Seva as political strategy

Disaster Relief and the RSS examines a relatively less emphasised aspect of the RSS' activities

More than a hundred years ago, a 24-year-old nationalist Maharashtrian, pursuing medicine at the National Medical College, Calcutta (now Kolkata), joined a band of volunteers from Ramakrishna Mission. They headed to Bardhaman, about 100 km from the burgeoning metropolis, because rural hinterlands there had been inundated once again by the “Sorrow of Bengal” — the Damodar river. A doctor in the making, he was not only equipped to rescue people from the rampaging waters, but also treat patients afflicted by the outbreak of a cholera epidemic. The time he spent among flood victims encouraged him to make volunteerism an annual habit. 

Thereafter, for as long as he was in Calcutta, the young man joined the medical corps at the Gangasagar fair held every winter at the confluence of River Ganga and the Bay of Bengal. Although he was faithful to the bhawna or sentiment of service or  seva, he realised that such volunteering to help people affected by natural calamities or outbreaks of disease enabled one to build personal relationships and provided an entry point when canvassing for a cause or idea. This man, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, in 1925 established the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS), which partially grew out of a different sort of volunteerism — providing security to Hindus who wanted to take out a religious procession with full band baja through Muslim colonies. The idea of using seva or service as a ploy to engage with people on socio-political ideas and beliefs emerged from such activities and explains why seva has always been integral to the Sangh’s activities. 

In Disaster Relief and the RSS, which examines a relatively less emphasised aspect of the RSS’ activities, which is one of the primary reason for the immense popularity that it has acquired, Malini Bhattacharjee points out that the founder was “perhaps the first leader during the period (1920s and 1930s) to seriously shape the idea of seva as a means for constructing the Hindu Rashtra”. For Hedgewar, a powerful India of the future was dependent on the military regeneration of people and “seva played a key role in this imagination.”

Volunteerism indeed played important roles throughout the rise of the Sangh Parivar, and these experiences steeled young swayamsevaks for tougher tasks ahead. In his youth, before becoming fully a part of the RSS, Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined volunteers to work with flood victims in Surat. He told this writer that in the 1960s he was “quite active in social work. When I say social work, I do not mean in the manner it is understood now — this NGO business.” The premium placed on volunteerism by the RSS is evident in the current sarkaryavah (the second in command), Bhaiyyaji Joshi, who was former head of the organisation’s seva division.

The Hindu Right’s volunteerism played an important role during the Partition riots and was instrumental in the RSS’ swift spread in north and west India. In a display of exemplary dedication, the swayamsevaks worked day and night with Hindus uprooted from West Punjab and, to a limited extent, East Bengal, who had lost family members and all their possessions. 

The author delves at length on disaster relief, examining the involvement of faith-based organisations — Swami Vivekananda played a key role in developing this facet of Hindu religious organisations — such as the Red Cross Society, which spawned similar bodies. Ms Bhattacharjee brings in perspective from the ground through interviews with swayamsevaks and others. Besides the theoretical portions, which explore what constitutes seva and how this was used by the RSS in nation-building, the book has valuable case studies of the RSS’ relief efforts in Odisha after the 1999 Super Cyclone and its involvement in the reconstruction of Kutch in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake. RSS volunteers succeeded in establishing contact with a wide spectrum of people, and during the course of relief work “new shakhas mushroomed in the villages of coastal Odisha” where the RSS had little association until then.

The author notes the Odisha cyclone struck within a few months of murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his sons by a Bajrang Dal activist. The epic natural disaster provided an opportunity to shift focus from allegations over the Sangh’s role in the murders, to the dedication of swayamsevaks after the cyclone. The author’s scholarly approach successfully establishes how humanitarism opens up the political space and opportunities that RSS used successfully. She also establishes that the idea of seva as structured in the RSS, although evolving from ancient Hindu precepts of dana, is a constantly evolving form of social engagements. But most importantly, the book establishes the success of RSS in utilising disaster situations, which warrant seva activities, as opportunities for political mobilisation. 

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and author. His latest book is RSS: Icons of the Indian Right. He has also written Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times (2013)

Disaster Relief and the RSS: Resurrecting 'Religion' Through Humanitarianism
Malini Bhattacharjee
Sage; Rs 850, 268 pages