There are, no doubt, intricate links between the BJP and the RSS. It would have been better if the BJP and the RSS had made things clear. Though they claim to be separate and independent of each other, the RSS seems to exert proprietary rights over the BJP. But there are distinctions too. Not all members of the BJP are members of the RSS and vice versa. This is more than a question of sophistry or hair-splitting because the critics of the BJP minus the RSS and the RSS minus the BJP are literally fighting insubstantial ghosts.
Curiously, not many of these critics dare castigate the RSS directly. And even when they do, all that they can think of saying is that it is a communal organisation. Now, like the word "secularism", "communalism" too is a lazy description ...
The RSS phenomenon must be examined directly. The secularists, especially those in the Congress camp, have for long used the RSS as a whipping boy. In the bargain, the strength and the popularity of the RSS have been exaggerated. It is essential to understand that the RSS is not in the same category as the Ku Klux Klan, nor is it something like the Salvation Army. It even lacks the aristocratic charm and secretiveness of the Freemasons.
The RSS is quintessentially a petit bourgeois organisation, born of cultural despair. Its founder, Hedgewar, a Telugu Brahmin from Nagpur ... created an organisation which imitated western ideas of militant nationalism on a puny scale. In many ways, the RSS is a colonial caricature in its dress code as well as in the paramilitary drill of the parade ground it has adopted. It would be difficult either to be impressed, or be intimidated, by its disciplined cadres in uniform
The RSS leaders claim that theirs is a Hindu cultural organisation engaged in the task of national regeneration. But a scrutiny of the organisation and its ideological basis would show that the RSS is not Hindu, not cultural, not nationalist. It is not Hindu because its founders and members have no notion of the complex and hoary ritualistic and philosophical traditions which constitute Hinduism. There is a tendency among the RSS ranks to ignore the mystery and the metaphysics because they believe it was the "otherworldliness" of the ancient religion which brought about the decline and fall of Hindu supremacy. What they substitute for the richly textured traditions is a skimpy catechism shorn of depth and meaning ...
The RSS is not cultural because it has shown no taste for creativity in literature, in music, in the fine arts. And none in cinema, the supreme art form of the 20th century ...
... The RSS ... is not capable of setting up a national canon because that would require rare literary and historical scholarship.
It is not nationalist because its definition of the Indian nation is so restricted that a greater part of it - regions, literatures, religions - stands excluded, and consequently the multiple historical strands which form the network of national consciousness is clipped. By the end of the 18th century, the Hindu elites were thoroughly Persianised. Many of the revivalists of the 19th and the 20th centuries are helplessly cornered on this question. Secondly, it has not been able to incorporate into the idea of the nation the ... ideals of liberty, justice and equality, which moulded modern nationalism throughout the world. When the RSS leaders refer to dharma they are just indulging in bluff because they do not even know the many connotations the word has undergone through the centuries. And not one of them has even dusted the thousands of volumes of the juristic texts known as the dharma shastra.
.. If secularists are keen to debate the Hindu view they must turn to Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan. They should not choose a strawman like the RSS to make their point against Hinduism. (Source: The Times of India, 8 July, 1998)
Comments by Readers
Mr. Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr's article "The Real RSS" (July 8) severely indicts the RSS, even while it exhorts the secularist brigade to judge the BJP by its actions and inactions and not just on the basis of its RSS connections. Mr. Rao's assertions - that "in many ways, the RSS is a colonial caricature in its dress code as well as in the para military drill", that "the RSS is not Hindu, not cultural, not nationalist", and that "it is a petit bourgeois organisation born of cultural despair" – betray either deep-rooted malice or utter ignorance ...
For all this, there is a grain of truth in Mr. Rao's statements. Dr. Hedgewar set up the RSS as a; socio- cultural organisation of the Hindus with a political bias. It was expected to concentrate on developing among its members a strong national character, fearlessness and patriotism. It also attempted to develop notes of synthesis among the various divergent Hindu religious sects and remove birth-based caste and sub-caste distinctions ... Keeping with this, the former RSS chief, Bala Saheb Deoras, had said, "If untouchability is not a sin, there is no sin on earth"
If we assess the RSS today on the basis of these ideals that it had set for itself, we can only conclude that the RSS has been a grave failure. The RSS has grown in size, but all the evils which it sought to eradicate have only gained in strength. Nepotism seems to have crept even into RSS cadres. It seems RSS itself needs a corrective hand.