Bithoor: Dark clouds are gathering across the muddied Ganga swollen to its majestic span by torrential downpours upstream. A fisherman oars furiously in his attempt to reach the safety of the nearest ghat before it starts to pour. He casts a furtive glance over his shoulder at the menacing horizon and pulls at the scull with a renewed vigour.
About two hundred years ago, the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, also sought refuge on these very banks of Ganga. Banished by the Company Bahadur, he settled down with his kinsmen in Bithoor- twenty kilometers north of Kanpur- to a pension of 6 lakh rupees per annum. Much later, somewhere amongst these scattered ruins, Baji Rao's adopted son Nana Sahib and his valiant general Tantiya Tope must have planned their offensive on the Company Cantonment during the 1857 rebellion. Maybe Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi also visited Bithoor at some point in time during the mutiny to coordinate her combat moves.
The choice of this venue by the RSS to hold the annual meeting of its prant-pracharaks may be a bit of a coincidence, but it certainly has the overtones of an impending political battle due next year - the Uttar Pradesh elections. The entire top brass of the Sangh including its chief Mohan Bhagwat has been closeted in a sprawling campus of a private college for the last five days. The RSS media incharge Dr Manmohan Vaidya however insists this meeting has got nothing to do with politics.
Of course, it is BJP and not the RSS which will don the battle gear in UP. (It is needless to reiterate here that the RSS does not dabble in politics). It is another matter that the new state BJP president Keshav Maurya is from the VHP stock. And it could also be that two senior RSS pracharaks, currently on deputation to the BJP, are attending the meeting by some sheer quirk of fate.
All this notwithstanding, UP elections of 2017 pose a stiff challenge to the BJP as it attempts to return to power in the state after 15 years. As for the RSS, UP could be the first test of its aggressive Dalit outreach in recent months.
Post Bihar elections and post Rohith Vemula, the Sangh in tandem with the BJP has worked on a well laid out strategy on this front. The reason and logic behind these moves is - outside UP and Bihar, a section of the Dalit votes may be adrift with the depleting political capital of the Congress' party. So attempt is to mop up everything up for grabs in this state of flux.
In UP however, Dalit politics remains firmly anchored to Mayawati which remains a strong impediment to any attempts at forging a larger social coalition- both social and political. Triumph in UP has the potential completely to alter the dynamics in the caste matrix in the state and outside.
Secondly, as BJP throws a challenge at the Samajwadi Party to make the best of the anti-incumbency against the state government, there is also a realisation that the party in the days ahead will have to tactfully sidestep any queries on its own performance at the Centre. The scale of the 2014 victory which propelled BJP to absolute majority at the Centre may have its side effects in the coming days. Performance of the party MPs ( and there are 71 of them in UP) could also come under scrutiny if it is not a wave-election.
When in power, the complex overlap of authority and accountability between the BJP and RSS to shield the latter from the omissions and commissions of the former gets strained.
This loose coupling was put to test right at the venue of the Sangh conclave when a motley group gathered seeking audience with the RSS chief. They wanted to know from the RSS about the progress made in cleaning up the Ganga promised during NDA regime. It may be that some local politics was also at play, but when RSS seems to wield enormous clout over the ruling dispensation, questions will be asked-especially on issues which are seen to be part of Sangh's core agenda.
To discuss this and a lot more, two months from now the RSS and BJP ministers will hold their annual coordination committee meeting. The last one in Delhi was attended by the Prime Minister himself. And if everything goes according to the plan, it will be held in UP. On the banks of another Ganga- Ram Ganga which flows by the brass city of Moradabad.
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