RSS makes a surface change

It was announced at the recent pratinidhi sabha (general council session) of the RSS at Nagaur in Rajasthan that the saffron mother outfit was dropping the baggy khaki shorts that had served as its ganvesh, or uniform, for 90 years, and was about to adopt brown trousers as replacement. The sartorial change may be helpful. The shorts tended to invite ridicule. They also underlined an authoritarian and paramilitary mindset (seen in conjunction with the broad leather belt and black cap, and the bamboo staff used in RSS drills) which, in history and in popular perception, gets linked to Italian and German fascism.

If the change in uniform flows from the RSS’ desire to be in step with contemporary preferences, as was officially announced, it is far from certain that the RSS has gone contemporary in respect of its thought preferences. We need look back no farther that the Vijayadashmi address of  RSS sarsanghchalak (general secretary) Mohan Bhagwat made on October 22 last year in which exclusively Hindu markers are lauded since “Hindu culture” is the “chord” (sic) “that can keep our diverse society together”. Mr Bhagwat remarked that the year of his address marked the 1000th year of Raja Rajendra Chola who provided a “model of good governance” in Southeast Asia, and also the 5151st “anniversary” of the Gita.

All this is in service of the “divine motherland” and in eulogy of the “galvanising energies of Hindu society”, hence the issue of adherence to any professionally acknowledged idea of history need not detain us here. But what should concern us is that while the annual Vijayadashmi speech — deemed a policy pointer in RSS circles — opens with the invoking of Ambedkar, at Nagaur it was not deemed necessary to make any reference to the case of the suicide of a dalit research scholar of Hyderabad, which has become a cause célébre and is jolting the nation.

In many respects — what with singing open praise of the Modi government — the Vijayadashmi peroration resembled a Press Information Bureau handout, and the emphasis in it on “ethical”, rather than “commercial”, education signalled that this might be an area of strong intervention of the RSS-inspired BJP regime. HRD minister Smriti Irani took the cue, and Nagaur bears that out with its call to “nationalist” education and not tolerating “anti-national” thinking at our universities.

Some further caution is also in order. The October speech said, “There is a view that media should be regulated while conserving their freedom to ensure that no ill effect, knowingly or unknowingly, prevails in the society (sic).” There was no reference to this in the official RSS briefing at Nagaur, but eternal vigilance remains the price of liberty.