THE ABVP’s onslaught of terror and violence in Ramjas College, Delhi University should serve as an important reminder of the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of its parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and all its affiliates. We must not look at the hooliganism of ABVP as an aberrant act but instead as something that is integral to RSS ideology. This article, in three parts, reflects on the ideology of RSS, its evolution through its history and links to the present political conditions in India.

The fact that for the first time in India’s post independent history, so many pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) control the levers of executive power is a matter of great concern. Besides the ascendency of Narendra Modi, we also have instances of chief ministers of Haryana, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and elsewhere to suggest a dangerous trend. One might ask: what is so dangerous about pracharaks becoming political leaders with executive power? Doesn’t our constitution allow everyone to run for public office and then get elected in a free and fair election?

Such an approach to the growing political ascendency of the RSS in the country is dangerous and ignores the special character of the RSS that distinguishes it from different other political parties. We all know that even within the most representative democracies, the ruling class remains stridently in favour of capital and it finds different ways for its accumulation to proceed without any visible resistance. This is not an easy task. The job of labour appropriation and concentration of wealth occurs through the means of violence as well as making an ideological environment that is favourable to the ruling class. The latter is an important consideration and through modes that may initially seem disconnected, the ruling class yields influence over the State apparatus as well as the common sense that governs the time.

If ideology plays an important role in the formulation of social and political agenda in class-divided, exploiting societies, it is essential to decode and demystify the ideology of RSS which has come to occupy the centre stage in the Indian society and which has grown to be a significant part of the ideological mainstream of India.  Attention has to be focused on the rapid expansion of the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS) and its 44 affiliates. The context in which RSS is functioning under the protective umbrella of the Narendra Modi government is quite different from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government though he was also a RSS pracharak (organiser) since he had to function under the system of checks and balances of a coalition government from 1998 to 2004.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has full control over all the levers of State power because unlike Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP has its own majority in the Lok Sabha in spite of the fact that it polled only 31 percent of the popular national votes in the sixteenth Lok Sabha election of 2014.

The Hinduisation of this plural, religiously diverse society is the primary agenda of the RSS and this is the reason that it is establishing its shakhas or branches in far off places where in the past it was never present.  The primary goal of ideologically oriented RSS is to strengthen its organisation and spread its network in rural, urban, and tribal areas and achieve its short term and long term goal of establishing a Hindu Rashtra (nation) and making Hindus to assert their special and separate identity based on brahmanical-vedic-Sanskrit variety of Hindutva.  The basic goal of RSS is to awaken Hindus, on the basis of their specific reading of the scriptures, and make them quite assertive as the original inhabitants of Bharat Mata (Mother India).  According to this line of thought, this exclusive claim of original indigenous inhabitants of holy Mother India make Hindus of India distinct from other major religions like Muslims and Christians.  One nation, one religion and one language is the basic “idea of India”   of the RSS.

It was to achieve this goal, Dr K B Hedgewar of Nagpur, established the RSS in 1925.  It needs to be mentioned here that very tall nationalist leaders during anti-colonial struggle like Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malviya, etc were also committed to promote and protect Hindu religion and its symbols like the cow, Hindi or in the 19th and 20th century, very strong movements like Ayra Samaj under the leadership of Dayanand Saraswati were at work to project and promote Hinduism. All these movements preceded the RSS and were distinct from their championship of Hindu assertion. The party of the Hindu right Jan Sangh (now BJP) was floated by Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee of Hindu Mahasabha in 1949-50, with the help of MS Golwalkar, the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, who lent him two RSS pracharaks, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. In the changed political circumstances, the real focus has to be on the RSS. It is the RSS which is the ideological patron-in-chief of all its outfits. Its ideologically trained “cadre” and officially nominated functionaries are holding the keys for every important decision which is taken by its 44 affiliates and BJP-led governments at the centre and the states.

WHAT IS RSS?

 The Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh is primarily a brahmin organisation and the RSS flag is the ‘bhagwa’ flag of the Peshwa rulers. This is the reason that RSS has always projected Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as their hero because he is considered a brave fighter against Muslim Mughal rule.  Figures such as Shivaji and Maharana Pratap are glorified by RSS because their ideology is sustained and nurtured by hostility towards minority communities like Muslims and Christians. Such social groups like Muslims and Christians are “outsiders” because their religious reference points and holy places like Mecca-Madina, Pope and Christian Church are outside the territorial boundaries of India. 

It is easy to conclude that religion is the defining foundational principle of the ideology of the RSS. This principle is reflected in its organisational structure.  KB Hedgewar established the RSS in 1925 in Nagpur to provide ‘physical training to Hindus so that they are strong enough to stand against the attacks by its opponents especially the Muslims’.  Hindus should be strong physically so that they can defend their Janma Bhoomi and Punya Bhoomi ie, holy Mother India. (Rakesh Sinha in his Builder of Modern India, New Delhi 2014-15) BS Moonje, a comrade in arms of Dr KB Hedgewar, provides some significant insights about the reality of the RSS organisation and its objectives especially because the founder, Hedgewar did not provide any constitution of the organisation.

THE ORGANISATION OF RSS

One fundamental approach of the RSS from 1925 to 2016 has been its secrecy which is maintained by a rigid hierarchy where all power is concentrated in the RSS supremo known as Sarsanghchalak who is closely assisted by trusted senior RSS pracharaks represented in the Pratinidhi Sabha. BS Moonje, who met fascist leader Benito Mussolini, developed a great admiration for the dictator and his fascist organisation beginning with youth institutions known as the Balilla which was conceived as a military organisation for the military regeneration of Italy. These were Moonje’s observations upon his meeting with Mussolini and experiencing firsthand, the Balilla;

“The idea of fascism widely brings out the conception of unity amongst people…India and particularly Hindu India need some such institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus: so that the artificial distinction so much emphasised by the British of martial and non-martial classes amongst the Hindus may disappear.  Our institution of Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh of Nagpur under Dr Hedgewar is of this mind, though quite independently conceived.  I will spend the rest of my life in developing and extending this institution of Dr Hedgewar throughout Maharashtra and other provinces.”

The military like training of the RSS cadre, known as swaymsevak, is the distinctive feature of this Hindu organisation.  The goal of RSS is to train Hindus in its shakhas so that they have enough military strength to defend Bharat Mata from its opponents – the Muslims.  The RSS holds daily branch meetings for imparting ideological and physical training to young Hindus because like fascists and Nazis of Italy and Germany, of Mussolini and Hitler, it is the youthful minds which have to be indoctrinated. This ideological commitment of the RSS has been transmitted to all swayamsevaks beginning with KB Hedgewar to Mohan Bhagwat.  Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS supremo, on March 4, 2016 felt it essential to make a public statement that the   “Feelings towards your motherland should come naturally but now-a-days one has to be taught to say Bharat Mata Ki Jai  because voices against this (slogan) are becoming louder”.