RSS 'aid' to Army? It's road to disaster

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has had the naivete, indeed the temerity, to place his outfit for consideration alongside the valorous and disciplined Indian Army, though when this remark — made to the faithful at Muzaffarpur in Bihar on Sunday — came under a barrage of criticism by Opposition parties, specially Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the so-called “cultural” outfit engaged in furious back-pedalling.

Nevertheless, Mr Bhagwat can be heard on tape saying that “if the Constitution and the laws permit, and should the need arise (for the country)”, RSS volunteers “could be got ready (to defend the nation) within three days, whereas it takes six to seven months to train a soldier”.

He did some boasting along the way. He said though the RSS was not a military organisation, it possessed military discipline. The sequence of his observations is the closest the outfit, which is the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism, has come to hinting that it is akin to a militia. It is well known what havoc sectarian militias — promoted by those in power — have caused in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia.

Not long ago, the Pakistan Taliban had declared that if the need arose, its volunteers would stand alongside the Pakistan Army against India. In tone and substance, Mr Bhagwat’s utterances are not dissimilar. It’s to be hoped the powers that be won’t react as the Pakistan Army did. It had described the Taliban as a “force multiplier” against India.

As for the RSS, nothing would suit it better than to be summoned as an auxiliary unit to service the Army. It would calculate that such a move would give it an official standing as a “nationalist” body. Our rulers must have the good sense never to tweak laws to permit this to happen. If they did not, they would be creating an armed monster enjoying official sanction that would be unleashed against those that the RSS treats as “internal enemies”.

It’s bad enough now when mushrooming outfits in line with RSS ideology are wreaking violence on a near daily basis in the name of cow protection or “love jehad”. If RSS volunteers are put in military fatigues as the Army’s helpers, the idea of “Hindu nationalism” — rather than Indian nationalism — will gain particular salience, excluding non-Hindus from the fold of patriotism. That would spell disaster for national and social integration and for the idea of syncretic culture.

There is a funny side to all this. Long ago, when Murli Manohar Joshi was BJP president, he took it into his head to unfurl the tricolour in Srinagar on Republic Day. He would not be dissuaded. The government had to send him with a heavily armed escort since times were bad. The RSS did not thump its chest and come forward.