IN the middle of a huge public overdrive over the centenary of the formation of RSS, the country was shocked by a bizarre spectacle. A lawyer, Rakesh Kishore, registered with the Supreme Court Bar Association, was seen hurling a shoe at the Chief Justice of India, B. R. Gavai. The lawyer’s complaint was that while rejecting a petition, Justice Gavai has made a disparaging comment about Hindu religion. However, the mainstream media has gone to lengths to trivialise this shocking event. The media, as is its wont, has tried obfuscation by claiming that it was only a sheaf of papers and not a shoe. Others have tried to justify Kishore’s action by describing it as an expression of anguish over hurt religious sentiments, a now familiar pretext for pursuing unlawful and anti-constitutional acts!
It is difficult to pinpoint the connection between this patently grave development with the atmosphere sought to be drummed up to mark the RSS centenary. However, it cannot escape our attention that the atmosphere of hate and retribution which marks this obnoxious act has parallels to the influence of RSS at important junctures in the political life of this country, of which, the most significant is the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Despite strong circumstantial evidence of RSS involvement in the buildup towards that ghastly act, the absence of concrete evidence led to the release of several important RSS functionaries, like MS Golwalkar, of their personal responsibility. Then Home Minister, Sardar Patel’s letter to Golwalkar categorically mentioned that it was RSS campaign, along with that of Hindu Mahasabha, which created the ‘atmosphere’ that led to the Mahatma’s killing.
In fact, the government’s effort to lionise the RSS for its ‘greatness’, is itself throwing up a huge public discourse and focus on the organisation’s dubious past. For many, the celebration actually offers an opportunity to study the organisation’s founding principles, its toxic ideological roots and organisational methods to actualise what Savarkar defined as Hindutva. Though in his ‘Essentials of Hindutva’, Savarkar had laid down the basics of this ideology, it was the RSS which provided actions and the organisational heft to pursue it towards creating the Hindu Rashtra which was espoused by Savarkar.
Though, it must be noted that Savarkar had provided a different ideological basis, which had nothing to do with Hinduism and was a pure political project to capture political power. In his own words, confusing between Hinduism and Hindutva would become a hindrance to uniting Hindus because of the caste driven hierarchical nature of the Hindu community.
However, over the years, even from the demands and slogans raised by the RSS, it is clear that Brahminism as a social outlook is endemic to Hindutva practices. For example, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, in its issue on the very eve of Independence, dated August 14, 1947, rejected the whole concept of a composite nation (under the editorial titled ‘Whither’): “Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindustan, only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and solid foundation, the nation itself built up of Hindus on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations…”.
Organiser went on to denigrate the national flag, which it harshly chided in the same issue: “The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the tri-colour, but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus.” The RSS has carried on the same refrain by also objecting to the national anthem and pitched for Vande Mataram, part of the novel Anandamath, by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, which has an unmistakably communal overtone and is derisive of Islam and the Muslims. This was not a coincidence. It carries on its legacy from the pre-Independence days when they not only stayed away from the common struggle for national liberation from the colonial yoke but went as far as to say that “our primary commitment is towards the Hindus”. Therefore, instead of uniting against the British, we must ‘unite Hindus and militarise them’.
This RSS refrain continued during of the adoption of the democratic secular Constitution by denouncing it as un-Indian. The Organiser issue dated November 30, 1949, editorially demanded the archaic Manusmriti as the legitimate Constitution. It stated: “But in our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day, his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pandits, that means nothing.”
Golwalkar himself rejected the Constitution in totality, asserting, “Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is?”
This unilateral straitjacketing of the concept of ‘one people, one nation’, broken down to the slogan of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’, has dominated the ideological discourse of RSS with its penchant against Muslims, Christians and Communists. Therefore, the basic foundational principle of the RSS would be practiced without any apparent constraint based on double speak till that point in time where an RSS pracharak has come to occupy the office of the Prime Minister of the country. He has never felt any compulsion to conceal that identity at all, but, despite the congenital hatred towards the democratic and secular Constitution, his government is trying to hollow it out from within and to substitute it by the narrow sectarian fascistic Hindu Rashtra. The intermittent obeisance to the Constitution is merely a time ordained constraint which may be finally rid at an opportune point in time.
However, putting these two shoes on the two feet, sometimes becomes a difficult balancing act. Therefore, the overdrive to glorify the RSS is coming in conflict with the specifics of the 100 years of the dubious and gory past of the Sangh. Despite the Prime Minister’s belated mild criticism of the lawyer’s assault on Justice Gavai and praise for the CJI’s poise and dignified response, the right-wing social media brigade carries on a personal vendetta against him. The CJI’s Dalit identity and Buddhist faith has provided this brigade with special venom, understandably because of their Manuvadi inspiration. Therefore, the centenary of the RSS should provide us with opportunity to unmask their dubious past and the government’s inglorious attempts to sully the foundational principles of our Constitution which include the nation’s commitment to independence, democracy, secularism, social justice and federalism. The People’s Democracy assures to carry out the task of providing its readers studies and analyses to unravel them in its entirety.
(October 08, 2025)
