3 min readAug 8, 2026 07:00 AM IST First published on: Aug 8, 2026 at 07:00 AM ISTRSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s response to the students’ protests is timely and welcome — it goes beyond what the BJP itself has so far conceded. The Narendra Modi government was forced to accede to the students’ demand for the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union education minister; after that, PM Modi, too, has done an Instagram outreach. The RSS chief’s framing of the issue sounds more unforced and less patronising. Protest or “aandolan” is part of the consensus-building process in a democracy, said Bhagwat, and Gen Z is not “anti-national” certainly. It takes many opinions, including contrary ones, to reach the whole truth, he said, and the young’s exasperation with the education system is genuine. It matters that the RSS sarsanghchalak should say this. The RSS is the BJP’s ideological mentor and what its chief says can open up, or narrow the spaces in which issues play out nationally. Yet, it remains to be seen how party and government own his message.This is not the first time that Bhagwat has struck a note on a polarising issue that is more conciliatory than the BJP. In June 2022, he said that there is “no need to look for a shiv ling under every mosque”. “Ab hamko koi aandolan nahin karna hai (now we will not be involved in any campaign)”, he said. This was even as the BJP’s top leadership maintained a strategic silence on shrill voices that rose on the Gyanvapi controversy. Those cautionary words, however, have done little to snub attempts by a section of the BJP and the parivar to rake up old disputes like Mathura and Kashi since. There is another reason why Bhagwat’s softer framing of the students’ protests carries political health warnings. When he says that the students have rightly raised the issue of education, when he suggests that the education system calls for sweeping reforms, he leaves much unsaid. RSS control, its interference in the design of curricula and rewriting of textbooks, appointment and removal of teachers and vice-chancellors, green-lighting and cancelling of seminars and speakers, is part of the education crisis.AdvertisementCampuses of universities where the RSS pulls the strings are disfigured by shrinking spaces for free expression and dwindling autonomy. Indeed, since 2014, too much of the Sangh’s political energy, fueled by its serial electoral successes, has been expended on the ideological and cultural project, rather than addressing gaps in education that would have empowered a new generation of citizens. That’s why Bhagwat’s words on students’ protests are welcome but if they are to carry weight, there is work to be done. The party and government, even the RSS itself, will have to heed them, in letter and spirit.