Instead, the tussles involve people at the top, which means that their resolution will entail seminal changes in the organizations with the possibility that the losers will have to leave the battlefield with heavily bruised egos.

Hindsight suggests that the clashes were inevitable because of the dramatic nature of the some of the recent election results. In the case of the Congress, for instance, the dismal outcomes can longer be brushed aside, as some of the party’s spokespersons have been doing, as a part of the normal ups and downs of politics. Instead, the steep decline in the party’s fortunes palpably calls for a serious scrutiny of the results.

Unfortunately, the panels which were set up by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, to undertake such an exercise ostensibly failed to do the job either because they were wary of speaking the unpleasant truth or because they lacked the intellectual wherewithal to clinically analyze the electoral verdicts.

The worst offender in this regard was the A.K. Antony committee which evidently played safe by giving a clean chit to the Congress’s top leadership, viz. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, presumably because the courtiers rarely have the guts to criticize their lords and masters.

Arguably, it is the failure of the family retainers to pinpoint the causes of the electoral reverses which has persuaded the heir apparent himself to withdraw from public life and mull over the setbacks.

However, behind Rahul’s retreat into the wilderness is not only a desire to ascertain the causes of the drubbing, but also a desire to mould the party according to his own wishes.

It is apparently his belief that the 130-year-old organization has become too fossilized to appeal to the younger generation. Moreover, the reason for its creakiness is the presence of the so-called old guard or “power brokers”, as Rajiv Gandhi called them on the occasion of the Congress centenary celebrations in 1985.

Rahul is seemingly convinced that it is the old guard with their self-serving networks of relatives and hangers-on which has come in the way of infusing new blood into the party. If Rahul replaces his mother as the president, he will be expected to opt for a drastic overhaul of the organization in a way which “you cannot imagine”, as he once said.

There is little doubt, however, that Sonia Gandhi is against such a vigorous shaking up of the party structure. It cannot be said, therefore, how the mother and son will resolve their difference, but it is clear that both cannot win. One of them will have to back down. But, whoever does so, the Congress cannot be the same afterwards.

The scene is not dissimilar to what is happening in the saffron brotherhood. As Narendra Modi’s recent speech in parliament showed, he is becoming somewhat impatient with the antics of the Hindutva Gestapo. Earlier, too, his impatience was evident when he summoned the Delhi police commissioner to his office to tell him to take stern action against those attacking churches and Christian schools.

Till the ticking off, the commissioner was in the habit of dismissing the attacks as the handiwork of thieves. But, to all others, it had been obvious that the saffron vandals were responsible.

It is possible that when Modi called for a moratorium on sectarian animosity in his Independence Day speech, he had hoped that the RSS, the VHP and other fundamentalist outfits would pipe down. By allowing the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, to deliver his customary Vijaya Dashami speech live on Doordarshan, Modi may have also wanted to keep him in a happy frame of mind and be less provocative in his speeches.

But, it was too much to expect Bhagwat and his cohorts like Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and others to observe restraint. Hence, Bhagwat’s strident declarations about all Indians being Hindus and Adityanath’s energetic pursuit of ghar wapsi and love jehad programmes to sow the seeds of discord between Hindus and Muslims.

Now, however, when Modi has reiterated that he will not allow discriminations on the grounds of religion and that the Constitution is the only holy book in his eyes, the Hindutva hawks cannot be too pleased. After the BJP’s victory last year, in which the RSS cadres played a considerable part as campaigners, the hardliners had hoped that the time had come for them to implement their agenda of ushering in a Hindu rashtra.

The humiliation of the minorities is a part of this project in order to remind them of their second class citizens in a Hindu “state”, as M.S. Golwalkar ordained.

But, to the RSS and others, it is now obvious that Modi is no different from Atal Behari Vajpayee in his moderation and adherence to the constitution. This is their second disappointment since the days of the BJP’s first prime minister. What is more, the RSS is aware that the second prime minister is even more stern in his outlook than Vajpayee. (IPA Service)