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June 30, 1998
ELECTIONS '98
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How Readers responded to Saisuresh Sivaswamy's last column
Date sent: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:11:46 -0700 Sir, You said: "...it is clear that Advani casts his shadow over the government as no other home minister before him has." You forget a person named Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. But that is besides the point. I have urged in my previous responses that you need to understand the working of the RSS better, to criticise it. I have a long-standing affiliation with the RSS, say of 25 years, and I can say confidently that your description of the RSS and BJP is far from accurate. For one, you may want to start with doing some homework about Mr Vajpayee. He started his career as an RSS pracharak. He was inducted into the Jan Sangh at the behest of the then RSS chief, Mr Golwalkar. You may want to read up the poems written by Mr Vajpayee when there was a ban on the RSS in 1948, following Mahatma Gandhi's assasination. When the question of dual status came up in the Janata govt in 1978, a lot of socialist leaders suggested that in order to be a member of the govt some leaders will have to give up their association with the RSS. This drove Mr Vajpayee furious, and he said "Our association with the RSS has been since childhood, how can we give that up?" The RSS is not an authoritarian organisation which enforces a mindset on its members. Its leaders spend lot of time in "Chintan" (thinking and discussing). It encourages free flow of thought. However, while doing that, its basic ideology or guidelines are not violated. This is the reason that the RSS is a progressive organisation, very unlike some Islamic fundamentalist organisations which think time has frozen since the inception of Islam. And this is the reason that the RSS has a wider acceptability that any organisation in the world. An organisation does not have to ape the West in order to be called progressive. It is possible, hence, that on certain issues Mr Vajpayee speaks his mind out. It's not as though he is bound by RSS diktats -- for that matter, RSS does not even expect that. During the recent meeting of RSS senior functionaries, it was concluded that the BJP govt at the Centre is neither the means nor the end to achieving the goal of the RSS. And, historically, the RSS knows better than anyone that it has grown more rapidly under adverse regimes. Irrespective of who is ruling the nation, the RSS is a grassroot organisation that does not depend on the govt for its activities. So your assumption that the RSS relies on Mr Advani more than Mr Vajpayee is a mere hypothesis. Both the leaders are from the RSS, and the RSS does not differentiate. Sir, my sincere request to you is to observe the functioning of the RSS more closely, and not depend on the rumour mill, which has been at work since 1947. If you need more pointers in this direction please let me know.
Date sent: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:31:54 PDT Dear Rediff editor, I think Saisuresh Sivaswamy is in a dream world. The home ministry is the most important post after PM. Don't you remember Sardar Patel??? He says: "Advani casts his shadow over the government as no other home minister before him has." That is true because he is a capable home minister. The past HMs were not. It is a pity that one person is doing good for India & we are barking (I'm sorry for this word, but fact is fact) at him! Who says that the BJP is run by the RSS? The BJP in true sense is the only political party in India, which thinks of India and its betterment. The BJP was elected by the people, not by the RSS or any religion. Hinduism in true sense is not a religion -- it is a complete teaching/rules for all the human beings. Today, even people of the US recognises the path of Hinduism and pays it due respect. So please talk & write sense. We should talk about problems in India and solutions for them. We should try to communicate our great culture to the rest of the world. God bless us. Rajeev Mohnot
Date sent: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:17:30 -0700 Dear sir: I am writing to express my appreciation. There are many of us like you, who thought the BJP would usher in genuine change, especially in liberating our people's productive energies by gutting the essence of Nehruvian socialism. If anyone could do it, it was the BJP, which never had any intellectual or political stake in socialism anyway. But what I find is a government so dull and devoid of purpose that the previous UF government seems visionary in retrospect. You said it well when you said the government does not know its mind. Vajpayee has been a disappointment, both as prime minister and in his choice of the person to handle what is probably the most important issue today, our economic affairs. I was expecting a Ronald Reagan, a Margaret Thatcher, a Deng Xioaping out of him -- what we have got is a man without vision, a man who is content with the illusion of power that he has today. Sridhar Vembu
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