RSS: Hundred Years of a Dubious Past
Savera
There is much fanfare and hoopla over the completion of 100 years of the RSS. This was sparked off by the Prime Minister himself, first mentioning it in his customary 15 August speech from the Red Fort in Delhi, and then writing a piece on it for newspapers. As is now the custom, a cue from PM Modi is picked up fast and strong by the corporate media and, sure enough, articles praising the RSS for its dedication, discipline, service and so on started appearing in profusion, accompanied by talking heads on TV shows, outdoing each other in heaping praise on it.
The Prime Minister facilitating the celebrations is apt, though unprecedented, for an organization that has remained at the fringe of national life for most of its history. It is apt because it is during the Modi era that the RSS acquired this larger-than-life image. In 2014, the year Modi-led BJP came to power, the RSS had 44,982 shakhas (daily unit meetings) being conducted at 29,624 places. In 2025, the number of shakhas stood at 83,129 being held at 51,710 locations. Both figures are as reported in the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (all India representatives’ meeting), a top body of the RSS. Clearly, in the first 90 years of its existence, RSS grew from scratch to about 45,000 units, and then, under a friendly rule, with all manner of direct and indirect patronage, it added about 38,000 units in just a decade.
With RSS pracharaks (whole time workers) and members now holding key government positions – from the Prime Minister and Union ministers to several Chief Ministers, state ministers and hundreds of elected representatives – it is unsurprising that the RSS has been working in lockstep with the government. Several key demands of the RSS/BJP have been rammed through – the abrogation of Art.370 for J&K, the building of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya sanctioned by the Supreme Court, anti-conversion laws, attempts to impose a Uniform Civil Code, attempts to identify and expel ‘foreigners’ etc. The RSS and its supremo Mohan Bhagwat are getting personal praise from Modi and other top brass, various government departments are funding or even holding RSS oriented programmes, RSS cadres are getting appointments in research institutions, universities, and various other bodies, books published by RSS affiliates are being prescribed in schools. But most importantly, the ideology of RSS itself - its ‘cultural nationalism’ that hides hatred towards the minority community, fuelled by a Hindu supremacist world view, and the revanchist fervour that sees its ideal in a mythical golden past – this ideology has spread its tentacles considerably under the Modi government rule.
In all this triumphalist euphoria, what is being brushed under the carpet is the colossal failures of the RSS, and the reasons thereof. It is these that will really explain why it failed to make a dent among India’s people and their lives for decades, till its members took power under cover of BJP. Some of its more dramatic betrayals have been in discussion for years and have currently surfaced again – rightly so. These include its refusal to participate in the Freedom Struggle, and actually help the British in certain ways; its involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948; its rejection of the Constitution in the early days; its involvement in anti-Muslim communal violence, and its violent Ayodhya movement ultimately leading to the destruction of Babri Masjid in 1992; and, the surrender by many of its leaders during the Emergency.
But apart from these monumental failures or betrayals, the RSS has comprehensively failed to build up the ‘character and confidence’ of society – a goal that it set itself right at the beginning in 1925. Nor has it built up the patriotic fervour that it keeps reiterating through its shakhas and ‘vargs’ and ‘baudhiks’. Nor has it been able to ‘unite’ the Hindus under its banner, despite holding out imagined threats from Muslims and others. Its theory that (Hindu) society shall achieve a kind of divinity and become a beacon for the whole world (‘vishwa guru’) has also suffered an ignominious failure. Blaming predecessors – whether Muslim rulers or Congress governments – is the RSS’ lament to explain this. But this socio-cultural ideology itself is deeply flawed and mired in reactionary medieval ideas, caught between justifying the latter through myths and yet trying to pretend to look ahead. Let us now turn to some of these failures, albeit briefly, because each needs more attention than possible here.
No Economic Vision
Any organisation that wants to transform a society must address its fundamental economic issues. The RSS, of course, only believes in so-called ‘character building’. It has no thoughts for how to address exploitation, drudgery, unemployment, deprivation, poverty and its myriad consequences like malnutrition, disease, lack of education, etc. If you dig into the writings of RSS ideologues of the past, you will find MS Golwalkar ‘Guruji’, longest serving Sarsanghchalak (supremo) writing that employers and employees should share the proceeds amongst themselves, and the sharing of faith will ensure this. That about sums up the economic vision. No wonder that over the years, RSS had no way of extending its influence among farmers, landless labourers, factory workers, employees, informal sector workers, and scores of other labourers in a modern, developing society. It could not address their bread and butter issues. It never understood that unless material existence is changed, it will be impossible to gain the attention of most people. In this it actually became an instrument of the ruling classes who wanted the people’s attention diverted from the economic issues. Owing to this bankruptcy of thought on economic policy, the BJP has wholeheartedly embraced the neoliberal economic theory which the Modi government is vigorously implementing, cutting taxes on the rich, cutting social welfare spending, opening doors to foreign capital, deregulating the economy and privatising public sector. This has led to a persistent economic crisis for the mass of the people while handing over super profits for the elite corporate sections. How can the people support such a flagrantly pro-rich outfit?
Upper Caste Outlook
The RSS could never resolve the contradiction it faced between a caste-divided society and its desire for Hindu unity. For most of its existence it ritually made noises about social harmony and unity of all sections (castes) but did precious little to fight it. From its leaders in the past like Golwalkar down to present day ministers, the RSS way of fighting caste divisions has been to once in a while share a meal with a ‘lower’ caste family, or even wash the feet of a member of Scheduled Caste community. For the RSS, Manusmriti was always a hallowed scripture even though it gave detailed instructions on how to punish outcastes for hearing the Vedas chanted and such other transgressions. They have always been inclined to do away with job reservations and periodically say so publicly, only to backtrack after a backlash. The abolition of caste as a strategic goal has never been espoused actively by the RSS. They consider the horrendous violence inflicted systematically in the name of caste as a ‘distortion’ that crept into what was a justified and ‘natural’ division of labour in society. Given this tainted history, the RSS has never been accepted by the vast majority of Indians belonging to Scheduled Castes. Even amongst Other Backward Classes (OBCs), it managed to make some headway after aligning with OBC based political outfits and strenuously portraying themselves as supporters of Mandal Commission.
Women’s Equality
Despite its self-anointed role as the saviour of Hindus, the RSS has comprehensively failed to initiate or support any social reform within the complex and diverse Hindu fold. The prime example of this is its persistence of treating women as second class citizens, who’s ideal should be to look after the family, and serve the husband. The very first attempt to bring reforms in personal laws serves as a chilling example of the RSS view of women. In 1948-49, Dr. Ambedkar drafted a Hindu Code Bill that for the first time: gave the widow and daughter same share of property as the son; allowed women to divorce a cruel or negligent husband; prohibited the husband from taking a second wife; allowed marriage between a man and woman of different castes; and, allowed adoption of a child of different caste. Led by the RSS, these progressive provisions were opposed tooth and nail by the whole spectrum of conservative Hindu organisations. RSS held 79 protest meetings in Delhi, burning effigies of Nehru and Ambedkar. It described the Bill as an attack on Hindu religion and culture. The Bill had to be ultimately shelved as Nehru’s Cabinet itself was divided and President Rajendra Prasad too didn’t like it. It was only after the 1952 General Elections that the newly elected Nehru government got various provisions of the Bill passed in different parts. Later, the RSS started plugging for a Uniform Civil Code, that is, in effect demanding that similar provisions be enforced upon other faiths too! That thinking is still continuing, along with the hypocritical and false sympathy it exhibits towards Muslim women by supporting laws against triple talak, etc.
On the social evil of dowry too, the RSS takes the position of asserting that it is a tradition. In reality, this ‘tradition’ goes back only a couple of centuries but it is so deeply enmeshed in society that the RSS has neither the courage nor the ideological wherewithal to oppose it. It suits it’s retrograde thinking more to make some noises and keep silent even when the country saw an average of 7000 ‘dowry deaths’ (deaths caused by dowry demands by husband and family) between 2017 and 2022. Similarly, it has an ambivalent attitude towards section 498A of IPC (Sec.85 BNS) which deals with cruelty by husband and family towards wife. RSS has nothing to say on sexual harassment at workplaces and its affiliated organisations do not support committees to deal with such cases. In fact, sexual harassment and even rape cases often draw scorn from RSS affiliated leaders who blame the survivor for provoking the crimes and parrot the line of women being better off at home. The RSS is unable to break free of the shackles of ritualistic and orthodox variant of Hinduism that does not believe in women’s equality with men in the family and as citizens of the country.
Language
The RSS pays lip service to teaching in mother tongue while pushing for Sanskrit and Hindi. It believes that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages, as also the language of the gods. Imbued with this philosophy, the BJP government has spent Rs.2532 crore in the past decade ‘popularising’ Sanskrit while all the other Classical languages of India received a paltry Rs.147 crore. While all languages, including Sanskrit, should be preserved, but to imagine that Sanskrit can become a commonly spoken language of India is a flight of fancy. Even in its heyday in the past, Sanskrit was only confined to handful of the elite who closely guarded their monopoly of being able to recite the Vedas or other scriptures in Sanskrit. RSS also supported attempts at imposition of Hindi as a ‘link language’ for the whole country. So much so that due to this legacy, its political front, BJP, included it as compulsory language in the first draft of the New Education Policy. Later this was withdrawn after severe backlash from non-Hindi speaking states. Thus, far from having a democratic view of languages, the RSS view on languages has become another divisive tool, and generated much discontent towards it.
Religious Bigotry
And finally, the RSS is the fount for Hindutva – a fanatic and regressive brand of Hinduism – that seeks to provoke unbridled violence against minorities and Dalits, Adivasis, so that the diversity of India is hammered into a homogenous mass that follows what the RSS/BJP now calls Sanatan Dharm. The RSS wants to convert India into Hindu Rashtra, governed by the regressive Manusmriti, dedicated to spiritual pursuits, presumably sustained by the labour of lower castes, adivasis, minorities and women. It pretends to persuade all through so called character building but doesn’t hesitate to use violence. This extremely divisive, toxic and strife-generating ideology has been spread through the RSS and its associated organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Hindu Sene, Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams, etc. It has been provided impunity by protection extended by a sympathetic government. This has resulted in festivals getting turned into occasions for violence and attacks on places of worship or homes of other religious followers, renewed demands for Hindutva takeover of Muslim places of worship in Kashi and Mathura, and 17 other places currently, which hints at continued violence in coming days, mob lynchings, bulldozer demolitions, false cases under draconian laws and clampdowns on free expression. This divides India on religious lines, destroys its diversity and portends plunging society into chaos and bloodshed.
Due to these and other associated thoughts and actions, the RSS and its Parivar of associated organisations is largely unacceptable to most people of the country. The BJP managed to win elections and come to power at the Centre and in states on populist issues, and riding on discontent with earlier governments. The people are slowly realising that their unwitting mandate allowed the BJP to smuggle in RSS cadres and ideas into government, which are now out in the open. The real battle between a progressive, democratic and modern India and a regressive, divisive, violence-prone conception of Hindu Rashtra is on the horizon now.
