Vermillion for Votes

In Telangana's Karimnagar, RSS volunteers went door-to-door with vermillion and saffron threads to assure women they are with them. It seems to have worked

- Anisha Reddy

LAKSHMI (name changed), 54, a mother of two and a wife to an ailing husband, lives in a compact one-bedroom house in Karimnagar in Telangana. Until a few years ago, the couple worked at a construction site, but after her husband took ill, she now works as a domestic help. She takes care of the household, her husband and her two children—one is five, the other a toddler—with the little income she gets. The lanes and by-lanes surrounding her house are inhabited by families that work very hard to arrange two square meals a day.

Over the past few years, these families have been getting visitors—guests who are uninvited but not unwelcome. These are Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers, men and sometimes women, who have been visiting these families from time to time to inquire about their health and well-being. They carry with them plates containing vermillion, a blouse piece and some saffron threads—all neatly arranged.

“They touch our feet as a mark of respect. They assure us that we will be okay. They are strangers when they enter our house, but by the time they leave, they become a part of our family,” says Lakshmi. “If we are lucky, we also get silver,” she says. “Is it wrong?” she asks, perplexed.

The RSS volunteers seem to quietly go across the town, into the deserted lanes jam-packed with houses, inside people’s homes, as if they knew them all along. Touching women’s feet almost becomes a show of ‘total loyalty’—a pledge of undying, unquestioning servility, flattery and sycophancy. “We feel obligated to vote for them because they made the effort to come to our house, bow down and touch our feet. We only do that with our elders, my husband and God around here,” says Lakshmi.