Propping up RSS is a dangerous idea

In his Krishna Janmashtami speech in August, within barely three months of Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister with his party BJP having a comfortable parliamentary majority of its own, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had declared “Hindustan” to be a “Hindu nation”. This is against our Constitution. India or “Bharat”, as it is officially referred to in the Constitution, is a republic not identified with a religious faith. The dangers of doing so are obvious and our Constitution-makers, among whom there were no RSS votaries, were wise people. However, in spite of the retrograde views he holds, the leader of the Hindu supremacist organisation, the progenitor of the ruling BJP, has now been permitted a live broadcast on Doordarshan on Friday, which coincided this year with Vijayadashmi, the RSS’ foundation day.

Officially the state broadcaster said it chose to let Mr Bhagwat go live because in its judgment the RSS supremo’s views were “newsworthy”. That’s really odd. The RSS boss speaks to the faithful on Vijayadashmi every year, but never has he been given space on DD, not even when Atal Behari Vajpayee, also a BJP leader from the RSS stables like Mr Modi, was Prime Minister. Evidently, the reason for this is that under Mr Vajpayee the BJP didn’t command a Lok Sabha majority and was hobbled by the presence of its NDA partners to run the government.

Mr Modi faces no such restraint. In fact, in the face of sharp criticism of the DD by various Opposition parties for giving air time to the RSS leader, the PM came to the defence of the national broadcaster. The cat is thus out of the bag. DD let the leader of a sectarian outfit like the RSS go on air because it was aware of the PM’s outlook on this matter, not because Mr Bhagwat is so “newsworthy” that he can be given free air time by any television station, leave alone the government channel.

The PM and his handmaiden Doordarshan are, no doubt, being short-sighted. By pampering the head of a Hindu majoritarian outfit, the national broadcaster has paved the way for demands to be heard on an equal basis by sectarian leaders of every stripe, as the historian Ramchandra Guha has sought to point out, while giving the call to “resist” such a deviation from the template of our Constitution.

Propping up the RSS — and Mr Bhagwat once again harped on “Hindutva” — with the help of DD is a dangerous idea. We fear Mr Bhagwat may soon be making All India Radio his next pulpit. It is not wholly clear why the Modi regime is opening the floodgates of communal propaganda when he was elected to take the economy forward. We need to look sharp.