Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan...

Even while the Congress-NCP and the media patronises Raj Thackeray, the RSS is trying to consolidate its base in the interiors, biding its time

Prabhat Sharan Mumbai

There are wasps - Braconidae and Ichneumonidae - that lay their eggs on or inside living creatures like caterpillars, aphids and spiders. During the laying of the eggs, the wasps inject a toxin into their victims, paralysing them. After the eggs hatch the larvae feed on the living prey, consuming the non-vital parts like fat and digestive organs in the first phase, keeping the vital organs like heart and central nervous system for the last so as to prolong the time for keeping the food fresh. Hawkins RE ed, Encyclopedia of Indian Natural History, Oxford University Press, 1986

This predatory culture observed in "lower creatures" has been refined and adopted to a high degree by the well-oiled hate machine of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its various fronts, which, in its seven decade long history, has sought to devour all other cultures and civilisations in the Indian sub-continent under the political philosophy termed Hindutva. As AG Noorani says, "(Hindutva) has nothing to do with religion and Savarkar... had little time for religion or philosophy. He (Savarkar) was engaged in a political enterprise and used history in the service of his politics of hate."  (Savarkar and Hindutva, The Godse Connection; Preface; Leftword Books 2002.)

Going by its political ambition, the RSS, in recent times, despite the overt estrangement with the BJP, its political wing, has realised that the latter is in utmost need of a rejuvenating tonic for survival. More so, the RSS, which saw phenomenal growth of its shakhas in the late 1970s -- a rise from 6,000 to 51,201, has been declining. In the last five to seven years, the trajectory is pointing down not just across the country but also in Maharashtra, its original birth-ground. In 2006-07, the number of shakhas came down to 44,417 and this obviously was a wake up alarm sending survival shivers in the organisation which prided itself for its ‘hydra-headed nature' .

With elections round the corner next year and BJP floundering and flogging the same dead horse, the RSS think-tank is desperately trying to come out of its moribund strategic islands in Maharashtra. The organisation, claiming to be a cultural body, in a bid to recapture its losing ground, is in the throes of churning out a plethora of front organisations to espouse a rabid Right-wing ideology in its typical style- calculated political ambiguity.

Says Manoj Mehta,   RSS-watcher and Mumbai city secretary to political maverick Subramnaiam Swamy: "The think-tank at sangh -the head of all its various organisations - is extremely perturbed over the waning of influence which had reached its peak in the late 1980s and 90s." "For the past three to four years, serious thinking is on as to how to get out of this stagnating bind which is corroding its base including among the trading class," Mehta adds.

The RSS always thrived as the highest organisation with its arms or fronts reaching out among the masses. However, of late, a sense of despondency has gripped the RSS think-tank and it seems a massive re-structuring is in progress. The think-tank, which, unlike its political arm BJP, had always focused on micro-level politics, trying to influence social and political life simultaneously, is now desperately trying to consolidate itself in the hinterland, rather than in the urban areas.