The single-minded parivar

The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right
 

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
 

Tranquebar, Rs 799, 432 pages

The author has presented a well-documented history of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) built around the life story and ideological and organisational contributions of its four founders — K B Hedgewar, V P Savarkar, M S Golwalkar and Balasahab Deoras — and other foot soldiers from Deendayal Upadhyaya to Bal Thackerey. The 11 chapters of this book provide minute details about the evolution of this unique formation that was firmly devoted to the consolidation of Hindu identity. 

All the four founding fathers were focused on strengthening the Hindu community by providing Hindu youth with physical training in the shakhas (branches) so that they could physically defend themselves from attacks by their opponents. None of the successors diluted this foundational approach. On the contrary, they strengthened and propagated the organisational structure so that Hindutva ideology now reaches every corner of the country. Following in the founders’ footsteps, the foot soldiers created “affiliates” of the RSS (and not just shakhas). There are 44 affiliates at present. 

The central idea that emerges from this exhaustive study is that the ideology of Hindutva and the RSS’s para-military organisational structure are intertwined. The ideology has to be carried forward by the RSS cadres, modelled on the Italian Blackshirts, Benito Mussolini’s Fascist organisation. It was Hindu Mahasabha leader B S Moonje who guided Hedgewar to focus on this aspect of the Hindutva organisation after a visit to Mussolini’s Italy. 

Some salient aspects of ideology of Hindutva deserve mention because the RSS has never deviated from them. First, the founders inculcated the idea of “victimhood” among Hindus and urged them to defend their territory, which was projected as Punyabhoomi (holy land) and  Pitrabhoomi (ancestral land). 

Second, the RSS leadership and cadre, whether founders or foot soldiers up to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, are committed to their anti-Muslim and anti-Christian outlook because these communities are considered “outsiders” rather than children of this holy land that is Bharat Mata. Writing on Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, the author points out that this seminal article for RSS foot soldiers “may not appeal to the adherents of cultural and religious pluralism”. 

Third, the deification of the Supreme Leader, the Sarsanghchalak, was the norm in the RSS. Starting with Hedgewar, this leader could not be questioned. After Hedgewar, MS Golwalkar was nominated Sarsanghchalak. He occupied this position for 33 years from 1940 to 1973 and his nominee, Balasahab Deoras, remained Sarsanghchalak for 21 years. The author quotes Deoras’ observation that the RSS would build an “army of workers which would be the envy of gods”; it still rings in the ears in 2019. Deoras, the author says, “believed in the paradigm of centrality of the RSS….” for Hindu consolidation. 

Fourth, the RSS has followed the policy of “catch them young”. Deoras focused his attention on education by establishing the Saraswati Shishu Mandir and the RSS now runs thousands of Vidya Bharat Schools. 

Fifth, beginning with Hedgewar, the Vedas were to be studied and Vedic Hinduism is the reference point for the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since 2014, both institutions have launched a project to appropriate Gandhi and Sardar Patel to assert their nationalist credentials by propagating that their leaders and cadre participated in the freedom struggle. The author has, however, provided enough evidence to substantiate the fact that neither Gandhi nor Sardar Patel were in any way persuaded by the Sangh Parivar’s core ideology. 

The RSS has also always taken great pains to distance itself from Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin. However, the author does not give the RSS a clean testimonial on Godse’s membership. He has also scrutinised the RSS’ claims that it is apolitical organisation that promotes the idea of cultural nationalism. He quotes Golwalkar asking Hindus to “resolutely vote for men and parties dedicated to the Hindu people and Hindu cause” during the 1957 elections. This apart, Golwalkar took up a purely Hindu cause in 1966 when he organised a big demonstration demanding a complete ban on cow slaughter. 

Further, beginning with Deoras’ 21 years of RSS supreme leadership, the RSS actively participated in politics and penetrated every movement, whether it was the Nav Nirman Samiti struggle in Gujarat, or the Jai Prakash Narayan movement in Bihar or during the formation of the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government in 1977.  The author says during the Vajpayee-led government at the Centre or BJP governments in various states, the RSS expanded under the protective umbrella of benign governments and increased its shakhas and affiliates. 

Savarkar’s Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? remains a guide for RSS/BJP till today. Savarkar had exhorted Hindus to “militarise and view Muslims as the dangerous enemy within”. It was Savarkar, the author writes, who guided Hedgewar to establish an organisation to “supply the Hindu society with power and pillars”. Every foot soldier in seven chapters of the book, whether A B Vajpayee or L K Advani or Ashok Singhal or Mohan Bhagwat (the current Sarsanghchalak), are copybook loyalists. 

The author has provided well-documented details of RSS and its style of working, but he fails to evaluate the RSS on the basis of the facts mentioned in his own study. RSS-BJP are two sides of the same coin, so the BJP is not like any other political party in India, whether all-India or regional. The RSS also stands apart from all other party organisations. It has to be evaluated on what it preaches and practices because it is the opposite of all other formations in India. This is a clear message from the book.