As the Sangh speaks up, deciphering its signals to the BJP

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent speech to senior trainees of the Sangh in Nagpur was viewed as a rebuke to the BJP, a conciliatory gesture to the Opposition and wise words for the entire political class.

The RSS sarsanghchalak, as widely reported, said, among other things, that a“true sevak” does not have “arrogance”; that “decorum was not maintained” during the Lok Sabha poll campaign; that the country needs to be run by a “consensus”; that the Opposition was not “virodhi (opponent)” but “pratipaksh (competitor)”; and that the situation in Manipur required urgent attention.

Bhagwat did not stop with this speech. On Saturday, he held two closed-door meetings with Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur. It was the Sangh’s backing that had turned the tables in Yogi’s favour in 2017 and helped him get the top job. Bhagwat’s meeting with Adityanath at this juncture signals the Sangh’s support to the CM who, it was said during the campaign, could be moved out of UP after the elections.

But why did the RSS chief speak out? Was it meant to be a wake-up call for the BJP leadership and if it was not does the RSS have in it to act if its chief’s words are not heeded?

For all his reported unhappiness in the last few years about some of the goings-on in the BJP, the RSS chief did not speak out against the party or the government in this fashion. Bhagwat pulled out all the stops in 2013-’14 to make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister. In his first year as PM, Modi took his entire Cabinet to meet RSS leaders.

Unlike his predecessors, such as K S Sudarshan who publicly told Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani to make way for younger leaders, Bhagwat is known to speak in a nuanced fashion. But his words this time have sent a signal to