While speaking at a recent event, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, Mohan Bhagwat, was critical of the renewed urgency among some people to revive temple-mosque disputes in a bid to become leaders of Hindus. He urged citizens to refrain from lighting communal fires, stating that ‘Vishwaguru India’ should not forget its true nature — that of being accommodating towards all. Mr Bhagwat’s comment assumes importance in light of right-wing groups approaching courts with petitions to demolish old mosques on the grounds that these shrines had allegedly been built after razing temples. Surprisingly, the flock has not taken kindly to the RSS chief’s advice. The general-secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, a body of seers, has said that matters of religion should be decided not by the RSS but by the dharmacharyas. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has also reacted belligerently, equating the nation’s existence with that of sanatan dharma, which, according to him, is the national religion.

Mr Bhagwat’s narrative and the counternarratives that it has attracted deserve scrutiny. For they lay bare the inner tensions — ambitions — within the saffron family notwithstanding its claim of being a united clan. Moreover, Mr Bhagwat’s endorsement of accommodation would strike the nation as a bit rich: the wheel of sangh parivar, of which the RSS is the central cog, has always turned to the rhythm of Hindutva, a divisive strain that is the very antithesis of a pluralist republic. Could it be that Mr Bhagwat’s emphasis on containing new mandir-masjid controversies is really a ploy to secure the RSS’s legacy of being the original dismantler of a place of worship of the Other? Such speculation is not unwarranted. This is because the pursuit of a communal agenda has always been a strategy to climb the rungs of hierarchy within the sangh parivar and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Narendra Modi reached the top tier with an unabashed divisive rhetoric; Mr Adityanath hopes to succeed him with his own brand of shrill Hindu nationalism. Mr Bhagwat, keenly aware that the RSS has been dwarfed by Mr Modi, may well be trying to discourage others from repeating Mr Modi’s feat: a plea for accommodation, he hopes, is the card that will do the trick.