Former president Pranab Mukherjee, or Citizen Mukherjee, is all set to address the new Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh recruits at their “graduation” ceremony tomorrow, June 7.

As the chief guest of the “Tritiya Varsh Varg”—the passing out ceremony for third-year camp members studying to qualify as pracharaks or RSS gospel messengers—Mukherjee will touch on the themes closest to his heart: the Constitution, nationalism and tolerance.

Predictably, liberals, secularists and progressives are in a bit of a flap since they see this invitation as a covert RSS move to legitimise its controversial core beliefs. But is the RSS sending a not-so-subtle message to the top Bharatiya Janata Party leadership?

Mukherjee has had the fortune of overseeing two governments in his tenure as president. From July 2012 to May 2014, he was the president of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance II government, of which he was previously finance minister. He then presided over the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government for three volatile years, from May 2014 to July 2017. While his reign as the constitutional head during the UPA years was not out of the ordinary, it was under the Modi government—which is ideologically guided by Hindutva’s pontifical head, the RSS—that Mukherjee has intermittently harped and hawed on the importance and relevance of the Constitution and nationalism.

Mukherjee is expected to give a few sharp and masterful lessons to graduating pracharaks (Modi is also a qualified and accomplished pracharak) on the principles and essence of the Constitution, and the true meaning of nationalism. He hopes to force a rethink.

Former party colleagues and liberal commentators urged him to snub the RSS, pleading that his presence would exalt a bigoted and prejudiced ideology. Mukherjee’s sympathisers have said it is in keeping with his core Congress beliefs of openness, liberalism and progressive thought that he accepted the invitation. Engagement is not endorsement, they said.

However, Mukherjee and Mohan Bhagwat, the all-powerful sarsanghchalak or chief of the RSS, have built a warm and amicable relationship during the last four years during his presidency, and after. They have met four times, twice during his presidency and then twice after.

Sources close to Mukherjee say this isn’t the first time Bhagwat has extended an invitation to him. In April 2017, Mukherjee was invited by Bhagwat to be the chief guest at the same annual ceremony but he demurred, saying as President, he could not grace a politically-affiliated organisation like the RSS. In June 2017, a month before Mukherjee demitted office, Bhagwat had lunch with Mukherjee, in a blaze of publicity. But it was in April this year that Bhagwat met Mukherjee to extend his invitation yet again to the convocation ceremony at Nagpur.

The lunch was also attended by Sangh heavyweights Dattatreya Hosabale and Krishna Gopal, and the warmth and bonhomie between Mukherjee and Bhagwat were apparent. Both share a common economic philosophy of swadeshi or economic self-reliance, quite contrary to Modi’s passion for globalisation. They also like engaging in deep discussions on ancient Hindu philosophy, scriptures and culture. A source close to Mukherjee said the former president and Bhagwat had “existential discussions” ranging from environment to death and their entwining links. The source says the two discussed at length the pros and cons of the ancient Hindu practice of cremation versus incineration — which is more environment-friendly, and does not use scarce firewood from depleting forests, apart from polluting rivers with half-burnt bodies.

However, it is Mukherjee’s ardent belief in the Constitution that should shake new RSS recruits to the core, going by his statements ever since Modi came to power. On May 1, at an Ambedkar Jayanti celebration in Kolkata, Mukherjee reiterated the importance and relevance of the Constitution and the many times it “counts” to reinforce constitutional values to elected governments. He recalled the time when he sacked a governor (he did not mention the name and state, but it was the Modi-appointed governor JP Rajkhowa of Arunachal Pradesh) for deliberately interpreting the Constitution wrongly and dismissing the democratically-elected Congress government. The government was later reinstated on the orders of the Supreme Court.

The Modi government also won’t forget the time it was castigated by President Mukherjee for issuing numerous ordinances, thus bypassing parliamentary procedure to pass laws. On March 15 this year, the Pranab Mukherjee Foundation was launched, which will do research and development work on the Constitution, apart from other pursuits.

As for nationalism, Mukherjee has never failed to rap the Modi government on the need for tolerance, diversity and plurality, even as early as September 2015, barely a year after Modi came to power.

It was after the murder of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, that Mukherjee bared his heart. As hate crimes soared with more lynchings, murders and attacks on Muslims, Christians and Dalits—apart from violent student clashes between BJP-affiliated groups and the rest on various campuses on free-speech, patriotism and nationalism—Mukherjee underlined the need for an atmosphere of legitimate criticism, dialogue and dissent.

He said there was no room for the “intolerant Indian” and that “efforts to “redefine” the concept of nationalism were “unnecessary” and that nationalism must not be imposed on the people. Mukherjee even hailed Aligarh Muslim University as a perfect example of Indian nationalism and ethos, where students from diverse cultures study and work together.

Of course, Mukherjee will soften the blow at his valedictory address to the zealous and devout Hindutva pracharaks tomorrow, but in all this brouhaha, what is the RSS’s message in sending an invite to Mukherjee, and to whom? Is it only about legitimising its own philosophy, which is constantly up to scrutiny and political bashing, or is there more than meets the eye? Political commentary has been bubbling with post-2019 election scenarios, where several plots and alliances have been discussed. It’s been said that Mukherjee could play a statesman-like role in bringing together disparate regional leaders to support an alternative non-Congress, non-BJP government. Or he could help cobble together a Third Front yet again. Some have even suggested that he could emerge a potential prime ministerial candidate in 2019, in the event of a hung Parliament.

In the RSS’s invitation to Mukherjee, there is a pretty distinct message to the Modi-Shah duo that they are not indispensable in the wake of a reduced majority post-2019 general election.

The RSS pontiffs are known to be wary of grandiose constructs of leaders, which have been assiduously built by Modi and Shah around themselves. Only two months ago, in early April, Bhagwat did not mince words when he said that Modi’s slogan of a “Congress-mukt Bharat” was not part of the RSS lexicon. The RSS, he categorically stated in an obvious snub to Modi, does not use the language of exclusion and believes “in inclusion of everyone in the process of nation-building”.

Also, it was Nitin Gadkari—an RSS favourite—and not Modi who leapt to defend the RSS, in the wake of the Mukherjee invitation controversy, when the RSS was attacked for being the antithesis of Indian culture, plurality and inclusiveness. Gadkari stoutly claimed that the RSS was an organisation of nationalists and not like Pakistan’s ISI.

The BJP’s recent electoral debacles in various states, both in Parliament and Assembly by-polls, apart from the reduced margins of victory from Gujarat to Karnataka state elections, has shown that the Modi-Shah election machine is vulnerable and not invincible. Already, former allies like Chandrababu Naidu have reached out to old friends in the BJP and talked about being favourable to a non-Modi BJP government. One of Naidu’s officials even stated that the RSS will support Gadkari to lead in the next election. And a chastened Shah has already set off to meet yet another disgruntled former ally, the Shiv Sena, in Mumbai today.

It is obvious that the 2019 election will be more of a fight against the Modi-Shah duo, fiercely hated both by Opposition parties and a powerful section (within the Sangh and the BJP) who vehemently oppose “cultist politics”. RSS sympathisers have also never failed to bring up that the organisation had worked closely with both Indira Gandhi (Mukherjee’s idol) and her son Rajiv Gandhi when they were both prime ministers. In fact, a message has reportedly been sent to Gandhi heir and Congress president Rahul Gandhi to not attack the RSS, which is a “cultural” organisation but to shift his fire to his political rivals: Modi and the BJP.

In this election year, electric with possibilities, alliances and surprises, Mukherjee’s visit to Nagpur is just the beginning of the games politicians play.