How the BJP’s backroom boys swung the elections
The party’s back-room managers had to identify issues on the ground that had a wider resonance as well as find the best means of communication for traction of those issues.
NEW DELHI: In 2014, the year when the BJP come to power at the Centre after a landslide victory, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) raised a demand for conferring the Bharat Ratna to Naga freedom fighter Rani Gaidinliu.
The ostensible reason was to seek an honour for the “forgotten” icon from the north-east, but the underlying message was apparent. The Sangh was laying the ground for the BJP, which aspired to gain a foothold in the region. The BJP picked the cue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi presiding over the commemorative birth centenary celebrations of Rani Gaidinliu.
If Rani Gaidinliu was the peg for hang the BJP’s north-east aspirations, the lack of development in the region became the focal point for the RSS’s work on the ground. It reached out to various tribes through the adroitly run network of affiliates such as the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an organisation that runs health and education services for the tribal communities, and Seva projects, which are aimed at offering help in deprived and remote areas. The results were visible after the BJP won Assam and followed it up with another win in Manipur. Work began soon after in Christian-dominated Nagaland and Meghalaya and in the Left turf of Tripura, where the BJP is set to form the next government.
Though the RSS maintains it is apolitical, there was convergence between its cadre and the BJP on how to breach the bastions and reach out to people.
Modi and his cabinet ministers frequented the region to announce policies tailored for it. Last December, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat visited Tripura to take stock of the organisation. He followed that up by addressing one of the biggest congregations in Guwahati in January.
RSS functionaries from the region said at the heart of the Sangh’s work was an attempt to address the “neglect” of the people by previous governments at the Centre. “The Sangh has been active in the region, providing education to the children of tribes that have been neglected. Our work is not political, but the issues that we address are also raised by the BJP, so there is convergence of thought,” said a senior Sangh functionary.
Sanjib Baruah, a professor of political studies, Bard College, New York said the Sangh sees itself as a “collective Raj guru”. “In the North-east, it sees the proselytisation by the church — and converting tribal people — as destabilising the nation and therefore, it sees a legitimate reason for it to be there to prevent that,” he said.
The RSS had to battle political opposition in the region, and fight perceptions about ‘Hindutva’ agenda. As a consequence, it had to alter its stand on various issues; for instance, while it advocates a complete ban on cow slaughter in the rest of the country, it maintained a conspicuous silence on the issue of beef consumption in these parts.
In Meghalaya, it had to constantly fend accusation of imposing “food choices” and trying to create a homogeneity of culture.
The build-up in the communist bastion of Tripura was also not easy. Violent clashes often took place between the Sangh workers and the communist cadres.
Sunil Deodhar, a former RSS pracharak and now in-charge of the BJP unit in the state, said the RSS “did not campaign, but people saw the work Sangh does and were encouraged to join”.
In Nagaland, suspicion about the Sangh’s work was a stumbling block. “But people realised fear is spread about us. We do not oppose faith, but are against forceful conversion,” said an RSS functionary in Nagaland.