Honeymoon is videshi

For a 75-year-old organisation like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), launching a countrywide mass contact programme for image building is a sign of great spirit and vigour. And that too when it is part of the establishment with one of its Sangh Parivar siblings, the Bharatiya Janata Party, firmly ensconced in power at the Centre. Old age tends to bring about lethargy and ennui in organisations just as in human beings. It is, therefore, important to exercise regularly and vigorously in the autumn of one’s life to stay agile and in touch with the people. The RSS has planned exactly that: during a month-long drive in Delhi alone, 30,000 swayamsevaks will fan out in the capital to establish door-to-door contact with the people, and apprise them of the RSS’ views on various national issues. But brand-building cannot be an exercise in campaign alone. It is much more important to figure out the trends, the moods and the needs of the times. It is equally important to redefine and redesign itself to be in syncwith the times.

Arguably the RSS is doing a wonderful job as far as the campaign is concerned but a lousy one as far as the redefining and redesigning of its agenda is concerned. Imagine someone knocking at your door and telling you, "Hey we are the RSS and we think you are totally Videshi and un-Indian since your newly married son has gone on a honeymoon with his wife, and your daughter, we are told, is a feminist tch…tch." Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? People who can afford it rush for a honeymoon after their marriages and for those of them who cannot, they regret it throughout their lives. Unfortunately for the RSS, such advice instead of sounding ridiculous seems very kosher and swadeshi. It is unbelievable that anyone could be so out of date with the reality. According to the RSS’s Marital Code of Conduct the concept of honeymoon has led to the destruction of the joint family system. Consider this: "A honeymoon encourages a couple to go for a vacation without the rest of the family… gives rise to the feelingthat the rest of the family is an obstacle to individual freedom." The moralising sounds like the ugly thorn between the pati and the patni. Similarly, the RSS’s publication Nari Jagran aur Sangh asserts that feminism is anarchic and since it is inspired by the West it has struck at the structure of "Indian" society. In fact, the obsession with the Indianness has led the RSS ideologues to such ludicrous levels that Adarsh Hindu Ghar, another RSS booklet, finds the popular family planning slogans Hum do Hamare do, Chota Parivar Sukhi Parivar `based only on economic considerations and not correct.’

First, it was the railings of the RSS chief K S Sudershan against the minorities that embarrassed the BJP leadership busy trying to lure Muslims, Christians and Scheduled Castes. And now the latest rantings of a totally dogmatic, completely out-of-date leadership of the Sangh is surely going to make the BJP leaders look equally silly. Unless the RSS is not injected with fresh ideas and a new vision that is in tune with the 21st century, the organisation is bound to be a liability instead of an asset for the BJP.