On its official website, liberally done up in its favourite colour, saffron, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) says, ‘Devotion is not business. It is sheer self-surrender.’ There must be some merit in what the RSS propagates in the virtual world—considering that this election season, self-surrender is what the Sangh outfit is practising.

The Sangh has indeed surrendered. And all this, out of devotion to its own pracharak, Narendra Damodardas Modi. For the first time in its 89-year history, the self-declared ‘non-political nationalist organisation’ has given in to aggressively participating in ele­ctoral politics. After all, the 2014 elections is no ordinary affair. For the Sangh, 2014 is the extraordinary battle of an old, ordinary pracharak and swayamsevak, Modi, fighting against all odds to occupy the top post in the country. In that sense, the battle for power is not Modi’s alone. The pracharak’s battle is also the RSS’s battle. The gamble is not just on Modi’s charm but also the Sangh’s own reputation...