why did the RSS not remove Champat Rai, Anil Mishra and Gopal Rao, the three swayamsevaks of the RSS, as and when it learnt how to save itself from the alleged taint?
Questions Over Accountability
All three steps were needed not only for a fair investigation but also to save the RSS family from any kind of damage being inflicted on its commitment to Hindutva and also to the faith of the crores of Ram bhaktas—those for whom Ram is Maryada Purushottam; Ram who asked his wife Sita to undergo Agni Pariksha to dispel the doubts in the minds of the people of Ayodhya and neighbouring places after a common man raised a question about the purity of Maa Sita. But when it was time for the Sangh Parivar to go through an Agni Pariksha and come out clean as Maa Sita did, it failed. Now all kinds of questions are being raised, innuendos are being thrown at it and insinuations are being made. A few of these questions are genuine, a few are loaded with bias, while others are guided by politics. The Sangh Parivar is trying very hard to wriggle out of the controversy, but its efforts are not proving decisive or convincing; even its own supporters are angry and questioning the motives of its leaders.
RSS Faces Fresh Challenge
I am sure that the RSS will come out of this crisis too, as it has faced many serious crises in the past, the biggest of them all being the accusation that it had a role to play in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. To be fair to the RSS, this accusation lacks merit, as no evidence of its involvement has ever been found. In his letter to the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, wrote that no evidence had been found linking the RSS to the crime. This was the letter in which Patel categorically stated that people associated with the Hindu Mahasabha, led by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, were involved in Gandhi's assassination. Still, the RSS was banned, its chief, M.S. Golwalkar, was arrested along with thousands of volunteers, and violence was unleashed against its members; its offices were ransacked. The RSS and its other organisations carried that taint for at least two decades. This was the period when it was treated as untouchable, but it survived and is now at the helm of affairs, occupying the pole position in India.
But today's crisis is grave, if not as serious as the one mentioned above, and it will undoubtedly impact its image. This time, the attack is not from the outside but from within. It has struck at the core of its philosophy. The RSS owes its phenomenal rise to Lord Ram. It was the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, launched by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at the instruction of Balasaheb Deoras, the third RSS chief, in the early 1980s as a counter to the mass conversion of Hindus at Meenakshipuram. As claimed, the Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir controversy was more than 500 years old, but it was not on the RSS agenda until the early 1980s. The RSS did not take up the issue even after the idol of Ram Lalla was placed at the Babri Masjid in 1949. During the 1960s and 1970s, the RSS was more interested in taking up the cause of cow protection, which never became a major issue for the larger Hindu population. But the Ram Mandir issue clicked. Lal Krishna Advani's Rath Yatra did wonders for the BJP, the RSS's political wing, and was instrumental, along with the Modi cult, in helping the BJP form the government on its own in 2014. Throughout, the RSS took credit for the construction of the Ram Temple.
Ram And Hindutva Narrative
While inaugurating the Ram Temple on January 22, 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the inauguration a Hindu renaissance and a watershed moment in Hindu civilisation. Ram became synonymous with the RSS's Hindutva, a reason for Hindu unity, which is the civilisational project of the RSS—to shed the sins of the past, throw away the yoke of a thousand years of slavery and create a new Hindu who is not timid about his Hindu identity but proud of being a Hindu. Undoubtedly, the RSS succeeded in its project to a great extent. Nationalism is another very important factor in the RSS's Hindutva. But unlike the nationalism of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Azad, the RSS's nationalism is not a pan-Indian identity; it is exclusive and defined by Hindu identity. It has successfully created a new identity called Hindu nationalism, and its adherents are called Hindu nationalists. Ram, in our consciousness, is vinaysheel—a humble, modesty-personified figure—but the RSS turned him into a warrior Ram, an angry Ram, who fights Ravan to defend Dharma.
Since the 1980s, the RSS has projected that those who do not subscribe to Ram as a marker of their national identity have no reason to call themselves Bharatiya. Certainly, this entire discourse has a serious tone of religiosity and excludes everyone who does not follow this line of nationalist discourse. It has succeeded in creating a very strong support base for this line of thinking. In the larger Hindutva debate, Ram is Hindutva, and Hindutva is Ram. It is this section of the support base that is upset by the expose on the alleged Ram Mandir theft and wants exemplary punishment, as Ram is non-negotiable for them. The RSS's failure to take prompt, immediate and seemingly fair action has disappointed them.
Need For Decisive Action
It is not that the RSS did not realise the gravity of the situation; it did, but it was paralysed in responding because it did not know how to handle it, knowing that a minor mistake would damage it for a long time. It took time, which opened a window of suspicion, and now it is too late to convince its own supporters. Now, if it wants to salvage its image, it has to take exemplary action. The RSS faced the dilemma of choosing between the individual and the organisation. It did not realise that, at the altar of the organisation, individuals have to be sacrificed. If the choice is between the individual and the ideology, then ideology should be the obvious choice. The organisation and ideology have to survive; individuals can come and go.
The writer is Co-Founder, SatyaHindi.com, and author of Hindu Rashtra. He tweets at @ashutosh83B.
