BJP bid to legitimise RSS hit as Karunanidhi backtracks

BJP bid to legitimise RSS hit as Karunanidhi backtracks
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 9: The BJP's efforts to legitimise the RSS by revoking the 34-year-old order prohibiting government employees from participating in its activities ran into trouble today with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi retracting his supportive remarks of yesterday.

Maintaining that he was misquoted on the issue, Karunanidhi asserted today that he was opposed to the removal of the ban as the RSS has been indulging in politics although it is described as a social organisation. He said one should realise the repercussions if police and army personnel were allowed to join different movements. It would turn government offices into debating halls and bring work to a standstill, he warned.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister said he would write to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee urging him not to blow the RSS issue out of proportion at a time when the country faced more pressing problems.

Karunanidhi's volte face comes on the heels of stringent criticism by Tamil Maanila Congress leader G KMoopanar who mocked the Chief Minister for his remarks of yesterday comparing the Dravidar Kazhagam movement to the Sangh.So far, the other allies of the BJP are silent on the issue. The more vocal critics of the RSS like the Samata Party and the Janata Dal (United) are busy with assembly elections but after Karunanidhi's strong stand today, they can be expected to join the chorus of protest if the Centre pushes ahead with the review announced by Advani yesterday.

Interestingly, the pressure from the RSS to revoke the ban is believed to have started as soon the Vajpayee Government assumed office in March 1998. At that point, the shaky coalition government sidetracked the issue by referring the matter for comments from the Intelligence Bureau. The IB, through the Home Ministry, was asked to look at the 1966 order dubbing the RSS and the Jamaat-e-Islami political in nature.

Political circles feel that the revival of this demand now is a signal that the RSS is reasserting itself with the BJP possibly as aquid pro quo for agreeing to shelve its contentious core issues like the construction of a Ram mandir in Ayodhya and the revocation of Article 370.

The irony of the ban order is that the RSS does not have formal membership, making it impossible for the Government prove a case against any employee. The editor of the RSS mouthpiece, Seshadri Chari, said that all those who attend Sangh shakhas - there are roughly 40,000 spread through the country - are merely deemed to be members. He claimed the RSS was not aware of any ban on government employees, adding that if there was such an order, it should have been communciated to the Sangh leadership which would have immediately challenged it in court. He said the onus was on the Government to prove that the Sangh is a political organisation.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, of course, took strong exception to Advani's suggestion. The Congress threatened to launch a nationwide agitation if the Centre went ahead with its plans while the NCP termedthe decision to review the ban ``unconstitutional and fraught with grave consequences''. ``It is now clear that these dangerous trends toward bigoted and narrow-minded thinking are being encouraged by the BJP central leadership...they have now become emboldened enough to openly implement their hidden agenda,'' Scindia told The Indian Express today.

The deputy leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha said that the image of neutrality which the bureaucracy had always maintained would be shattered if government servants were allowed to participate in RSS activities.