PM Modi and RSS chief Bhagwat’s meeting steadies the boat, clears the air

The man the Sangh chose to project was Narendra Damodardas Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat whom the RSS had been tracking closely, particularly its new Sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat, ever since he took over in 2009.

Bhagwat and Modi are contemporaries and will be 75 in September this year (there is a six-day difference between them, with Bhagwat born on September 11 and Modi on the 17th). Bhagwat played a stellar role in ensuring that Modi was projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013. After Modi won convincingly, in his first year of premiership, members of the Union Cabinet held meetings with the RSS brass to brief them and get their views on issues.

However, in recent years, tensions had developed in the RSS-BJP relationship.

Modi’s recent visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur is hence significant for many reasons. He went there not to make peace with Bhagwat. Peace had been made before he went. Otherwise Modi, who had not visited the RSS HQs in 11 years as PM, might not have gone. The visit showed that the assessment made by Pramod Mahajan 21 years ago still held good – but with a difference. By going to Nagpur, Modi chose to strike a conciliatory note with the Sangh leadership that had its grievances with his government. In turn, the Sangh leadership gave its backing to Modi once again.

The PM underlined that though he was a powerful chief executive, having built the world’s largest political/electoral organisation, having come back to power for a third stint, and having implemented the Sangh’s core agenda, his core identity remained that of a swayamsevak – bowing to the RSS. His visit also underlined the message that the BJP very much needed the RSS, as it had done in the past.

The RSS’s Bhaiyyaji Joshi took Modi inside a room, where Bhagwat waited for him. The two were together for about 20 minutes, according to those present. Then both came out to the click of the cameras at the Hedgewar Smruti Mandir, the memorial for RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and his successor M S ‘Guruji’ Golwalkar. Modi paid fulsome homage to both – and to the RSS, calling it an Akshaywat tree (sacred Banyan tree) which “energises national culture and consciousness”.

Modi’s Nagpur visit was incidentally different from the visit Vajpayee made to Nagpur in 2000, also to the Smruti Mandir. At the time, RSS Sarsangchalak K Sudarshan sent someone junior to receive him. The tension between Sudarshan and Vajpayee – he had publicly called on Vajpayee and Advani to make way for younger leaders – was an open secret. He had got Vajpayee to change his Finance Minister (Jaswant Singh) even after the list had been sent to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, hours before he was sworn in as PM.

Not too long back, Bhagwat had also expressed his unhappiness with Modi’s functioning, mostly by innuendo than directly. In the 2024 general elections, the Sangh gave a jolt to the BJP, by holding back its support. The BJP came down to 240 seats, short of a majority.

Last year, when Modi was in Nagpur in the midst of the election campaign, after the fifth phase of polling was over, he did not go to meet RSS leaders, say those in the know. By then the BJP’s top leaders had got the sense that the party was not doing well in Uttar Pradesh, and that the Sangh had not put itself out for BJP candidates. In an interview to The Indian Express, BJP president J P Nadda had said that the BJP no longer needed the RSS’s hand holding and was capable now to look after its own affairs.

It is inconceivable that Nadda would have made such a far-reaching statement, involving the Sangh, of his own volition.

Talks followed between Sangh and BJP leaders to address each others’ concerns. In the crucial Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, followed by Delhi, the RSS put its best foot forward, and the BJP won all three states handsomely, strengthening Modi’s grip over the government.

The Sangh demonstrated its usefulness once again to the BJP — just as it had shown its nuisance value in the Lok Sabha polls. The RSS is chary of doing anything that helps the Opposition and dismantles the edifice the Modi-led-BJP has put in place. On its part, the BJP accommodated the Sangh’s views in the selection of its chief ministers in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi.

A crucial concern for the Sangh has been who will helm the party and give independent attention to the BJP organisation after Nadda, whose term has come to an end and who is on an extension. The many parleys between the two sides have failed to throw up a name. But the fact that the PM went to Nagpur is seen as a sign that the name has been finalised. Mollified by the PM’s trip to the RSS HQs, sources in the Sangh are already indicating that “it is the PM who will choose the next BJP president,” keeping in mind the RSS’s concerns.

Whatever the RSS’s reservations about Modi’s centralised style of functioning – the Sangh emphasizes a collective approach – if there was a message from “Nagpur”, it was that Modi is not going anywhere. And that he will continue to helm the government now and, if the situation so warrants, maybe also 2029.

Another concern that may have prompted the meeting between Modi and Bhagwat is the rise of the forces on the Right and the challenge they may come to pose for both of them. In recent months the Sangh, including Bhagwat, has struck softer notes – like appealing to cadres not to look for a temple under every mosque – even while pushing the RSS agenda.

The fact is that Bhagwat and Modi need each other and have come to this realization – and both have stooped to conquer. They know this is necessary if the Sangh has to pursue its civilisational project, and if the minority BJP government has to have greater stability, faced as it is with formidable economic and global challenges.