RSS threatens to start shakhas in homes if Kerala evicts it from temple premises

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh may soon be forced to either abandon or relocate around 500 of its shakhas (branches) in Kerala if the state’s Left Democratic Front government goes ahead with its threat to drive the outfit out of temple premises. However, the Sangh Parivar has indicated that it is unlikely to go without a fight.

On Monday, Temple Affairs Minister Kadakampally Surendran came down heavily on the right-wing outfit for using places of worship to store arms, and for weapons training. Surendran wrote on his Facebook page: “I have received plenty of complaints about its unauthorised activities in temples managed by the Devaswom Boards. The government will take stern action."

He added: “We cannot allow places of worship to become centres of anti-social activities that will destroy the secular characteristics of the society and peaceful co-existence of the people.”

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh operates 5,600 shakhas in Kerala, the highest number in India. Of these, at least 500 are run from temple premises. Thus, any government drive to evict the outfit from temples will cause the RSS leadership in the state a major headache.

The saffron outfit is unlikely to get a legal reprieve if it takes the issue to court.

Last year, the Travancore Devaswom Board, one of the four autonomous bodies that manage more than 3,000 temples in the state, had denounced the RSS while responding to a complaint that the saffron outfit was conducting weapons training at the premises of a temple the board controlled. The board’s ombudsman informed the Kerala High Court that the board had not given the saffron outfit permission to conduct a shakha at Thrikkadavoor Mahadeva Temple in Kollam district.

Ongoing fight

Surendran’s statement has added a new dimension to the continuing fight between the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which heads the Left Democratic Front government, and the Sangh Parivar, which aims to widen its Hindu vote base in the state.

By terming shakhas as places of anti-social activities, the state government perhaps hopes to stop people from joining the RSS, which is slowly making inroads in the coastal state. In the state elections held earlier this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party won its first seat ever.

Historian KN Panicker provided a reason for the state’s growing affinity for the Sangh in an article in The Hindu. He wrote: “Kerala has witnessed a sudden burgeoning of the lower middle class during the last two decades, whose craving for modernity has created a cultural crisis, a solution for which they sought in superstitious practices and irrational rituals. Their logical destination is the BJP.”

P Gopalan Kutty Master, the state chief (or pranth pracharak) of the RSS, confirmed to Scroll.in that the outfit organised around 500 shakhas inside temples or nearby grounds.

“Most of these temples were in ruins before RSS volunteers renovated it,” he said. “If the minister thinks that the RSS can be destroyed by denying us permission to assemble inside temples, he is living in a fool’s paradise. We can easily find alternative venues. We will start shakhas in front of our houses, or even in our rooms.”

The state chief said that the RSS holds 4,500 daily shakhas and 1,100 weekly or once-in-a-fortnight shakhas. The shakhas cater to four different age categories. “We are giving lessons on nation building,” he said. “No Hindu devotee will complain against us. The current issue is created by CPI(M) with an aim to tarnish the RSS.”

BJP belligerent

The minister’s statement may have irked the Sangh Parivar, but it drew a surprisingly belligerent reaction from leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

BJP state president Kummanam Rajashekharan vowed to continue RSS activities in temples. “We will organise more shakhas in temples,” he told journalists in Kozhikode on Tuesday.

He even said that the minister had no right to interfere in the affairs of temples. “Only Devaswom Boards have the right to interfere,” said Rajashekharan. “I challenge him to name the temples where RSS have stored weapons. Let police raid the shrines.”

The party’s state general secretary, MT Ramesh, called the Pinarayi Vijayan government anti-Hindu. “The chief minister himself is leading the anti-Hindu agenda,” he told a press conference in Kozhikode on Monday.

The responses perhaps hint at the frustration within the Sangh leadership that is finding it difficult to whip up communal sentiments after the Communists were elected to power earlier this year. The Sangh had accused the previous Congress-led United Democratic Front government of minority appeasement as the Indian Union Muslim League and Kerala Congress (M) were its two major alliance partners and held important portfolios like finance, education and industry. With the change of guard in Kerala and with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) assigning key portfolios to its leaders, the Sangh has been deprived of a political weapon.

NM Pearson, a political observer, was of the opinion that the state government was right to want to evict the RSS from temple premises. “It is a step in the right direction to protect places of worship,” he said.

He added that the action against the RSS would make the Communists' party cadre happy. “There is nothing new in the fight between Marxists and Sangh Parivar over shakhas,” said Pearson. “Workers of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the youth wing of the CPI(M), had thwarted RSS attempts to form shakhas in different parts of the state. The current controversy would boost morale of the party cadres.”