INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a worried man these days — and angry too. He is worried because his own party colleagues — ministers, governors and parliamentarians — have needlessly upped their ante by words and deeds in past few days, which tend to push the Hindutva agenda of his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideologue, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

He is angry because his colleagues’ utterances and words have deflected his focus from development. Modi stormed to power in May on the plank of development, not Hindutva; and he is acutely conscious of this fact. His erstwhile benefactor L.K. Advani had raised the Hindutva pitch to the hilt but even Advani could never get more than 183 seats in the Lok Sabha while riding on the Hindutva bandwagon. In contrast, Modi single-handedly got 282 seats for the BJP in the Lok Sabha.

Now sample some of the deeds of his own ministers and newly-launched provocative programs by the RSS, which have caused acute embarrassment for Modi as well as the BJP.

Modi’s favorite minister Smriti Irani, the actor-turned-politician who is the Cabinet minister of a key and gigantic ministry like Human Resource Development, issued orders on Dec. 9 to government schools, central universities and other educational institutions to celebrate top BJP leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday on Dec. 25 as Good Governance Day and hold essay competitions on that day.

Not just that Irani ordered all educational institutions to remain open on Dec. 25, the Christmas day, which has been a national holiday for decades and asked the institutions to send compliance reports. When the opposition parties made a hue and cry, she backtracked and said that no such orders were issued, that the essay competitions were online and optional.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) demanded that the PM should tell the nation what action he intends to take against the erring minister.

A few days earlier, Irani had made ham-handed attempts to introduce Sanskrit as a third language in school syllabus.

Earlier this month, the RSS and its allied saffron units like Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad launched “Ghar Vapasi” (Homecoming) programs by “re-converting” Muslims and Christians to Hinduism. They openly promised Rs500,000 and Rs300,000 to each Muslim and Christian family respectively for these “re-conversions” saying it was nothing but homecoming for these Muslims and Christians as they were Hindus before they were converted.

Now consider some controversial remarks made in the past few days by BJP leaders who are now holding public offices. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj pitched for making Bhagwad Gita as the national holy book. She went on record as saying thus: “Bhagwad Gita has answers to everybody’s problems and that’s why I said it while standing in the Parliament that, ‘Shrimad Bhagwad Gita’ should be declared as the national holy book… Everyone should read two shlokas of Gita everyday...it is a scripture of 700 shlokas and it can be finished in a year. Read it again and continue this till the end. After reading it three to four times, you will discover a path to lead a life, the way I discovered.”

Ram Naik, the 80-year-old whimsical BJP leader who was rewarded by Modi and made governor of Uttar Pradesh made a completely unnecessary remark he could have done without. He batted for a Ram temple in Ayodhya thus: “Ram Mandir (temple) should be built as soon as possible. That is the wish of the Indian citizens and the wish should be fulfilled.”

BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj stoked another controversy by praising Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the nation. This is what he said: “I believe Nathuram Godse was also a nationalist and Mahatma Gandhiji also did a lot for the nation. Godse was an aggrieved person. He may have done something by mistake but was not an anti-national. He was a patriot.”

Modi has taken these actions and utterances very seriously and has asked his party chief Amit Shah to crack the whip on those who put the party in poor light and deflect the government’s development agenda. The RSS has been to the BJP what 10, Janpath (residence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi) has been to the past three Congress governments led by P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. But Modi is a strong man. The RSS cannot remote-control him. The question is whether the RSS is covertly rocking PM Modi’s boat to put him in his place?