Will India Remain Secular?

It (persmission for government employees to join RSS) is not a matter that can be accepted as an official whim or fancy. It has huge constitutional implications putting under a cloud the very nature of the republic

For the last four or five days I have found myself wondering if the modern Indian state will remain modern or regress to a medieval stage when separation from religion had not become a cardinal article of faith with modern democratic politics and a defining feature of the modern state.

These questions had been provoked by the central government’s abrupt and summary decision to lift the ban on government servants joining the activities of RSS. Siddharth Varadarajan has taken pains to demonstrate that if government staff are legitimately prohibited from joining any political party on the ground that it might affect their neutrality, then on the same grounds they should be debarred from participating in RSS activities. For the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) is openly committed to a political line even in its socio-cultural activities and as numerous reports show it gets involved in a host of political activities from monitoring the work of BJP government to overseeing election campaigns at grassroots. Though it seems that in the last general elections it appeared somewhat detached.

In my view, the matter is a little more complex if not esoteric. Having embraced wholesale the wisdom of a pre-modern society as enshrined in Hindu scriptures, RSS had found itself at loggerheads with the modern Indian state from the beginning of an independent modern India. If we recall their often repeated and cryptic remark that RASHTRA of their ideological canon that lays stress on Hindu Rashtra is much much larger and deeper than the state,and go on to demystify it. It boils down to the fact that the mystic word actually encompasses the entire society but is unified by a code. If this is understood there is no mystery as to why when the Constitution was being earnestly drafted and debated, THE ORGANISER should declare that with the Manu Samhita within reach there was no need at all to hanker after an innovation of Western reason. Same goes for its apparently strange delivery that the Bhagwa Jhanda(saffron flag of temples)was the most fitting flag for the Indian republic.

It follows that the injunction to state officials to remain neutral as in modern administration is also an undesirable Western fad. Dharma being all inclusive it can embrace all points of view and choose unerringly between different positions,guided by Dharma. The fad about neutrality is just noise disturbing transcendent communication.

In our youth, we had pored over the somewhat arcane exposition of Marxism by French philosopher Althusser in much acclaimed tracts like POUR MARX. Althusser had clearly demarcated the views of mature Marx from those of young Marx under the influence of a philosopher of science named Cangouilhem. The latter had proposed that modern science is born wrapped in some metaphysical membrane,which it has to wriggle out of in order to claim the status of modern science. Extending the metaphor to politics we may perhaps argue that the concept of the modern state emerges only when it sheds its medieval organic social trappings. The RSS was not prepared to do so and instead kept on wrestling tirelessly to force modern historical trends into medieval containers.The result was predictably distortion and contortion of political life.

Also Read: Consequences of Government Employees Joining RSS

Coming back to the question posed at the beginning, I find it hard to accept the beguiling notion that it was a casual if extremely irritating distraction. In fact, it is a highly questionable and dangerous turn of events. It is not a matter that can be accepted as an official whim or fancy. It has huge constitutional implications putting under a cloud the very nature of the republic. From a ban that the first home minister imposed, and repeated thrice with few protests from constitutional experts, the organization in question has been turned virtually into an integral part of the state. The trajectory is too paradoxical to be accepted at face value.

I suggest that the opposition raise the matter for a thorough discussion in Parliament. Central to the discussion should be the fate of the new constitution of RSS prepared under home minister Patel’s direction in 1951-1952. Is it still in force? Has the RSS junked it? If so, has it sought permission and assent from the government, which was duty bound to route it through Parliament?

[The writer, Hiren Gohain, is a political commentator.]

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