As BJP takes hard line against student protesters, RSS chief’s outreach signals strategy to engage with a generation that remains ideologically unshackled
Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu organisation, has been quick on his feet. He has come out in support of Gen Z, who poured into Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to protest against the NEET paper leak, and faced police violence on July 20.
On Thursday (August 6), Bhagwat, speaking at the Nita Mukesh Ambani-sponsored non-profit India’s International Movement to Unite Nations (IIMUN) in Mumbai, he said that the concerns of youngsters are genuine, and if there is any group in which he would place his confidence, it would be those belonging to the Z and Alpha generations.
Bhagwat seems to be stealing a march over Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his outreach to the angry youth. While Modi sounded patronising and paternal through his Instagram video messages to the protesters, Bhagwat played the friendly old man. It is as if he wants the RSS to be the patron-saint of the rebellious youngsters. This makes a lot of sense for a Hindu evangelist organisation to look for new converts and recruits, and perhaps in Bhagwat’s view, the youngsters look ready for the “harvest of souls”.
Good cop, bad cop
Politically it creates a piquant situation for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with its fierce loyalty to Prime Minister Modi. The prime minister and his lieutenants in the party have been tacitly hostile to the protesters, angry with the youngsters’ memes and reels, mocking everyone in authority, including Modi. It can be inferred that Bhagwat’s overture to the young protesters is to help the BJP and Modi by diffusing their anger. The RSS and the BJP are on the same page, only the tone and strategy differ.
Also Read: RSS chief Bhagwat backs Gen Z, says protesting doesn't make them anti-national
Instead of being hostile to the Gen Z protesters, like many young MPs of the BJP, Modi’s supporters, and the starry-eyed Hindu middle class intelligentsia, whose loud opinions reverberate across the Modi-friendly television news channels, Bhagwat has adopted a conciliatory tone and attitude towards the youngsters. The critics of the RSS-BJP Parivar are sure to say that the BJP and RSS are playing the customary bad cop, good cop game. Neither the RSS nor the BJP ever accepts their symbiotic relationship. And they will reject the interpretation that they are helping each other out.
The question that arises is whether Bhagwat’s friendly outreach will succeed where Modi’s stuffy approach failed. Modi and his aides have recognised that the prime minister’s Instagram videos have not broken the ice, and that the protesters have not relented in any measure to his wooden messages.
No belief in religious or caste wars
In one of the many recordings now available on YouTube, Bhagwat defined the RSS as “kattar Hindu”, and insisted that it is not “Muslim virodhi”, as many critics of the RSS assert.
Now, the most liberal interpretation of “kattar Hindu” is “orthodox Hindu”, though the right connotation is “rigid Hindu”. The Gen Z have repeated countless times in their interactions with the media at Jantar Mantar that they do not believe in the Hindu-Muslim agenda. Many of them spoke out about the oppression of Dalits and the tyranny of “brahmanvaad”, and there were quite a few who spoke out against reservations, as they were not interested in fighting the caste wars.
Also Read: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat: Gen Z is highly emotional, easily drawn to 'visibly authentic' causes
Both the RSS and the BJP would not want the youngsters to be drawn into a caste debate, and though the two right-wing organisations may not be happy that the youngsters are against the divisive Hindu-Muslim politics, they are still willing to go along with the youth sentiment. The major challenge for the RSS and BJP with regard to the youth is that they are not card-carrying liberals or leftists. They are instinctive liberals, who are broadminded without being political about it.
Generation gap
What they are exercised about is the education system, and the state of the economy. And they are naturally passionate about democratic freedoms like protests and expressing their dissent and their right to do so.
When National Security Adviser Ajit Doval talks about the duty of the youth to keep the nation above the individual, they heartily scoff at lacklustre homilies. They love their nation because they are born here and they do not feel the need to make a noise about it.
The strategies of the RSS and the BJP, of Bhagwat and Modi, seem to be at loggerheads. The BJP thinks that Gen Z is misled, and they have to be brought back to the right – that is obedient – path, with force if necessary.
The BJP is in no mood to listen to the protesters and their open-ended political engagement. Going ahead, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) might work out some kind of a political programme and manifesto, but the thousands who are likely to respond to it, as they did on July 20, are going to be free-wheeling.
The X factor
This will pose a challenge to CJP’s Abhijeet Dipke and his team because they have to channelise the emotion and anger of the participants. The youngsters will not allow themselves to be programmed by Dipke and Co, or by Modi and Bhagwat. The BJP would like Gen Z protesters to go home without much ado, whereas Bhagwat would like them to join the RSS “shakha”. Dipke may want to keep them on the street to mount pressure on the government.
Also Read: RSS chief Bhagwat to engage with Gen Z at IIMUN event in Mumbai after student protests
The equation between Dipke and his team on the one hand and Bhagwat and the RSS on the other would be intriguing. Dipke would only be too willing to accept the support and encouragement of the RSS and Bhagwat, without compromising on the independent status of the CJP. Modi and the BJP would remain unrelentingly hostile to the CJP because it sees it as a political rival, an AAP in the making. In all these equations, the spontaneous and ideologically-unshackled young protesters remain the X factor.
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