Ex-RSS ideologue on Gujarat riots

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New Delhi: Veteran RSS ideologue and now a social worker, Nanaji
Deshmukh, has accused political, social and religious leaders of failing
in their duty of protecting the lives of the people and allowing the
country to drift towards anarchy and an impending civil strife. Terming
Gujarat violence as "barbaric", Mr Deshmukh said, "We, the people,
have to stop acting at the behest such political, social and religious
leaders who are out to rip apart the unity of the nation and examine for
ourselves why we are allowing them to destroy us". Mr Deshmukh, who
is now keeping himself aloof from the RSS and at present working as a
social worker, minced no words in severely criticising the BJP-led
government in Gujarat and at the Centre for playing with the lives of the
citizens, and precipitating the disintegration of India again on sectarian
lines.
Nanaji Deshmukh, was earlier a member of both the Jan Sangh and the
Janata Party. He has since retired from politics in 1978, and is at
present working as a social worker. Several of the top functionaries
both in the RSS and BJP were once his colleagues.

RSS man? Difficult to typecast Nanaji

Sudheendra Kulkarni, Mar 1, 2010, 04.14am IST
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If white is the colour of renunciation, it suited Nanaji Deshmukh perfectly. It was
the favourite colour of this great modern-day sanyasi who passed away in
Chitrakoot on February 27 at age 94. Clad in spotless white dhoti and kurta, and
sporting a flowing white beard, he looked every bit the yogi he was.

Although the media have described Nanaji as a veteran RSS leader, its really
difficult to typecast a man who carved his own distinctive path of constructive
social activism after 1977. True, he was one of the earliest followers of Dr
Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, and made an immense
contribution to building the organization as a pracharak in north India. But he
made a greater mark as an organizer of the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh under the leadership of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. After Upadhyaya’s
untimely death in early 1968, he assisted Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani in
steering the party through difficult times.

When Jayaprakash Narayan emerged as the leader of the non-Congress

opposition to Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule in the early 1970s, he found in
Nanaji an able lieutenant to carry the message of Sampoorna Kranti (total
revolution). Nanaji brought JP, who was an eminent socialist, closer to the Jana
Sangh, even persuading him to attend, as a special guest, the party’s plenary
session in March 1975. When some people criticized JP for getting too close to a
fascist party, JP famously declared from the Jana Sangh platform itself: "If Jana
Sangh is fascist, then Jayaprakash Narayan is also a fascist." He also presciently
added: "The sun of fascism is rising somewhere else." Within three months came
the Emergency.

Nanaji was one of the heroes of the underground struggle against the
Emergency. However, when the Emergency was lifted in 1977 and the Janata
Party won a landslide victory in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, he declined
Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s offer to join his cabinet. He lamented that power-
oriented politics created divisions in society. He therefore renounced it, went to
Chitrakoot to implement his vision of rural development, and never looked back.
What he achieved there on a micro-scale in two districts, one in UP and the other
in MP, was impressive and earned kudos from everybody who visited Chitrakoot
— from JRD Tata to A P J Abdul Kalam. He established India’s first rural
university. The Krishi Vigyan Kendras that he set up were among the best in the
country.

"Nobody from our village has migrated to cities in the past six years," said a
farmer. That is the best tribute anyone could pay to this remarkable social activist

who was part RSS, part Gandhian and part socialist.

(The writer is a columnist and a former aide to Atal Bihari Vajpayee)