As sordid and dirty saga of communalising the issue of education by the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) continues, and we shall prove exactly why, there is a very interesting and significant political fallout within the saffron parivar over the BJP government’s handling of the issue.
The press conference organised by the BBSM to polarise the issue along communal lines, had a very key member addressing it – Subhash Velingkar. Notwithstanding his standing and position within the state BJP, Velingkar is the main artery which connects the RSS in Goa straight to its heart, it’s headquarters in Nagpur. Velingkar’s remarks at the press conference on Tuesday, are crucial. This is the first time that any member of the RSS has taken a hard line against the BJP government and used the BBSM platform to get others on stage to warn the government that they would lose political support and lose power, if grants to English schools were continued.
According to information gleaned from within the parivar, the RSS has realised that on this issue, the middle path will be disastrous. It needs to oppose the grants and give the decision of the government to continue to give grants to English schools a religious spin. That was obvious from the remarks of elements like Arvind Bhatikar, which are seriously provocative and outrightly communal. Bhatikar said “BBSM is no longer an education related protest but has gathered the form of a political and further, religious agitation. A section of people are bent upon dividing the state through de-alienation of the students from local culture and languages and the time has come to do a rethinking on the statement of T B Cunha as regards denationalisation of Catholics.”
These statements are absolutely alarming. But it is clear evidence that while the FORCE which has an overwhelming support of hindu parents has kept this agitation only for education and the future of their children, the BBSM and the RSS have shown their true colours by making this religious. But the biggest twist in the tale is that the target is as much the ruling BJP government as FORCE is.
The BJP is clearly in a no-win situation, The FORCE accuses it of playing with the future of students by not making the cabinet decision to give grants into an Act so that these can never be withdrawn. However the BBSM, which is clearly now an acolyte of the RSS, has sent a clear warning that if the BJP cannot bite the bullet and discontinue the grants, someone else will. And that “someone” is a man sitting in Ponda taluka, in the Mahalaskhmi temple called Sudin Dhavlikar. Dhavlikar, the MGP supremo, was the first off the block when he said that grants for English medium schools, which the cabinet he is a member of passed, should be withdrawn. The MGP is clearly positioning itself as the alternate face which represents the original hardline BJP, fuelled with RSS values. It feels that across Ponda, parts of Sattari and perhaps Sanguem, the BBSM and the RSS hardline stand will resonate. The MGP hopes to cash in the alienation of the minorities from the BJP along with the alienation of some Hindu hardliners who feel that the BJP has bent over backwards to keep the minorities with them.
Therefore the MoI issue could well turn out to be the last straw which may break the back of the BJP-MGP alliance in the next elections. It’s early days yet, but there is always someone who enjoys the spoils of war, and the Dhavlikar brothers are the ones smacking their lips at the political feast on offer for them.
