RSS is a misunderstood organisation: CM Devendra Fadnavis

In a free-wheeling interview with editor-in-chief Rohit Gandhi, chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis speaks on a range of issues, from how he is the common man’s representative in the tumultuous world of politics to how he has learnt a lot at the doorstep of the ‘absolutely misunderstood’ Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Edited excerpts:

RG: Thank you for joining us. I want to start by asking you how you got into politics. You became a chief minister at the age of 44, very young for Maharashtra.

CM: Actually, I never thought that I will join politics. I was into student activism and later I started working for Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). I was happy working with it. I always thought that I will dedicate myself to student politics and activism for a few years and then pursue my career in law. I was involved in student elections but never wanted to get involved in politics. One day, a few people who mentored me in RSS told me that they wanted me to work for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). I said I have been working with the ABVP for just two years, I have a lot of assignments in my hand and that for the next five years, I wanted to work fulltime with ABVP. They said I should work with BJP from the next day itself. So, I have grown up with the RSS. Those people used to guide me and I never cross-questioned them. So, I started working for the BJP the very next day. I was told that I should fight the forthcoming municipal elections from a particular ward. But I did not tell them that I was not eligible because I was not 21 yet. I was scared, so I did not say anything. But at the time, the 74th amendment was announced and the elections were postponed by six months. By then, I completed 21 years of age and became eligible. I fought the election and became one of the youngest corporators of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation.

RG: A lot of people would know of your journey. Tell us something that people don’t know, maybe about your childhood. Also, tell us about the value system you inculcated to become what you have become.

CM: I was a very quiet child. If you ask my classmates who studied with me till Class XII, they will tell you that Devendra was a very quiet guy. I was, however, straightforward. I think the values I learned were those given in RSS. Unlike public perception, we never knew the religion of our fellows. We never knew the caste of our friends. We always thought that it was one nation. Nationalism was the feeling. We thought our core values and principles should be to practise whatever was in favour of society and our nation. I think that is why I am here.

RG: A lot of people have been seen lambasting the RSS in some way. Sometimes, even drawing parallels with right wing terrorist organisations. Tell us a bit more about RSS, that which people don’t know.

CM: People do not know anything about the RSS. I think the Sangh philosophy is to have man-to-man contact. So, they never go to the press or on television. They do not condemn anything. They do not give clarifications on anything, which is actually used against them. But the RSS believes that their ideology should be propagated man-to-man and heart-to-heart. I think the RSS is one organisation here that has the ‘nation first’ motto. The Sangh is not just about shakhas. It is more than that. It has more than 1,50,000 seva karyas (help centers), including schools for tribal and scheduled caste children, and hospitals. The RSS does not accept any donation. Only, swayam sevakas voluntarily give whatever they want on the day of guru puja. The RSS is one organisation that actually runs on mutual respect and love. I have been with the RSS for so long. I have heard so many speakers, so many RSS ideologues but not a single hate speech. The RSS teaching is always to bring society together.

RG: Do you think it is a very misunderstood organisation?

CM: Absolutely. It is absolutely misunderstood. One day I went to the sarsanghchalak and told him there were so many misconceptions. Why don’t we launch a campaign, wherein we can tell people about the RSS and let the media know? We should have a number of spokespersons who should actually tell people that no, this is not right. He asked me, why did we start the RSS? It is a factory to make good citizens, and we cannot make good citizens by just speaking or refuting charges. It is only when we go man-to-man and heart-to-heart that people will come closer to us and understand what the Sangh is. In the past, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had visited the RSS camp and was quite impressed to see the casteless society there. Gandhiji visited the RSS camp and was also impressed. The Sangh feels that people must experience their work and then form an opinion about them.

RG: Tell us something about your growing up years.

CM: I lost my father very early. He was also into politics. He was a staunch RSS swayam sevak. He was the deputy mayor of Nagpur and a member of the legislative council. He was a very respected politician. Politicians cutting across party lines used to love him. I have seen him work 24x7 selflessly. That showed me the way to work. Because, I have seen that in his every action. He used to speak about people, never about himself, never about his family. Yes, the family suffered a little bit but we are happy, because whenever people take his name, our heads are up. I think that is one thing that I learned from him and I have practised it. So, my father passed away early and throughout my life, my mother was the guiding force. She stood by me, my family stood by me and after I got married, my wife also understood that I cannot fulfill many of her expectations. There have been times when we could not go out together for years. For the last four-five years, I have been travelling constantly. After becoming the CM, I don’t have much time to give to my family. I have a young daughter of seven years of age. She also sometimes feels that her father does not give her time, but you have to live with it. My wife takes care of our daughter.

RG: As a banker, your wife is a working mother. How has she been managing the different aspects of life?

CM: Yes, it is a tough job — working and looking after the family. Of late, there have been many social engagements as well. People expect her to come and I also encourage her, because once you are recognised in society, you should use your image for a cause. Right now, she is balancing all three – being a mother, going to social events and being a banker, the work she is interested in.

RG: One of India’s biggest challenges is corruption. How do you deal with it?

CM: Yes, it is a big challenge and we have to fight it at two levels. At one level, we need tough legislations and systems, which I think prime minister Narendra Modi is doing very well. With the type of legislations he is bringing in and the type of systems he is building upon, I don’t think black economy will survive for long. But it is also something that needs to be inculcated in people. People here have a chalta hai attitude. Many even say, ‘No, no. He is every imandar (honest) because he took money from me and returned the same after failing to get my work done.’ We need to change this attitude. Corruption is an evil and we must understand... we must teach our children. If a father or a mother is corrupt, how are they going to teach their children that they should not be corrupt. So, it is an evil that we need to fight with good laws and information technology, which has the power to eliminate corruption to a large extent by eliminating human intervention.

RG: You are talking about information technology. One of your promises was that you will provide hotspots around the city and probably the state in the long run.

CM: After I took over, we started the project of CCTVs in Mumbai. It was pursued in 2008 but nothing much happened. Mumbai is such a vulnerable place, so we always thought it should be under surveillance. We immediately called for bids and allotted the project to L&T. They started putting up CCTVs. So, one fine morning, while installing these CCTVs on some poles, we realised we have already laid fibres on them. So, I thought why can’t we use those fibres to create hotspots? I called up people from my team and said let’s try. The CCTVs are installed in all parts of Mumbai. So, if we convert them into hotspots, I think we can cover the entire city with a little technology. Once it becomes a WiFi city, we can have smart transport, smart parking, all sorts of smart initiatives. So, the team said they would get back. After two days, my OSD and our ID secretary said it was feasible.
That we could buy a little more bandwidth and create good hotspots. We called all the service providers who were into hardware and already had a fibre network. We said we could put routers on these poles and leverage whatever we have already laid down. Everybody was excited. Then we decided to separate it into two phases. By November, we will be ready with 500 hotspots in Mumbai. And let’s say by May next year, entire Mumbai will have 1,200 hotspots. I told them creating a hotspot was not difficult. But if there is a hotspot and I am not able to connect to it, or if I am able to connect to it but not able to download things, then people won’t like it. They will feel that it was better if the hotspot was not there. So, I said give good speed. Therefore, we are trying to give very good speed so that several applications would be available through the hotspots. I think that would enhance the quality of city life.

RG: One of the biggest challenges for Mumbai is that it has one of the largest slums of the world. Poverty is a huge issue for a country like India. How does one go past poverty?

CM: See, when we look at Mumbai, yes poverty is there but not everyone who lives in a slum is poor. There are people who live in a slum and are of lower middle class or middle class level. The problem is housing. A person comes to Mumbai as it’s a land of opportunities. He gets some job or the other. So, it’s not a problem of bread and butter. But where does he live? He goes to a slum. It is such a horrible scene at times that a person going from outside just cannot imagine how people live there. So, the basic transformation that we need in Mumbai is in the housing sector. We need to transform slums because you know people will get jobs and slowly upgrade themselves. But if you don’t have a decent place to offer them, ultimately they will have to live in slums. So, this transformation is very important. And we have started doing that. There have been some interventions in the past as well. But what I feel is that on the one hand, we need to transform these slums, and on the other hand, we also must provide affordable housing. And look at Mumbai — 63% of the island city, the suburban Mumbai and the entire MCGM area is non-buildable. You have to accommodate all the population on 27% of the land. So we have to use the land properly. Now, why is Mumbai unaffordable? It is not the cost of construction, which is Rs1,500-2,000-2,500 per sqm. So Mumbai is unaffordable not because of the cost of construction but because the cost of land is very high and only 27% of the land is available for housing. So unless we unlock the land resources available with the government or municipal corporation, we will not be able to provide affordable housing. We need to cut down the prices of land. It is the only thing that is in our hand — to bring the prices down.
So, I think with the new proposed DP, of around 10,500 hectares of No-Development Zone (NDZ), they have carved out 2,100 hectares to be converted into affordable housing. I think many times there are misconceptions because people feel that NDZ is a green zone. It is a No Development Zone, not a Never Development Zone. A part of NDZ is kept because when we make a development plan, it has not reached that particular area. So I don’t know how am I going to use it 20 years henceforth. So what I do is I freeze it. That is why there is a provision of keeping some land as NDZ.
So if this land is brought into affordable housing and not premium housing, we can create not just green spaces but also houses, let’s say of 300-600 sqfeet at a construction cost of Rs1,500-2,000 per sqfeet. You can provide a house in Mumbai at the rate of Rs15-25 lakh and can actually construct 1 billion houses.

RG: Let’s talk about the rest of the state. How does one make sure that more people don’t leave rural areas and come to these big cities? Urban centres are becoming epicentres of population.

CM: You know what I really think is that urbanisation is inevitable world over. The world has urbanised and what you can do is manage this urbanisation. For 20 years, we felt that India lives in villages and people coming from villages to cities is a curse. We never tried to manage it. Now we must understand that it is inevitable. So the farming or the farm sector needs to be made sustainable so that at least those who are engaged in farming remain there. But not all can remain there because if we look at our gross domestic product (GDP), 11% of it comes from agriculture. And the number of people are dependent on the agriculture sector is 45-50%. So 45-50% produce goods and services worth 11% of the GDP. They will always remain poor and agriculture will never be sustainable. So we need to shift the pressure of creating jobs from agricultural sector to the agriculture-allied activities and secondary and tertiary sectors. If we are able to do that, I think we can create small urban centres. People need not come to cities because if people get opportunities at small urban centres and talukas, they will never come to the big cities. I think our planning process is like that only.

RG: You talk much about smaller states, in line with the BJP policies. Tell us a bit about Vidarbha.

CM: See, BJP as an ideology has accepted that we should have smaller states. That doesn’t mean that every state should be divided. But we feel that a state is a proper unit to administer. It should be as big as to be self sustainable and as small as to be manageable from one capital. So now if you look at Uttar Pradesh, it has 74 districts. How will a chief minister manage 74 districts? So, I mean ideologically, BJP has always supported the creation of small states. We created Jharkhand, we created Uttarakhand, we created Chattisgarh. After creation of these three states, the principal state from which they were carved out have progressed, and these smaller states have also progressed. So I think ideologically we have supported Telangana and we have supported Vidarbha. So, I think it is more of an ideology and it is more of social economy thinking. It is not about dividing people but about socio-economic welfare of the people.

RG: Let’s get back to corruption. The grease story came out recently. How does one deal with this? How do you get tough on it? In the grease issue, the number was not big but still it is something that has dogged the society.

CM: I totally agree, it’s horrible. I mean how can you defraud your own institution like this? Grease is Rs 25 per kg. One day you just change the specifications and buy it for Rs2,000. I think it is horrible. So the basic problem is that people feel they can get away with it. And you know the worst part of our system is that you talk of corruption and of punishing corrupt people, but no way is the public money that has gone from the exchequer is coming back. In 99.99% of the cases, the money gone is gone, drained out. And I think we need to check that. Unless the people who are corrupt and have defrauded the exchequer also lose their fortunes, they are not punished. Unless every single penny that has gone from the exchequer comes back, we will not be able to stop this corruption.

RG: What’s the future ahead for you as you look towards three more years of being in Maharashtra. What is your forecast?

CM: I think in the next three years; I will change Maharashtra. I have a definite direction and am working on it. My schemes include Jalyukta Shivar, agri markets, climate resilient agriculture, using technology, creating fibre nets and bringing all villages on a smart digital platform. Many of these initiatives that I have taken are going ahead very fast and will change the entire landscape of Maharashtra. I think, by 2019, Maharashtra will be much, much ahead.

RG: We are launching this new global English news network - WION. What do you think about South Asia having a global English network of its own?

CM: I am happy that WION will be India’s own global network that would actually cater to the entire South Asia. I hope to see that at a later stage, not just south Asia but the entire globe is taken over by WION. I feel now, it is important when we are opening up and when the entire world is looking at India as a destination, a country with demography, democracy and demand. A market that everybody wants to enter, a destination that everybody wants to invest in should have its own system of passing correct information to the entire world. So, I am happy.

RG: I have one last question about your journey from being a student to becoming a political figure. How does one make that journey?

CM: I think I will inspire hope in a common man that even a common man can become a chief minister with no background, with no support of caste, with no other types of support. It’s just me, my party, my leaders and our work, our dedication. For the last 15 years in the assembly, I have been advocating that the common man can take up my issue. I think if we work with dedication, this is the right time in politics for a common man to enter.