Election 2009 - The BJP got what it deserved - IV
Radha Rajan
RSS - unwilling parent
But if the RSS has to act, there has to be a re-orientation of its goals, its methods. It is not course correction that is required of the RSS; it is altering the course itself. The RSS has not lost direction, it is still plodding along on the same path as it had marked for itself in 1925; it needs new goals and new roads.
To put it bluntly, both Gandhi and Hedgewar, two most powerful Hindus of the time, heading two very powerful organizations, did not aim to stop the Muslim League or jihadi Islam in their tracks.
Not surprisingly Dr. Mukherjee challenged Nehru in his own personal fiefdom in J&K. His death in June 1953 when in custody in J&K was post-independent India’s first political assassination executed by state power.
Hedgewar, Golwalkar, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and even other intellectuals in the parivar may all be described as social thinkers, but they had no political orientation and were therefore not political ideologues in the same mould as Aurobindo and Savarkar.
RSS ideologues believed in and promoted the idea that politics like power and money corrupts; and so an ordinary swayamsevak is not imparted the training to handle big money, big power and big politics.
The BJP went to the polls in 2004 without a Hindu agenda; in 2009, it went to the polls without any agenda. It had one of the best election manifestos but intentionally refused to speak about the manifesto; the issues in the manifesto were never made the political agenda or the talking points during the election campaign.
Not only was there bitter and acrimonious in-fighting among the leaders in the BJP, quarrels which they did not care to hide from the people who they expected to vote for them, there was bitter and acrimonious quarrels even among the parivar siblings. In the last decade, the RSS has allowed these quarrels and in-fighting to worsen and get out of control. When the BJP went to the polls, none of the issues plaguing the parivar had been resolved.
Does the RSS have it? We are a very long way away from infusing kshatriya blood into Hindu society. We need a healthy body first. The RSS has to heal itself before it heals the wounds to the body of the Hindu nation.
Radha Rajan
RSS - unwilling parent
But if the RSS has to act, there has to be a re-orientation of its goals, its methods. It is not course correction that is required of the RSS; it is altering the course itself. The RSS has not lost direction, it is still plodding along on the same path as it had marked for itself in 1925; it needs new goals and new roads.
To put it bluntly, both Gandhi and Hedgewar, two most powerful Hindus of the time, heading two very powerful organizations, did not aim to stop the Muslim League or jihadi Islam in their tracks.
Not surprisingly Dr. Mukherjee challenged Nehru in his own personal fiefdom in J&K. His death in June 1953 when in custody in J&K was post-independent India’s first political assassination executed by state power.
Hedgewar, Golwalkar, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and even other intellectuals in the parivar may all be described as social thinkers, but they had no political orientation and were therefore not political ideologues in the same mould as Aurobindo and Savarkar.
RSS ideologues believed in and promoted the idea that politics like power and money corrupts; and so an ordinary swayamsevak is not imparted the training to handle big money, big power and big politics.
The BJP went to the polls in 2004 without a Hindu agenda; in 2009, it went to the polls without any agenda. It had one of the best election manifestos but intentionally refused to speak about the manifesto; the issues in the manifesto were never made the political agenda or the talking points during the election campaign.
Not only was there bitter and acrimonious in-fighting among the leaders in the BJP, quarrels which they did not care to hide from the people who they expected to vote for them, there was bitter and acrimonious quarrels even among the parivar siblings. In the last decade, the RSS has allowed these quarrels and in-fighting to worsen and get out of control. When the BJP went to the polls, none of the issues plaguing the parivar had been resolved.
Does the RSS have it? We are a very long way away from infusing kshatriya blood into Hindu society. We need a healthy body first. The RSS has to heal itself before it heals the wounds to the body of the Hindu nation.
