Swamy is RSS man, by attacking Jaitley he's hurting Modi
Anyone with the slightest interest in Indian politics knows that Subramanian Swamy is causing immense trouble for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi over the past two months.
But even those who have all the understanding on the issue do not have a definitive answer on why he is continuing to fire salvos as various nominees of the government’s top-man, Narendra Modi and his principal aide, Arun Jaitley.
Why is Swamy relentless in damaging Modi and his government despite its recent gift in the form of nomination to Rajya Sabha being barely a couple of months old?
To say that Swamy is acting like the proverbial bull in the China shop is only partially true. It is the half-truth because though being destructive, he is anything but clumsy. Swamy may be causing chaos but is surely not chaotic. There is method in his seeming brutality and madness.
Bit by bit, in the past two months since his nomination to the House of Elders, he has displayed the ferocity of a man on a mission that has been denied to him for long.
The question is why is Swamy acting in this manner and at whose behest? And going further back, why was he nominated in the first instance despite his track record of a man who defies all effort to rein him in?
The uninitiated need to be reminded that after Janata Party disintegrated in the late 1970s, he was the lone ranger of the rump till 2013 when he merged into the Bharatiya Janata Party.
From being a general without an army for the major part of his career, Subramanian Swamy is now acting like an army who no general can control. Where does he draw his power from?
The highest echelons of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to which Swamy owes his nomination to Rajya Sabha are shadowy on most issues and this gets even more furtive when it comes to comprehending its guiding principle when it comes to the likes of Swamy.
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| Mohan Bhagwat is plotting a strategy to ensure gains for the RSS in times beyond his lifetime. |
Dilip Deodhar, a veteran Nagpur-based RSS watcher who ran the first "full-pant shakha" in the 1970s recapitulates his old theory of "policy paradox" in the working of Sangh. There is marked inconsistency between the RSS’ support for the principle of discipline within the fraternity and promotion of policies that promote individuals who violate organisational restraint.
In simpler terms, the RSS leadership is greatly dependent on discipline for retaining its command on the cadre. Yet, every now and then, the top brass of the organisation unleashes loose cannons who cause havoc but force others to fall in line.
The RSS has always engaged with people who are not out of the RSS system but not completely within its framework. They often seek guidance and act at the behest – or conjunction – of the top leaders but seldom always act in conjuction. At least two other prominent people currently have that status – KN Govindacharya and S Gurumurthy. Both are RSS men and yet not.
Gurumurthy first came into public limelight when he shepherded the anti-Rajiv Gandhi campaign in the wake of the Bofors scam. He did yeoman service but the RSS never attracted the charge that it was behind the plot to destabilise Gandhi.
Despite his sidelining in the Sangh, Govindacharya continues to be used by RSS whenever required. Recall for instance, his crucial role in drawing Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare into the anti-corruption agitation.
Swamy, Gurumurthy and Govindacharya have often acted in tandem but also not been completely dependent on the others. On certain issues, they have synergised energies – for instance, Swamy has been ably supported by Gurumurthy in the campaign against Raghuram Rajan.
Coming back to Swamy and the question of his (in)discipline; to comprehend that he is not totally on his own, one needs to decode his tweet on Friday (June 24 2016).
People giving me unasked for advice of discipline and restraint don't realise that if I disregard discipline there would be a blood bath
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 24, 2016
This is a tacit way of accepting that he too abides by the discipline of the Sangh. But because it is not in Swamy’s nature, he is not a "good boy" of the school always. There are times, every now and then, when he acts on his own and wreaks havoc on his own kin.
To draw an analogy, an insider explained, one has to imagine a circus and consider the Sangh leadership as its ringmaster. All animals – analogy for different affiliates and big guns within the fraternity - obey command but for the horse who responds to commands only when directly in front of the master of the ceremony.
On other occasions the horse has its own time-cycle, acts on its own volition and keeps circling the ring. On most occasions, the horse keeps running around the ring.
Swamy and others, not quite part of the Sangh, are a bit like these horses – they can be tamed when needed but ignored when it suits the master.
Swamy in Rajya Sabha is a device for the RSS leadership, the time for whose use has come. Two years into office, Modi’s free run had ended. He would now have to display greater worth to the RSS by securing better results. This was the reason why pressure was applied on Modi to secure Swamy's nomination to Rajya Sabha.
Sensing the intent, Modi chose to accept the demand but ensured no further pressure would be applied to secure a cabinet berth for Swamy. If he finally relents on this issue too, now or later, it would mark a massive alteration in the balance of power vis-a-vis the Sangh and the government.
The other policy paradox of RSS that Deodhar drew attention to, is in relation to the idea of pluralism. The Sangh is opposed to pluralistic imagination of India as a nation and considers it a unitary entity. Yet when it comes to its internal functioning and when dealing with external bodies, it engages with multiple individuals and ideas that are often contradictory to each other.
Besides individuals like Swamy, the RSS has even pursued engagement with seemingly antagonistic political opponents – the most famous of this being simultaneous political courtship with Indira Gandhi during Emergency, while being a key instrument in the Lok Sangharsh Samiti.
Because Swamy is akin to the circumference-traversing circus horse, he is both asset and liability. Every now and then, he will slip under the radar but the Sangh leadership will always regain sight and control of him. If he doesn’t fall in line at that point, the RSS has ways of dealing with such situations.
In this game, others who do not form the core of the Sangh, may suffer collateral damage – currently this may be Jaitley and even Modi. But then the RSS and its leadership follow a different time-cycle.
While Modi is looking at his tenure till 2019 or may be even another shot till 2024, the RSS has a more distant goal.
Mohan Bhagwat, like other sarsanghchalaks preceding him, is not playing solely for his term – he decides when it is to be over. Rather he is plotting the strategy to ensure gains for the RSS in times beyond his lifetime.
Swamy will remain a problem for Modi and his core team. How they cope with it is not of concern to the RSS.