Shukla is torn about how to respond, given his long-standing loyalties.
“We have not done any dharna-pradarshan (protest) against the government because we are in a dilemma—how do we protest against our own people?” Shukla adds. “But the question that is gnawing at us is where do we go?”
This sentiment of uncertainty isn’t unique to Shukla; it resonates among many RSS workers.
After ten years of the BJP being in power at the Centre and seven years in Uttar Pradesh, unrest pervades RSS circles. They claim that the government, despite being “their own”, has done nothing to improve their lives. In issues like job postings, registering FIRs, or obtaining loans, the life of an ordinary RSS swayamsevak has barely changed under BJP governance.
There are also more overtly political issues creating tension between the BJP and its ideological parent. A near-complete neglect of the RSS in ticket distribution this time, a preference for “outsiders” over karyakartas who have served the party for decades, and a general sense that the BJP has grown “arrogant” and “does not need” the organisation as before have all disillusioned the karyakartas—pillars of the party’s electoral machinery.
“The BJP has given this message that they don’t need the Sangh anymore. They do not even come and visit the Sangh leaders like before,” said Indra Bahadur Singh, an RSS vistarak—a worker who, unlike a pracharak, can be married and have a family—from Mau village in Mohanlalganj.
“Usually, RSS workers would be consulted with regard to ticket distribution at local as well as state levels, but this time the organisation has been completely sidelined,” he added.
While they may not be holding placards or shouting slogans, RSS workers are subtly expressing their dissatisfaction with the BJP in the Lok Sabha campaign in UP, where polling is taking place across all seven phases until 1 June.
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Lukewarm campaigning
Ordinarily, the BJP and the RSS function as an indistinguishable unit during elections, working seamlessly together on electoral and political matters, such as ticket distribution and campaigning. While BJP workers actively solicit votes, RSS workers conduct “sensitisation” campaigns.
“We’d never tell anybody who to vote for, but we would run door-to-door campaigns from village to village sensitising people about the importance of voting—and also voting for the party which looks after the nation and Hindutva’s interests,” Indra Bahadur Singh said. “In the last UP election, for instance, we ran extensive campaigns about Ram Mandir, Article 370 abrogation and triple talaq. After our morning shakhas, we would spend the whole day campaigning.”
Besides campaigning on “nationalistic” themes, the RSS machinery also serves as a crucial grassroots feedback mechanism for the BJP.
“Our workers would constantly be on the field understanding what is clicking with people and what is not—this would make sure that the BJP has continuous and real-time feedback about what is working and what is not,” a pracharak from Lucknow said on condition of anonymity.
However, this election has marked a shift. Many cadres are sitting out the fight.
“Only those in formal leadership positions in the organisation are campaigning. The ordinary pracharak or karyakarta is not campaigning at all,” the Lucknow pracharak said, as he wound up his morning shakha, or gathering, in Lucknow. “Until the last election, shakhas would be one of the most important sites where campaigning was discussed and planned—now, there is nothing happening.”
Across constituencies, there are hushed but widespread complaints of lack of democracy within the BJP, over-centralisation, and lack of hissedari (share) in power in the RSS ranks.
“The RSS worker does not want material benefits like others,” said Lucknow lecturer Shukla. “But at least we would want the organisation that we nurture on the ground to have some basic sensitivity towards us.”
Shukla did not specify whether or not he is campaigning for the BJP this time, but affirmed “mann toh khatta hua ha (my heart has soured).”
Ticket distribution grievances
Across Uttar Pradesh, several RSS leaders privately acknowledge feeling sidelined in this distribution of tickets to candidates.
“Ordinarily, RSS leaders would be consulted and involved in the district-wise selection of candidates, which would then go to the state, and finally to the national level,” Singh said. “But this time, this process was entirely eliminated.”
Some instances of this have stung deeply, such as in the case of Kanpur, where the Sangh strongly supported Neetu Singh as the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate. She’s the daughter of the current BJP MP Satyadev Pachauri and granddaughter-in-law of barrister Narendra Singh—who laid the groundwork for the Sangh in Kanpur and neighbouring districts during the 60s and 70s.
However, instead of Neetu Singh, the BJP selected Ramesh Awasthi, a former journalist and editor, known to have the backing of Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya.
“Neetu Singh’s whole family is very close to the Sangh, and they have contributed immensely to the growth of the organisation,” said a senior RSS pracharak on condition of anonymity. “The Sangh backed her candidature till the very end. Every pracharak, every swayamsevak in Kanpur wanted her as the candidate, but it did not happen. The party high command was not in favour, and did not yield.”
A similar story brewed in eastern UP’s Jaunpur, where the Sangh lobbied heavily for Gyan Prakash Singh, an industrialist, who is known to have donated generously for the newly built RSS office in the city, and also for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
Despite this, the party picked Kripa Shankar Singh, who, while a native of Jaunpur, had spent his entire political career since the 1980s in Maharashtra. What rankled even more was that Kripa Shankar had been with the Congress, and even served as the state’s junior home minister when the party was in power.
“Gyan Prakash was almost in campaign mode,” said a local BJP leader from Jaunpur said on condition of anonymity. “The RSS was very keen to have him, but Kripa Shankar, who has very little to do with the people in Jaunpur, was brought in.”
The leader admitted that even BJP workers were initially upset, but came around eventually.
“Everyone is campaigning for Kripa Shankar, saying that he is a big leader, and will take the constituency’s issues to the national level,” he added.
The healing balm of Hindutva
While RSS cadres may not be campaigning for the BJP with their usual zeal, what prevents any major rebellion is that the workers are assured of the party’s staunch ideological commitment to Hindutva.
“Even if there is aakrosh (anger), ultimately, the RSS worker sees the Ram Mandir as a marham (healing balm),” said an RSS vistarak from Lucknow.
The Sangh is not an organisation that seeks sattadhari (political power), he explained.
“The Sangh tells all its workers that we are not like others, who work on the ground for power. Power, in our scheme of things, is a byproduct,” he said. “The Sangh worker still works like any other ordinary person, has to run around the same way to get their work done, and that is the ethos of the organisation.”
Ideology, rather than power, fuels the RSS, and on this front, the BJP has aligned well with their goals.
“Be it Ram Mandir, Article 370, Uniform Civil Code—all of the Sangh’s core agendas are being implemented without compromise…That is what keeps the karyakarta on the ground going,” the Lucknow vistarak said.
A BJP functionary in the state told ThePrint that the party is fully aware of the unrest among Sangh workers.
“It is not possible to resolve everyone’s personal matters, but at the ideological level, there is no unrest,” he said. “In fact, in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time, there was more unrest ideologically. But now, the unrest is more personal.”
These kinds of disagreements or grievances are not new, but the Sangh Parivar knows how to do damage control internally, according to the functionary.
“You see, we will all work with cohesion during the elections. The fact that we are ideologically united helps us glide over these personal grievances unlike other parties,” he added.
However, as several RSS leaders pointed out, these grievances may impact the party’s performance—while karyakartas will still vote for the BJP, the extra votes they usually mobilise may not materialise this time.
“Our vote will not go anywhere, of course. But the karyakarta brings dozens of voters to the polling booth on the voting day,” said Indra Bahadur Singh. “This time, that might not happen.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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