 "Pracharak's exit does not mean end of prachar")
He was a pracharak who was punished not because what he did was perceived to be wrong. He was punished because he talked more and did very little. He was punished because he deviated from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) core value of discipline.
The exit of Rajeshwar Singh, the RSS pracharak who steered Sangh’s ghar wapsi (homecoming) campaign in Western Uttar Pradesh, should in no way be construed as the end of campaign itself. Following the Agra mass conversion incident that created a lot of controversy, resulting in disruption of parliamentary proceedings, there was a clear cut instructions to all the pracharaks not to talk to media on the issue. Singh, an ordinary pracharak with a limited role, did not follow the line and had to pay the price.
However, one should have no illusion about the continuation of the campaign following RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s stout defence of the drive to bring “back our brothers who have lost their way.”
The sense one gets after talking to key Sangh functionaries spread across the country is that there is no difference whatsoever regarding what to do with the campaign. The difference is on how to go about the task. While some sections want to go whole hog with series of events celebrating “ghar wapsi”, large sections are of the view that the focus should be on creating an atmosphere that results in a central anti-conversion legislation.
An article in the latest issue of RSS mouthpiece Organiser is intended to achieve the latter. It argues: “But ISI failed to mention even once that it was RSS who is demanding anti-conversion laws since ages.” The article uses ISI as an acronym for Indian Secular Intellectuals and criticizes the group, if at all such a group exists, for making “statements against the country, its glorious history and the oldest culture.” What it essentially hints at is that ghar wapsi is in the “national interest” and those opposing it are anti-national.
I kept hearing the virtues of the “national interest” project from many leaders of the Sangh Parivar I spoke to recently. Ghar wapsi is clearly one such project for them. The tone is alarmist—there is a grave danger to the existing demographic structure of the country and Hindus are in danger of losing majority status in many states. But they are not bothered to check whether pattern emerging out of decadal census data does have any basis for such alarm.
But then, alarm almost always emanates from perception and rarely relies on facts. Facts have to be proved. And there is additional problem of facts being adduced by the ISI (the acronym itself gives an impression of a foreign hand). Alarm, on the other hand, can go on a flight of fantasy is therefore more amenable to be used as a propaganda tool.
Can such a project of “national interest” be shelved?