A Critical Analysis of Relationship Between Rashtriya Sawayamsevak Sangh (RSS) And Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)

Abstract

A fanatic Hindu Nationalist segment of India and Hindu animosity against Muslim provided a productive ground for the foundation of   RSS in 1925 at Nagpur city of Maharashtra India that aimed to make India as a Hindu Rashtra where minorities especially considering Muslims as, foreigners, traitors, and demon king’’ should be treated as 2^nd class citizen. RSS considers that only Hindus are superior and dominant in India and rest of the minorities can live in India as inferior an obedient of Hindus. For RSS only Hindus are true patriots and those who don’t accept the domination of Hindus should be expelled from India. The RSS draws its inspiration from the Nazi theory of racial dominance by considering Hindus to be the purest race. In 1948, Nathuram Godse, a connected member of RSS, assassinated Mathema Gandhi (Founding father of India) due to his philosophy of non-violence. In response to the celebration of RSS over assassination of Gandhi, Congress imposed a ban on RSS. This ban compelled the members of RSS for the formation of Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) in 1951 to truly protect and represent the Hindutva ideology on political arena of India. Through this right wing of RSS, RSS implemented greater control on the working, policy formation and organizational setup of the BJS. Later on Both BJS and RSS organized a protests and campaign against Indra Gandhi (Ex-PM of India), in resultantly Indra Gandi imposed a ban on RSS and all its activities during the emergency era in 1977, the current PM of India Narendra Modi( life time member of RSS)  was an active member of RSS who was working for RSS and was in charge of sending material abroad to RSS members for exposing Indira’s emergency. In 1980 a BJS divide into two groups, one group led by A.B.Vajpayee (Ex PM of India) and L.K.Advani formed a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) the political arm of RSS. Since its formation RSS investing his resources in more radical efforts to rekindle Mandir Masjid politics which created more opportunities to the BJP. In this connection demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 was a milestone to Hindutva forces. Such anti-Muslim policies uncovered the real face of BJP and RSS. In fact, the anti-Muslim stance and attacks on Muslims of India work life oxygen for BJP. Through these anti Muslim polices the RSS created a space for BJP as a strong political power in Indian politics. In many occasions BJP members paid a rich tribute and homage to the members of RSS .Such patronage and tremendous support of the top leadership of BJP indicates that RSS is an patrolling Scot of BJP. As the political arm of the RSS, the BJP has always had prominent leaders with RSS backgrounds like A.B. Vajpayee (Ex-PM of India) and Narendra Modi (Currently PM of India) are lifetime members of the RSS. Most of the high-ranking members of the BJP are affiliated with the RSS. Five BJP general secretaries, Ram Madhav, Ram Lal, P. Murli Dhar Rao, Bhupendra Yadav, and Saroj Pandey came to BJP from the RSS. Madhav worked as the national spokesperson of the RSS from 2003 to 2014. Mr. Rao was sent to the BJP in 2009 as an attaché to the then-party president Rajnath Singh. Mr. Ram Lal came in 2006 as general secretary (organization), a post created especially for RSS Pracharaks who act as a bridge between the RSS and the BJP.^[1] There are several such bridges now that work to strengthen relationships between BJP and RSS. Among these bridges, B.L. Santosh was a lifetime member of RSS is one of them. In 2019 B.L.Santosh was elected as general secretary of BJP.^[2] Through these bridges, RSS effectively not only implements its policies but also provides all guidelines for the future politics of India. That’s why BJP follows the policies of the RSS and thus increases the Hindutva vote bank.