Leaders who accuse Bharatiya janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of being anti democracy, are the most autocratic and anti-democratic. Except BJP, all political parties are generally headed by single leaders who pass on the control of their parties to their sons or close relatives without allowing any dissent. How can they be democratic as rulers. In BJP, not even a single party president was succeeded by their relatives. Prior to Amit Shah, no one had two consecutive terms as BJP President. Now the BJP presidency is limited to two terms. It is correct that the head of the RSS generally continues for his entire life. However, RSS heads lead the organisation by consensus. In spite of the disagreement, I am aware of two important incidents when the head of RSS conceded to the majority opinion. All the RSS heads have been lifetime Pracharaks; they left their homes and never got married. Therefore, there has never been a question of them being succeeded by relatives.
Frequently, some people define RSS as a communal organisation. Ironically, as stated above, these allegations are made by those who do not allow any dissent in their parties. Jawaharlal Nehru himself could not tolerate any opposition. When he saw the rising popularity of RSS after the attainment of freedom, without following any due process, he unilaterally blamed RSS and jailed thousands of RSS karyakartas on a false pretext that it was responsible for the murder of MK Gandhi. His government could not prove this allegation in any court. In fact, the court order, after the trial of Gandhi’s murder, clearly stated that RSS had no role in Gandhi’s murder. In the first Lok Sabha session, Nehru stated, “I will crush the opposition.” To this, Syama Prasad Mookerji retorted, “I will crush the crushing mentality.” Mookerji was later killed in a jail in Srinagar. Based on a disagreement, Nehru forced Purushottam Das Tandon to resign from the Congress Presidency. Nehru’s government implemented a number of amendments to the constitution to increase the government’s authority, reduce the freedom of speech and silence the opposition.
Rahul Gandhi carries a copy of the constitution blaming BJP and RSS for violating the constitution. First of all, it is doubtful that he ever read the constitution. If he had, he would have also read the amendments made thereto, and realised how his family has brutalised the constitution. His grandmother Indira Gandhi even suspended the constitution. Contrary to the constitution, his mother became the Super Prime Minister and reviewed all important government files in violation of the constitution. She even helped a corrupt Italian friend to escape the country and avoid justice in Bharat. Shri LK Advani frequently stated, “India is a secular country because of Hindus.” Interestingly, the words secular and socialist were not in the original Constitution implemented in January 1950. These words were introduced in the Constitution through amendments by Indira Gandhi during the emergency period of 1975-1977 when most of the opposition MPs were in jail. Recently, Dr Subrahmanyam Swamy has gone to the Court pleading for the exclusion of these two words from the Constitution.
RSS Since Emergency
When the emergency was declared in June, 1975, several leaders and workers of opposition parties, RSS and Muslim League were arrested, however, a number of RSS leaders and large number of RSS karyakartas escaped the arrest and went underground as most of them were not and could not be identified by the Police. PM Modi, then an RSS Pracharak, also escaped the arrest. RSS started Satyagrahas and publicity campaign condemning the conversion of a democratic country into a dictatorship which included suspension of Civil Rights and Free Speech.
RSS has a large cadre and a unique way of communication. Each Shakha of RSS is divided into a number of Gatas which are headed by Gatanayaks. These Gatanayaks were the ones who would communicate with higher echelon of RSS and its members in his Gata. Most of them were publicly unknown and Police did not have much information about them and thus, were not able to arrest them. Jai Prakash Narayan, at an RSS rally, had given a call to the nation to oppose the Emergency. Interestingly, JP, who was once a staunch opponent of RSS, became its admirer later on, throughout his life. Outside Bharat also, RSS karyakartas carried out vigorous campaigns against Emergency and Indira Gandhi. After the imposition of Emergency in June 1975, I along with some other friends in the USA founded Indians for Democracy (IFD). IFD started a campaign and conducted seminars and demonstrations against the Emergency in a number of cities in the USA. IFD also confronted the Government of India leaders who visited the USA. IFD members also met a number of Congressional and political leaders in the USA.
Inspite of threat Ambassador Kaul of arresting me, I visited Bharat in 1975. Our contacts in Bharat assured of my safety. During my visit, I met Dr Subrahmanyam Swamy, who had grown a beard and started wearing a turban and looked like a Sikh. We planned our communication channel and arranged for his escape out of Bharat in order to evade arrest. I also went to Mumbai where I had a whole day meeting with Madhava Rao ji, the then General Secretary of RSS. He went underground and was able to avoid arrest. We discussed our strategy. I also met Acharya Kriplani, who was not arrested. He was very upset with Smt Gandhi and expressed appreciation of the RSS efforts. With my help, Dr Swamy was able to get out of Bharat. He first went to UK where there were a large number of RSS karyakartas. In UK, Dr Swamy founded Friends of India Society International (FISI). Then he came to USA where we also started a FISI Chapter. Soon we had FISI Chapters in Germany, Holland, Japan, Hong Kong and Kenya. We carried out a strong campaign against Smt Gandhi’s dictatorship. Whenever any Indian government official would visit any country and try to defend Emergency, we would make them very uncomfortable and they would go back without any success. There is no doubt that the RSS movement in Bharat and outside had exerted a lot of pressure on the Government.
The tremendous pressure outside Bharat compelled Smt Gandhi to lift emergency and hold elections. She never thought that not only the Congress Party would lose election, that she and her son Sanjay would also lose. The party got decimated. When Smt Gandhi could not exert absolute control over the Congress Party, she split from it and formed her own party. After emergency, I met a number of Socialist leaders such as George Fernandes. NG Goray, Madhu Limaye and also Imam of Jama Masjid. Balasaheb Deoras, Revered Sarsanghchalak of RSS, and Imam of Jama Masjid were in the same jail and became good friends. Sometime Imam would get letters written in Hindi, he would ask Deoras ji to read them for him. Previously, they all hated the RSS. But when I met them, they all appreciated the organisation’s role in Bharat and overseas. Hopefully, all will realise that RSS played a big role in the restoration of democracy in Bharat. In spite of all the turbulences, democracy has survived and will continue to survive in Bharat. People in all countries should work to have a viable, strong, and people oriented democratic systems.
