By Arun Srivastava
The election for Jharkhand state assembly scheduled to be held in December this year is going to big challenge for the RSS, especially its chief Mohan Bhagwat. A win for BJP would help refurbish the image of Narendra Modi and boost his bargaining power, which he desperately needs to raise his declining status. And a loss for BJP would simply further erode the support of the RSS. Prominent tribal faces associated with RSS for decades have already started shifting away and rallying behind either Congress or JMM leader Hemant Soren. The RSS leadership is now determined to prevent the erosion of support base amongst the tribals.
BJP win will send a message down to the RSS Swayamsevaks and BJP cadres that the real boss of the saffron ecosystem is Modi. The BJP leaders will further start distancing themselves from the RSS Swayamsevaks and Pracharaks. The RSS leaders while participating at the July 12 meeting of senior RSS leaders and state campaigners held in Jharkhand, had complained to their top leader that the BJP leaders were more interested in catering to the needs of corporate houses at the cost of the basic benefit to the poor adivasis.
They point out that the Raghubar Das-led BJP government had tried to abolish the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act 1908 (CNT) and Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act 1876 (SPT), that guaranteed for the Adivasis rights to their land and forests. The move has to be curtailed in the face of massive protests from the tribals. BJP even tried to create a Land-Bank only for serving the vested interest of the big business and corporate houses. For an Adivasi, land is his mother and the BJP had planned to take this land which they use for cattle herding, worship, village fairs and festivals.
Special importance which this election has attained for Modi could be understood from the simple fact that Modi-Shah duo had appointed Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who in recent times, with his vitriolic abuses against Muslims, has emerged as the most aggressive Hindutva face, as the in charge of electioneering process, from selecting the candidates to finalising the strategy of campaigning. A turncoat, who barely three years back was a Congress leader, has projected himself as the ultra-nationalist and ultra-Hindu face in BJP. Though he owes his personal loyalty to Shah, the RSS is also not against him as his communal provocative rhetorics are simply furthering its cause.
At the Ranchi meet and also at Kerala conclave, though the RSS leadership had conveyed its stand in clear words to Modi and Shah that candidates for the four state elections would be chosen in consultation with the Sangh, Shah is going ahead. With his own plans through Himanta. While BJP has already planned to hold a massive exercise to seek opinions from its panchayat-level workers about possible candidates in each of the 81 assembly segments, Shah along with newly inducted, former CM, Champai Soren, would formally launch the election campaign on September 10.His campaign areas include East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, and Saraikela-Kharsawan covering 14 Assembly seats. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the JMM won 11 seats. Instead of relying on the RSS network in the state, Modi-Shah combine had also decided to hire an independent agency to seek opinion from the people.
For avoiding any kind of direct conflict with the RSS leadership, Modi and Shah are giving credence and space to the block level RSS cadres, but their role is yet to be defined. Meanwhile realising the importance of this election, the RSS is also busy reaching out to the lower level cadres. The RSS sources nevertheless confide that the RSS leaders may not fully agree to the BJP list. Since large sections of the RSS cadres had stayed away from election work during the recent Lok Sabha election, the BJP wants to cultivate the RSS leadership, but it would pressure its stand to have its list approved by the RSS.
Already having lost its ground in Jharkhand, the RSS is no more willing to face further thrashing. Though during last two years, Sangh has lost ground with emergence of Hemant Soren as the militant face of the Adivasi identity, in order to allay any such impression at the ground level amongst its rank and file, the leadership claims that number of its cadres have doubled during last five years. In 2023 nearly 838 branches were established in 540 places in tribal dominated Jharkhand. Sangh workers organized 523 weekly meetings in Jharkhand. This is almost one and a half times more than the figures of 2018 when 676 branches of the Sangh were established in 415 locations, while only 234 weekly meeting programs were being organized at that time. The Sangh is planning to set branches in every colony and ward of Jharkhand during 2025, the centenary year of the organisation.
But the issues of dignity and rights on which Hemant has been consistently harping have made their impact on the minds of Adivasis. They nurse the view that Hemant has been crusader of their rights and preserving their identity. Hemant’s move to have the ‘Jharkhand definition of local persons and for extending the consequential, social, cultural, and other benefits to such local persons Bill, 2022’, also known as the 1932 Khatiyan Bill passed by the state assembly went a long way in identifying him as the protector of Adivasi interest and aspiration. Many Adivasis who had gone over to the BJP, returned. Hemant moving the bill even while Enforcement Directorate has been conspiring to implicate him in the mining case, simply boosted his image amongst the Adivasis.
RSS is finding it tough to erase the impression from the minds of Adivasis that Soren was being harassed and even arrested “only because he is an Adivasi”. Modi’s protégé Raghubar Das, as the chief minister, had made the assembly to pass the anti-conversion bill which divided the Adivasi community.
Nevertheless RSS has started preparing for the electoral battle. But the state level swayamsevaks and pracharaks are not sure of a success. They strongly hold that Modi-Shah duo must change their approach and tactics. The current war of supremacy between RSS and BJP has simply added to the woes of Sangh as well as to BJP. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has faced a crushing defeat in the tribal areas of Jharkhand. BJP has lost all the 5 seats reserved for tribals. Even Union Minister Arjun Munda could not save his seat”. The mood of the tribals still continues to be hostile towards Saffron brigade. They also nurse that intensification of communal and divisive politics by bringing in Sarma from Assam will only damage saffron interest.
Some sources in Jharkhand RSS believe that Modi-Shah combo pursuing this nature of politics would inflict more damage to electoral prospect of saffrons. Instead they must adopt a docile approach and leave the electioneering to the RSS. They point out that the arrest of Hemant has damaged more. In this backdrop even the RSS cadres are sceptical of the gains from the July Namkum meet. A debate is going on in RSS circle whether the strategy adopted at Namkum will help BJP to return to power? Jharkhand is home to about 26 percent of the tribal community. Though Adivasis have turned BJP, the Sangh has a long association with them and it has helping them for a long time. The RSS leaders are saying that given the freedom by the Delhi leaders of BJP, they would succeed in assuaging their feelings of the angry tribals and bring them back to the RSS fold. (IPA Service)
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