RSS Public Diplomacy

Ram Madhav, “official spokesman” of the RSS, its “national spokesman,” appeared at a small gathering sponsored by CASI at the Penn Political Science Department today, October 4, 2004. The audience came by CASI invitation only; there were no demonstrations or shouting. About twenty-five people sat on couches and chairs around a well-lit room with high ceiling, listening to Madhav talk for 30 minutes and then asked questions, to which he responded for about 40 minutes. A complete transcript of the meeting will be made available soon on the CASI website.

CASI director Francine Frankel introduced the RSS lecture with about ten minutes of analysis that acknowledged broad, trenchant criticism of CASI (and SAIS) for sponsoring this lecture. [Here are some protest letters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; and her response.] She said that CASI recognized the role of the RSS as a participant in mass violence, to which questioners returned several times. Her introductory analysis seems to have drawn from her research for a forthcoming new edition of her India’s Political Economy, which includes a long chapter on Hindutva. She pointed specifically to political choices the RSS faces today: (1) a choice between “hard” and “soft” Hindutva in BJP politics, (2) its adherence to the terms of India’s constitutional secularism, (3) propagation of communal violence, and (4) RSS proposal for a new framework for Indian elections, based on Panchayat electorates without multi-party participation. She ended by saying she hoped the speaker would address these issues.

Ram Madhav addressed none of them directly. Instead, he presented well-known RSS positions beginning and ending with its insistence that Hindurashtra is a cultural and not political concept. He said “Indians are not history conscious” and that Indians see the Ramayana not as historical text but as statement of Indian “values” and “psyche” – as compared to Christians and Muslims who use history in their faith. He went on, however, to lay great stress on history as “a source of lessons for the future.” He thus in effect clarified the logic behind the RSS-BJP rewriting of history under the NDA government by saying that using history to elaborate Hindu civilization was the Indian way, that is, the RSS way, and thus BJP policy when in government.

His very next statement was this: “India was divided in 1947.” This is a hard fact for Hindutva. He did not directly say that Jinnah forced partition, but rather, “Gandhi made fifteen attempts to convince Jinnah not to partition India, but failed.” Then he said of people in India and Pakistan, “We all belong to the same blood,” and of Muslims and Hindus he later said, “They are blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh.” But, “you see,” he said, “we have theocracies on both sides of India,” and in Pakistan they could not even realize Jinnah’s ideals of secularism; while “we have a secular democracy in India.” He repeated later again that “we have theocracies on both sides of us … so we need a strong, secular, democratic India.”

“What bothers us [the RSS],” he said, “is the concept of minority and majority.… there is no majority and majority .. and we do not accept appeasement of anyone.” This is not unsecular, he said. “A Hindu by nature is secular.” For “a Hindu believes in the separation of church and state”; for the Hindu, “religion is a matter of personal faith.” “We have come across no [Hindu] king in history who tried to mess up religion and state.” “We are secular,” he insisted, “but we inherited certain flaws in secularism.” These the RSS is trying to correct. Hindutva is all inclusive, not sectarian: he said this in various ways many times. “We support a uniform civil code … not a Hindu code .. but one code for all Indians.”

Madhav reported a recent high-level meeting between the RSS and Jamaat-i-Islami. After two and one half hours, he said, “we had made clear” to them that “our whole thesis is that pluralism shall be respected and all religions are equal.” But, “this was not acceptable to them.” They said Muslims cannot accept the idea that “all paths [to god] are true.” “We embrace all … all are true.” So you see, this is the true Indian culture, all embracing, all accepting, all inclusive. Those kinds of Muslims are the ones who refuse to accept that other paths are equal to theirs; they are not Indian, because this exclusivity is not the true Indian culture. With this he returned to the 5,000 year Indian culture, the essence of India, “the soul of India,” Hindu civilization, which is what Hindutva stands for.

He referred to recent official RSS policy statements [which I could not find on the website], but avoided absolutely and quite noticeably in his lecture and in answers to questions any mention whatever of BJP-RSS politicians, most notably Narendra Modi and L.K.Advani, whose names Francine Frankel and several questioners put in front of him to discuss. He stressed throughout the cultural rather than political character of the RSS and its claim to represent the real India, all Hindus, and a “5,000 year old Hindu civilization and culture.”

Referring obliquely to Francine Frankel’s quoting VDSavarkar’s Hindutva as the basic Hindutva text, Madhav said that to find authoritative Hindutva ideas, one should quote Deendayal Upadhyaya's (Integral Humanism) and MSGolwalkar (A Bunch of Thoughts) instead. Francine later pointed out to me that Advani often cites Savarkar, but it seems Ram Madhav has other preferences; this may be official RSS line of the moment. He is helping to get people to understand authentic Hindutva.

He began wrapping up his talk by saying that “BJP and RSS have differences,” but that “the RSS has people in any place where people accept our ideology,” not just the BJP. He told a tale of one longstanding RSS-BJP politician in Bihar, who being denied a ticket by the BJP, shifted parties, won his seat, and now sits in the Lok Sabha opposing BJP; but he is still 100% true blue RSS. In 1992, he said, a “major development” occurred when “the Babri structure was torn down” – note he noticeably did not say “mosque” or “masjid” – and after that, Hindutva has flourished. “Winning power and losing power,” now and then up and down go elections; we win some here and lose some there, but “we interpret these as we like.” People may say the 2004 elections marked a set-back for Hindutva, but he disagrees. The BJP did better than people think and the Congress did not do as well: only winning in Andhra “for development issues … tipped the balance for Congress.”

“The BJP lost not because of a rejection of Hindutva but for lack of it.” That is the main political headline for his talk. Then he went back to the basics to end: “Hindutva is not exclusivist or sectarian but all inclusive, secular and democratic … the soul of India. … “We have full faith in the wisdom of the people of India. Rafiq Zakaria has apparently provided grist for the RSS by saying something like, “the more Muslims India has, the more poverty, illiteracy, and disease it has,” and Madhav says the RSS agrees 100% with Rafiq Zakaria on the need to reduce the Muslim population by birth control. “Hindu trandition is inherited by Hindus and Muslims.” We are all Indians and “all Indians should have respect for Indian traditions.”

The Q&A was sedate, as Atul Kohli complained to me later. But some additional facts of importance came out.

· Officially the RSS rejects violence and tries to restrain members who provoke it by “cautioning them.” There are no official means, strong or week, apparently, for censoring or disciplining RSS members or affiliates for engaging in violence.

· The RSS now loves Gandhi and invokes his name in their prayers; and of course reject the idea that Godse was RSS, because the record shows he quit the RSS in 1937.

· The RSS officially accepts all freedom of religion and free speech in the name of religion but opposes “conversion as an institutional activity … by outside forces … telling Hindus that their religion is wrong and [another religion] is right.” Justifying violence against Christians – like Muslims – the RSS views it as a defensive reaction by aggrieved Hindus. Thus citations of violence by Christians. He cited a recent Sarvodya account, which he says reported that Christian converts engaged in violence in the Dangs in Gujarat attacking Hindus.

· On Guajarat violence. “On 10 March 2002, a week after the violence started, we in the RSS passed a resolution calling it unfortunate and calling on both sides, Hindus and Muslims, to have friendly relations.” “The best guarantee” of communal harmony is good feelings among the people, between communities. Raj Mohan Gandhi has shown, he says, that violence between Hindus and Muslims goes back to 1400s. He returned later to this theme, when raised again: “We do not support violence in any form,” he said, and though we respect freedom of speech, we oppose proselytizing.

· The RSS expects liberal treatment by liberals. In response to Atul Kohli’s forceful statements that the RSS claim to represent all Hindus, all Indians, and all Indian civilization is “very scary”; and that it is a testimony to the liberal values of this institution (Penn) that it would host a spokesman for such illiberal views; Ram Madhav replied, diplomatically: “I am here to present the RSS position, not to convince or be convinced.” “We have our position,” he said: “you have your place … we are in our place.”

· In response to the final question, he clarified the reason for this appearance at Penn. He had initiated the invitation. He had told Francine Frankel he was coming to the US and asked if she would like to host him at CASI. Others received the same offer; some accepted, some did not. This was an RSS initiative. “I felt we needed to present our views.” “We felt need to reach out to great institutions …” “You get so many ideas about us from others … we want to give the correct story.” The RSS wants to present its position, he said, “we took the initiative to clear misconceptions.”

These are my conclusions. This visit represents a new initiative by the RSS. It has a context and logic worth noting. As Sunil Khilnani said in his brief introduction of Madhav at SAIS-Johns Hopkins, “The RSS is a notoriously secretive organization, which has exercised influence in Indian politics both at the Centre and in the states. Yet it remains unaccountable for its actions. It is therefore all the more important that we hold its office-holders up to the light of public debate.” This event was not a debate; that will occur among others. The RSS does not debate, but rather presents its position.

Its new public diplomacy has two important features: context and motive. The context is clearly one in which the RSS feels more acceptable, more at home in the world. It has been accepted as a legitimate influence in Indian politics, as the school and support base for major Indian politicians; and as Francine Frankel said, as being the “ideological guide of the BJP,” which held power for six years, as Ram Madhav reminded us. In that sense, the RSS context is of a fascist party become respectable.

Francine and Atul alluded respectively to another aspect of context: the “spirit of civility” and “liberal values” in the university, which enable us to listen to the RSS spokesman, to let him present his view. But why should we? RSS actions are sickening, its ideas are inane, its history is insane: the whole talk was, most importantly, nothing new; everything he said is in the books. So why listen to him? Not because we are civil, liberal, and interested in India, but because he speaks for power. That power is proven, and may be in the shadows now, but no one will bet against it for long. So if we want to know what is going on in India, to hedge our bets, as investors or politicos, we must pay attention to the RSS. They are counting on their power to get them heard.

Here comes the motive, then. They know people in rich countries with lots of rich NRIs want to know about “the real India,” and especially about people in power in India. They have nothing to lose politically now by speaking out, even airing some differences, indirectly, with the BJP. They can operate freely to raise money and garner whatever honors and respectability they can by appearing at Penn, Hopkins, and elsewhere. They can use this respectability to add glamour to their representation of the real India among NRIs and gullible investors. And it costs them nothing. They do not have to say anything new, give away anything, or breach their secret-society high security. Little vignettes like the meeting with the Jamaat-i-Islami can come out -- he made it sound like a big secret – but who cares; it need not have happened at all; its telling simply made the same old point that the Muslims are intolerant and we are all inclusive.

Last but not least, the RSS is moving to spin with public relations and public presentations into the media mainstream and its message may hit the bull’s eye politically in America. They might get people in the US to believe, little by little, that Hindutva is democratic and secular. Muslims are intolerant, they say. We are against violence, they say. We are a cultural organization, not political, though powerful politicians follow us. Christians are ok unless they degrade – or beat up – Hindus. Muslims and Christians are Hindus when their blood is Indian. Pakistan and Bangladesh are theocracies, failed states. We are all inclusive embodiments of the soul of India. If you respect our culture, you must respect us, because we are India and India is Hindu, including all the Muslims and Christians. All we ask is respect for Indian traditions which are all inclusive and essentially secular and democratic, complete with “separation of church and state,” from time immemorial. Even among American liberals, this message may go down smoothly, not to mention among the Muslim-bashing warriors against terrorism and Hindutva friendlies among scholars, teachers, parents, and students.

Lessons for Indian politics. The RSS backs “hard Hindutva” as the comeback force for the BJP. They back hardliners like Advani and Modi. They are stoking up local violence against Christians that they will use to dramatize the clash of civilizations; and they seem to be courting at least some Muslims, at this moment, but let’s see. They are active in South India: Madhav is from East Godavari in Andhra; and note the new violence recently against Christains in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Look for more public quotations of RSS trash in academic papers and the like – I recently got a submission to the American Political Science review that virtually quoted Madhav on conversion. Look for more local violence. Look for more RSS politicians in other parties besides the BJP. Look for the RSS among Indian lobbyists in the US. Look for the RSS on McNeil-Lehrer or Oprah: that may seem far-fetched, but they will use credibility gained at events like this one at Penn to gain to wangle their way up the media food chain. Imagine Madhav going to media people and saying he spoke at Penn so they should be confident that what he says is acceptable to the American audience, and more important, valuable for anyone interested in India. That will help him get into media spotlights – then into the papers in India, and around and around we go. Indian politics is now openly cultivating a US public.

1. Ram Madhav is a small-fry spin doctor -- or rather spin medical student or even orderly, I would say -- not a major force of any sort. We did not learn much of interest from him. He was cagey and dodgy at questioning and most specifically dodged the critically serious, politically dense, and academically interesting questions Francine posed in her introduction. She did not just let him speak, but set him up with an intellectual-political agenda that was inherently critical of the RSS, whose weird political positioning of itself is in the "cultural background" rather than upfront as a force to be reckoned with publicly. Madhav did not respond to anything she said and to all the questions gave answers that seemed to him easy and appropriate diplomatically. I could see his little mind following his training routines, repeating stock phrases from the RSS handbook and from its new diplomatic lexicon, honed, I must say, specifically for America, which he might have helped do. He certainly got more from CASI than CASI got from him. The RSS came out the winner in that respect. Francine's argument that we had to hear him to learn about the RSS turned out to be quite wrong: we did not need to hear him to learn what he had to tell us: all that he said is in the RSS tracts, except for a few bits of trivia and dubious fodder for guesswork. If he had been a big-shot with a mind to engage others, that would have been different; and Francine's argument would have turned out correct. But as it was, he might as well have been a robot. Now he is a robot with Penn-CASI and SAIS-Hopkins badges of approval to show his next potential sponsor.