Why Rahul Gandhi taking on RSS is a political and an ideological fight over the idea of India
The Supreme Court had earlier pulled up Rahul Gandhi for his “collective denunciation” of the RSS
Arun Jaitley in a series of blogs has questioned the Congress party's “ideology” and its president Rahul Gandhi's “wisdom”. The Congress party has become “ideology-less” because its “only obsession is a person called Narendra Modi”, Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
Jaitley's comment had come two days after Rahul Gandhi pleaded not guilty in the defamation case filed by a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) member in Maharashtra against his comment in a 2014 campaign rally that “RSS people were behind Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination”. The court in Thane accepted his application seeking a “summons” trial that could lead to an examining of historical evidence of the Mahatma’s assassination. Accused of defaming the RSS by purportedly blaming it for Gandhi’s assassination, he was charged under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The Supreme Court had earlier pulled up Rahul Gandhi for his “collective denunciation” of the RSS and warned that he would have to face trial for criminal defamation. Rahul Gandhi has been unsparing in his criticism of the RSS as an organisation — and not particular leaders or ideologues of the organisation — often describing it as a dictatorial organisation that is pulling the BJP-led government’s strings.
He has alleged that the RSS wants to abolish reservation to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
He also accused the RSS of being anti-women. Speaking in Meghalaya in January, Rahul alleged that the RSS’s idea was aimed at disempowering women. "Does anyone know how many leadership positions are with women in RSS? Zero."
In fact, it is in the context of Rahul Gandhi’s unrelenting criticism of the RSS that their Sarvsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat invited the senior Congress leader and former President Pranab Mukherjee to address an RSS event.
It was an important political move, ostensibly to unsettle the Congress and dilute its criticism and divide the party on its approach to the RSS.
The RSS wanted Rahul Gandhi to say in court that the RSS had nothing to do with Gandhi's assassination — which was not acceptable to the party. Hence, it is unlikely that the party will backtrack on the issue simply because a veteran Congress leader agreed to deliver a speech at an RSS event in Nagpur, confident that there is sufficient official and other evidence to sustain its leader’s charge.
Historically too, Rahul’s approach towards the RSS is in line with what Jawaharlal Nehru had believed when he accepted Sardar Patel’s recommendation to ban the organisation in the wake of Gandhi’s assassination.
Rahul Gandhi, after pleading not guilty, reportedly said outside the court that: "Let them file cases against me. It's alright. They can file as many cases as they want… For me it is an ideological battle and we will win it."
His readiness to face trial on this question is part of his ongoing critique of the RSS in his public rallies and speeches. For him, opposition to the RSS is indeed an ideological issue — otherwise, why else would Rahul Gandhi keep emphasising on every occasion that he is committed to fight the RSS ideology? Despite taking an emphatic stand against the RSS, Jaitley surprisingly claims that the Congress is “ideology-less”. Far from being ideology-less, fighting the RSS in court offers an opportunity to differentiate itself from the BJP. It is clear that for Rahul Gandhi as a leader, it is important not simply to evolve political strategies to confront the Modi government’s policy failures reflected in a GDP slowdown, agrarian distress, joblessness, falling exports, the disastrous consequences of "demonetisation", etc., but to define his own distinctive politico-ideological agenda and worldview that separates one party from the other.
The Congress and the BJP occupy different poles of politics and this difference has to do with pluralism, which is a stumbling block in the way of establishing a Hindu state.
The BJP’s political goal is clear — it is for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress to counter it by projecting its commitment to democracy and pluralism.
With his readiness to face trial and challenge and counter them in court, Rahul Gandhi has shown guts to take on the most powerful anti-secular organisation in the country.
His spirited fight-back indicates that he has cleverly decided to ignore senior BJP leaders who are constantly sniping at him, focusing only on the RSS and the Prime Minister, thereby frustrating others who end up ceding discursive space and time to him.
In taking the bold stand to face a trial, he seems to be guided by two factors.
One, he doesn't want to allow the RSS an opportunity to remove the taint it carries because of its ideological affinity with those who plotted Gandhi's assassination.
Two, expressing regret on this issue will dent his own political direction when the battle lines are clearly drawn between the RSS and anti-RSS forces.
Asking for a full examination of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination is in fact a clever strategy, given that the political discourse could shift to talking about who killed the Mahatma and bring certain very important historical facts into the public domain. This can snowball into a bigger public debate, which will bring the focus back on the activities of the RSS during the freedom struggle and the events that unfolded after that.
This could weaken RSS concerted efforts to change the public perception in favour of the organisation.
Admittedly, a sharp critique of the RSS is not enough to recharge the Congress, but it plays an important part in defining the difference between the BJP and the Congress, not as an ideological rift between nationalism and anti-nationalism, but an ideological contest over the idea of India which actually divides the two political formations.