The RSS and the End of Imagination

Suresh 'Bhaiyyaji' Joshi

V. S. Naipual, during his 2004 visit to India, described Ayodhya as “a sort of passion to be encouraged.” His argument was that passion leads to creativity and Indians are rather short of creativity.

Indians seem to be better at demolitions, riots and destruction. Even when we speak about constructing a temple at Ayodhya, destructive malevolence seems to run at the bottom of the desire. For almost two centuries, Ayodhya has been a potent metanarrative in India, especially for the North Indian Hindus. Various people and political parties have used it effectively for rousing up the passions of large numbers of people. Finally when the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 under the pontificate of L. K. Advani, Ayodhya lost its emotional fervour at least for a while.

Justifying the demolition Champat Rai, a joint general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad [VHP], said that the Babri Masjid was a “signpost of slavery for over 450 years and the self-respecting Bharat wanted to undo that statement of national humiliation and shame.”

However, that “statement of national humiliation and shame” which aroused the patriotic and religious fervour of a whole lot of people was lost altogether when it was demolished. It would have been easier to mobilise the Hindus against the Masjid than for a temple. It is always easy to rouse up passions against something than for something; rebellion and destruction are more natural and more interesting than creation and harmony.

When the Masjid ceased to exist and thus ceased to be a passion-generator, the BJP invented another metanarrative: development. Thus Narendra Modi rode the royal road to the throne in Delhi in 2014 piggybacking on sky-high developmental promises.

Modi failed to deliver, however. He turned out to be a windbag filled with hollow promises. So, in order to win the forthcoming elections, the Sangh Parivar stands in need of another metanarrative. Shorn of creative imagination, Suresh ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi, the RSS Pope, has threatened to repeat 1992 and some people have responded earnestly.

1992 was a bloodbath unleashed on the nation by a crowd of ‘Kar Sevaks’. The aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid resounded disastrously in Mumbai, Delhi, Surat, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Bhopal and several other places, eventually resulting in over 2000 deaths. This is what ‘Bhaiyyaji’ is offering the nation. What a pathetic lack of imagination, vision and creativity!