RSS loses an enemy

RSS loses an enemy

It is in vain that M. Karunanidhi has sought to refute reports of a shift in his stand on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The DMK president may still officially be opposed to the idea of allowing government servants to join the RSS and participate in its activities. But the tenor of his objection to the idea is not quite the same as it was weeks ago when he voiced disapproval of the Gujarat government's decision to permit the participation of its staff in the Sangh's shakhas. Then he had stressed the principle of keeping government employees away from political outfits, clearly counting the RSS as one. Now he endorses the Prime Minister's stand that this organisation was a cultural and social one. And the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's reaction to the Gujarat decision was, in turn, a far cry from his past pronouncements on the RSS as a fierce ``octopus''.

He remains opposed to the idea only because even a social organisation can ``indulge in political activities''. Nothing shows the shift this`Dravidian' party has registered than Karunanidhi's latest pronouncements. They would have at one time appeared not merely odious but downright blasphemous as well. There can be no serious quarrel with the shift. There is no need for the DMK and its leader to be any more apologetic about it than about their alliance with the BJP. What may call for comment is the accompanying confidence about the DMK's capacity to influence the BJP on this and other issues.

The confidence would seem to stem from two counts. The first consists in the so-perceived compulsions of coalition politics -- the kind that had emboldened Karunanidhi a couple of days before to assert that the BJP-led Centre would stay the secular course so long as the DMK was part of it. The second and far more important aspect is the Vajpayee factor. It is confidence in the Prime Minister that the chief minster is really voicing.

Karunanidhi caps his clarification with the promise to write to Atal Behari Vajpayee, asking him to advise the BJP-ledgovernments of both Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh to shed their "adamancy" on the issue and perceive that the nation "faces many more important issues". Likely to be widely shared is the impression that the argument will appeal to the BJP leader with the most liberal and moderate image. Will the chief ministers of the two states, however, listen to sane counsel of this kind? Did Ram Prakash Gupta's regime listen to the Centre on not muddying Deepa Mehta's Water? Did the Keshubhai Patel government share the Centre's avowed concern on Dangs and the stridency of the Sangh Parivar in Ahmedabad and around?

In vain will the DMK chief be writing to Vajpayee on the subject, if the BJP leadership does not see the folly of the party pursuing a double-faced approach to all such issues. The party and its leaders cannot continue to speak in different and discordant voices on questions ranging from Ayodhya and conversions to those of cultural freedom and still expect a Karunanidhi to be taken seriously about the Centre'scapacity to save the nation from needless and deeply and dangerously divisive controversies. Among these, undoubtedly, is the issue of the RSS and government employees.