The club rules? India’s RSS

0:02The Economist

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Bloor. And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:25As the Gulf tries to diversify away from fossil fuels, it's moving into other areas, including scientific research and innovation. Could this herald a new Islamic golden age of science? And I know you've been waiting by your wireless sets and your podcast apps in anticipation. Great news, the day has come. Our language guru is ready to reveal The Economist's word of the year for 2024.

1:01First up, though.

1:11So a few months ago, I went to Nagpur, which is a small city in India, to join the annual celebrations of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevaksang, the RSS. It's this five million strong all-male Hindu nationalist group. And this is their biggest day in their calendar. This is the day that you go to really see them out in full force. Avantika Chilkoti is The Economist's global business correspondent. And so really early in the morning, I get up. It's kind of a wet day. And I go to basically a sports ground. And it's just full of men. There's actually no other women there that I can see. and there's a huge crowd and at some point marching into the playground thousands of men dressed in khaki trousers white shirts they've got these big black belts and they're carrying wooden sticks that come up pretty much to their ear they march in they do some chanting

2:10there is some sort of exercises with the sticks and then you have a string of rabble-rousing speeches about patriotism, nationalism, about the threats at India's borders. But there wasn't cheering or anything like that. Everyone was just sitting. At the time of a salute or a chant, sometimes everyone would stand up and take part. On one hand, it felt like a military parade and incredibly powerful. On the other hand, it really felt in lots of ways quite underwhelming. There were parts of it where people looked a bit bored. It felt a bit like watching the Boy Scouts. Here are all these men of different ages parading around early morning in a third tier city in India.

2:50It was almost a bit of a comic scene. So why were you there? Why did you want to see this event? So this is an incredibly powerful organization in India. The RSS is the parent organization to the BJP, to the Paritya Janatha Party, which is the ruling party in India. And a lot of incredibly powerful politicians have been through the RSS. especially in this current generation of leaders. In some ways, it's a very public organization. People who are part of the RSS every day meet in the morning in public spaces and have an hour-long meeting. But in other ways, it's very secretive. They don't say much about their finances.

3:29They don't say much about their organization. So being allowed to be at the event, being invited along, it felt like I could finally see the inside of this thing. And so who was there? There was an array of people, right? So the thousands of men who came into the parade, they were just regular blokes. But in the audience, there were the VIPs. And that's when it really struck you how powerful this group is. So you had a billionaire businessman, Sajjan Dindal. He runs one of India's biggest companies. The speaker that day actually was a former head of India's space agency. The captains of the current generation space in India are making every Indian proud.

4:12And so the speech he gave, like much of the rhetoric that morning, was all about patriotism. It's all about India as this great and ancient civilization and sort of an order to the crowd to try to preserve what they call Hindu culture. And you used the phrase Hindu nationalist before, something we've talked about a lot on the show. I mean, what do you make of the assertion that it is pure, simple, neat patriotism and no more? This is a really contentious point. So I spoke to RSS spokespeople. I briefly met the head of the organization. And, you know, the way that they describe it, at least to the Western media, is that we are an organization trying to remake India as a proud Hindu nation.

4:56And we use the word Hindu to mean the culture of Hindustan. Hindustan is the Hindi name for India. It sounds sort of inclusive. So they will say, oh, we have Muslim members and we have Christian members and we take people of all caste and creed. And the truth is, if you zoom out, especially the organizations that are spawned out of the RSS, the more militant groups, they are rabidly anti-Muslim. They are rabidly anti-Christian. Some of their members are known to be violent. And I guess it's sort of what do you believe in terms of that interpretation of Hindu nationalism? But because some of the interpretations, some of the actions here are so unsavory, I mean, how is it that it's not politically toxic for all these important people to be associated with it?

5:44So the most interesting thing I think about the RSS is how this thing was structured. It sort of grew up as a grassroots organization. They do a very simple thing. There's a bunch of men who live in rural India, some of whom live in cities, and they are bored and they don't really have purpose. And so at quite a young age, often because a parent is worried about their son not really having any friends or anything to do, sends them along to an RSS daily meeting. It's called a shaka. These happen first thing in the morning, crack of dawn, or in the evening after work. And you're basically training these young men for one hour to learn nationalistic chants, to play physical games.

6:24And then you're giving them history lessons, which give them a very biased view of Indian history. But if you've done this from a young age as a young boy, no matter how long you stay in the organization, that sort of philosophy seems to stay with you. And when you are 5 million members strong, and you do have all of these people spread around the country who you have some sort of influence on, it makes you a quietly powerful group. And that, I think, is the genius of the RSS. You've used a lot of words just to say indoctrinated from a young age. Yeah, but so for a lot of these guys, they would not see it as indoctrination.

6:59You know, you think this from afar and then you go and visit these shakas, which I did. They might just join for an hour or two because they have no friends. What the RSS has done very interestingly is keep up with the times. So if you are a young engineer who's just moved to Bangalore, which is India's tech capital, you have no friends, you have nothing to do. Someone might invite you to an RSS shaka. and rather than the RSS doing this in Hindi every morning, they'll give you the option of going to a weekly shaka in English, in your polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms. And for a lot of these people, they're not dangerous and they don't see themselves as radical.

7:34And just giving these young men, often older men, something to do and a sense of community, that might be powerful and pernicious a few percentage of the time, but for a lot of people, this is all it is. It's just a social organisation and something to do. So in a lot of ways, you're describing a sort of social construct that is fairly helpful, good in people's lives. I wouldn't characterize the RSS that way. I think for a lot of young men who join it for a short time and don't get caught up in rising up the ranks, that might be true. But at the very top of the organization, these are people with an immense power.

8:09India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the organization when he was about eight years old. He then became a full-time worker. And these full-time workers, they're called pracharaks. They take a vow of celibacy. They give up material things. They basically travel India sharing the RSS view. And with any BJP government, the RSS does influence their policy. So I hosted a multi-part podcast series earlier this year called The Modi Raj. If you haven't downloaded it, please do. And for that, I interviewed one man who is a former foreign and finance minister under previous BJP governments. And he told me that as a BJP cabinet member, he would run his policy decisions past RSS leaders.

8:51If they were going to elect a new cabinet member, for example, then I think the current administration under Narendra Modi is so interesting because Modi in some ways is an RSS man through and through. He joined the organization when he was just eight years old. He actually was a full time worker for the group until his mid 30s. And if you look at the policies he's rolled out in his time in office since 2014, it basically follows the RSS playbook pretty perfectly. So just a couple of examples, but building a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, which is a city in the north of the country, it's sort of the center of Hindu-Muslim conflict.

9:26Building that temple, being there at the inauguration ceremony, that is something the RSS has been pushing for for generations. Similarly, Modi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, which is India's only Muslim-majority state. And that is, again, a top priority of the RSS. So in some ways, you've seen this Modi BJP roll out a lot of RSS policies, but at the same time, there's something about Modi as a leader that is very un-RSS. What do you mean by that? How can the RSS's most influential alumnus be un-RSS? The organisation is all about people putting the organisation above themselves.

10:05They don't like cult leaders. There's a real sense that as Modi got his feet under the table as prime minister, he started not to listen to the RSS. Modi's face is on all the billboards in India when you drive around nowadays. It was on the COVID-19 vaccine certificates. It's on the bags of grain poor people are handed out. And I think there was a real frustration amongst RSS leaders that basically this man thinks he's getting too big for his boots. So it's a really tense relationship at the moment, especially since this year's election when Modi hasn't come back with a massive majority. But you have a sense that this BJP government needs the RSS and the RSS really needs this BJP government.

10:47Avantika, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for having me, Jason.

11:06Science used to be a big thing in the Middle East Bait al-Hikma, or the House of Scientific Wisdom emerged in Baghdad in the 9th century the world's first academy of science Textbooks from that institute were translated and read across Europe But in the 13th century, the Mongols destroyed those works and the research center. The Islamic Golden Age came to an end. Only two Nobel science prizes have ever been awarded to people from the Middle East. Now the Gulf states want to change that. The Gulf's economies are hoping to diversify away from fossil fuels. Anjani Trevedi is our global business correspondent.

11:51They've set up goals for themselves for the end of the decade with their various economic diversification blueprints. So they're now looking for new ways to boost growth and expedite their transition away from fossil fuels. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now looking to scientific research and innovation as a means. So what's the current state of scientific research in the Gulf? Well, so far, the spending has been quite low on research and development as a portion of their GDP. The UAE only spends 1.5 percent. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are lower than that. And that compares to just under 3 percent for most other rich countries in the world.

12:31And why has it been so low and how is that going to now change? The Gulf's economies have for the last couple of decades tried to move to a more knowledge-based economy, which the UN has advised that they should do. and it would lead to more productivity as they move away from fossil fuels as the main source of their wealth. And that's meant that they've tried different strategies in the past. They've tried to import grains effectively and import facilities with equipment and infrastructure. Yet that hasn't resulted in huge breakthroughs or innovation or big science and research enterprises. So they're now taking on a new approach.

13:12and that has really picked up steam in the last year or so. So is that a government-led approach then? It is a government-led approach. However, it is also one that is taking into account the multiple stakeholders, including academia, including the private sector, and including other investors that can come in. And that means that they are trying to effectively address domestic challenges and use more applied research and rely more on international collaboration. So what sorts of areas is the research now going into? Well, if you think about the challenges that they have domestically, one is energy efficiency, the second is food security, and the third is health, primarily because these are relatively small focused populations.

14:03And for example, one of the things that is being researched in the UAE is oyster mushrooms, which are water repellent and they absorb oil. So to create membranes and to help clean up oil spills. The other is the use of graphene, which is a new material to make water desalination more effective. And so they're trying to do more things in areas that directly affect their economies. and a very interesting area of research is a certain form of aggressive breast cancer that is typically rare elsewhere in the world but is actually pretty common in the Gulf and so they are now looking at focused precision medicine and addressing some of these issues.

14:47And you mentioned international collaborations what sort of role are those playing? So that's quite interesting because in the past what has happened is they've looked to international universities and international research organizations to come and set up a branch in the Gulf. At one point, the UAE had the highest concentration of international campuses, but they have realized the benefits of that had not accrued to their economies. A lot of these universities, such as New York University, which is now set up in Abu Dhabi and Carnegie Mellon and Imperial College London that has a big partnership, these are now turning into more collaborations in the sense that there's equal participation.

15:29and that's been a huge benefit for the economies and for what's happening on the ground. The other part of international collaboration is that a lot of their Western partnerships are now affected by geopolitics. The Gulf's rulers find that they are having to choose between the West and China at a time when they need to speed up diversification of their economies at home and find new ways to do that. They're also seeking collaboration with European centers like the CERN. And Anjani, how realistic is any of this? Are we going to see another Islamic golden age of science? There is a chance it'll work.

16:07There is a chance that it will show that there is a way to do R &D in a way that if you can cure a rare form of breast cancer, there are going to be millions of other people in the world that will need it as well. The question is, one, whether they can stay the course, because these are long-term investments and for governments to see returns, they will have to be patient. These are not going to be 15 % private equity investments that you see in the course of five years or less. And they will also have to show that so that international collaborators keep coming in that they are doing it in the right way.

16:44So there is a chance. Anjani, it's always great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rosie.

17:04It's that time again, everyone. Let me just dust off this soundtrack here. It's been a year since we last used this. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the award show that pits word against word. It's the word of the year. The woaties, I guess. Joining me now is the economist's arbiter of prose, our lord of lingo, our grammar guru, Lane Green Lane. Welcome. Thanks very much, Jason. Happy to be here as always. All right, let's start with what qualities elevate a word in your mind to the status of nominee. Well, there are lots of competing things to think about. It could be a new word of the year.

17:42So it was born in 2024. It could be a word that lots of people were looking up on Google or dictionary websites. And of course, this was a big political year. And so the November election that saw Donald Trump return to the White House means that a lot of the words of the year are going to come out of the political space this year. OK, well, let's get into it to the short list. Would you like to reveal our first nominee for WOTE? Yes. Nominee number one is brat. Now, if you don't know brat, it is a bit of youth slang. Charlie XCX, a British pop star, defined it as a little messy and likes to party.

18:20Brat was kind of a summer vibe. It was all over the social networks, often associated with a kind of lime green color in various images. And in an alternative universe, if Kamala Harris had won in November, The Economist would have had a different shortlist for its word of the year in which Brat might have been a very strong nominee for the top. Kamala Harris, her campaign was often described as one of vibes rather than a mainly policy-focused campaign. But in the end, Ms. Harris did not win. And so brat is probably unlikely to go down in linguistic history, except as the answer to a trivia question for political nerds.

18:57Okay, that's nominee number one. Moving swiftly through the list, give us nominee number two. Well, I'd like to give a shout out to a part of a word, which isocracy. Suffix or root is attached to lots of political terms which come from Greek. And English has a lot of these political words from Greek precisely because we got a lot of our political thinking from the ancient Greeks, people like Plato and Aristotle. Theocracy ending comes from a Greek word for rule, kratia. And it features in really common words like democracy, aristocracy, gerontocracy. But my second nominee this year is theatrocracy.

19:38It means rule by theatergoers. Why in the world would that be rise to the level of nominee here? Well, if you've never heard this word before, it sounds like it might refer to dominance by the kind of media elites who see shows on Broadway and write for the culture sections of newspapers. But the word actually goes all the way back to Plato when theatergoers were considered a kind of mob themselves. And theatrocracy was the hypothetical fear of a skilled demagogue fanning the emotions of the crowd at a theater. And someone who was skilled in doing so could turn theatergoers into a powerful political force.

20:21Okay, last nominee to reveal then brings us to number three. Well, sticking with theocracy theme, my third nominee is a word that many of you may have heard, many of you may have not heard, and it is cacastocracy. Cacistocracy. Cacistocracy is the rule, not of the best, but of the worst. The root cacos or cacistos is found in relatively few other words in English. The most common by far is cacophony, which means something that sounds bad. And the case for cacistocracy is that Google Trends data shows that the day after Mr. Trump was reelected, cacistocracy jumped in Google searches. And then it jumped a second time again around November 14th and 15th.

21:04And that was the end of the week in which Donald Trump started to make a lot of his high profile nominations, including naming Matt Gaetz, who was accused of sex and drug crimes and the subject of a congressional ethics investigation to be attorney general, which is the country's highest law enforcement officer, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's got some crackpot ideas and all kinds of things health-related, including vaccines especially, to be America's Secretary of Health and Human Services. And then those searches spiked again a third time on November 21st when Matt Gaetz announced that he would withdraw for consideration for attorney general, suggesting that a lot of people saw his nomination as the very worst of the worst.

21:52Right. Okay. Cheery political fair on the list this year. Let's just skip to the winner then. Tell me, Lane, what is our 2024 word of the year? The word of the year is cacistocracy. Tell me why. How did it win? Well, sometimes the word just seems to sum up the year. The biggest news of the year was clearly Donald Trump's re-election and the return of the MAGA movement to power. And it's not a word that everyone would embrace. After all, a very bare majority of Americans did vote for Donald Trump this year. A very bare minority voted against him. So this is a word at least that sums up the fears and anxieties of at least half of Americans.

22:34And it must be said quite a lot of the rest of the world. Lane, thanks very much for taking us through that. As a parting shot, do you have any advice for possible 2025 candidates for word of the year? Well, be relevant. Enjoy good vibes. Be brat. No, no. Don't be Brad. Till next time, Lane. Thank you very much.

23:09That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

23:19Thank you.