The RSS has come a long way since it was established by Dr. K.S. Hedgewar in Nagpur in 1925. Today it runs hundreds of thousands of Shakhas and schools all over the country which brainwash the young and, over a period of time, produce a mindset which is conducive to the propagation of the RSS ideology and its goals and objectives. It has thus successfully indoctrinated generations of Hindu youth, and vitiated the social environment in a manner so thoroughly that the Muslim Indians have been politically marginalized, economically deprived and socially degraded.
Today it runs hundreds of organisations which have a strong presence in every field of national activity with RSS Pracharakas at the helm.
Today, through the VHP, the RSS stands linked with all Hindu sects. It has tried to consolidate the Hindudom, brought thousands of sants and sadhus on a common platform and devised psychologically effective games to influence the Hindu masses on critical issues at critical times through religious appeal.
Today its sympathizers have penetrated the Executive, the Judiciary, the Academe, the Media, the Armed Forces, not to mention the Legislatures. The BJP, its political front, has emerged as the biggest political party, perhaps the only other national party and is running the government at the Centre and in several states. But, apart from the BJP, it has sympathizers and political supporters in practically all political parties.
Today, for the first time the RSS has come to control the Central Government. It knows that with the implicit and explicit, open and secret, direct and indirect support of the Government, the process of Hinduisation can be accelerated. Therefore, the coalition Government must survive as long as it does not crumble under the weight of its internal contradictions. In the meantime, the RSS must take care of its Hindu constituency. It does not want to lose on the roundabout what it gains on the swing.
Therefore, the power game is played at different levels. his explains 'differences' between the RSS and the BJP, stage-managed and well-orchestrated as they are, based on understanding among the members of the top coterie which is the final authority and which directs the 'acts' put together by various players. There may be an element of domestic adjustment, internal accommodation but the Karta of the joint family - the Sangh Parivar -- is supreme.
His authority is unchallenged. Today, the RSS commands financial support from the wealthy and the rising middle classes. It is not yet the king but it has certainly became the king maker. The RSS is not a political party and does not engage in electoral politics but it has a view on every political question and does not hesitate to express them. And its opinion carries weight and certainly commands an oracle's authority among its sympathizers and supporters dispersed throughout the polity, economy and society, from top to bottom.
Immediately they move into action, if necessary and multiply the impact by all means at their disposal, even by word of mouth. It is not for nothing that the RSS has been called the Rumour Spreading Society.
The RSS has a Hindu centric vision of India. It sees India as the land of the Hindus where non-Hindus live by their grace and at their sufferance. Its objective is to transform the country into the Hindu Rashtra, where the Hindus shall be dominant in every sense of the term. The religious, racial and linguistic minorities shall be absorbed or assimilated into the Hindu fold. The descendants of the converts to other religion shall be 'reconverted' or they may be let off to practise their own 'modes of worship so long as they call themselves Hindu. Sanskrit shall be the lingua franca of the country. The monuments which mark 'Hindu defeat and humiliation' shall be demolished. History shall be rewritten. The RSS shall thus restore the Golden Age of the Hindus. In brief, the RSS ideology is divisive and exclusive with elements of obscurantism, revanchism and fascism thrown in based on the, concept of 'One People, One Language, One Culture' with no sign of plurality or diversity, dissent or difference, from the standard saffron!
Any one can see the flaws and the contradictions in this ideology. India is a multi-religious country. It is multi- cultural and multi-lingual, it is multi-racial. One may say that it is a multi-national. Our unity lies in tolerance of diversity; it cannot be achieved by imposition of uniformity RSS philosophy is also a negation of the basic value-system of the Hindu society. RSS philosophy is creative of social tensions and this decelerates the process of national integration.
The RSS has thus not only the looks but the structure of a secret society. Coupled with its exclusives and chauvinist ideology, its critics often call it fascist. . I m of abuse in the political lexicon or allege that was inspired by European Fascism. The RSS ha. no membership rolls; it does not elect its office-bearers: even the Sarsanghchalak is nominated by his predecessor. May be, in consultation with the top few. It has a self-assumed mandate which seeks to guide every aspect of national life and use all possible devices to realise its grand design. All that without a democratic, mandate, without any religious authority, without any accountability, even to the tax authorities!
But even the strongest critics of the RSS cannot afford to ignore it. They cannot wish it away. In the foreseeable future, whatever the complexion of the Government, the RSS, the most organized and the biggest non- governmental organisation (NGO) in the country, shall continue to cast its shadow over the policies and priorities of all Governments and even on their programmes and their implementation. But the RSS is not immune to the winds of change. New avenues of education, new careers based on expanding technology, cultural globalisation, are all cutting into the spread of the Shakhas. Hindu diaspora is recasting Hinduism into another international, if not universal, religion. This takes the bite from the RSS criticism of extra-territorial loyalties of Muslims and Christians because they have their places of pilgrimage outside the country. The same is now true of the Hindu communities abroad living in USA, the UK, the Gulf and in other countries. Are they traitors to the countries of their adoption, if they come to India for pilgrimage and prostrating themselves before the Shankaracharyas?
Similarly, if the RSS objects to Tabligh by the Muslims and proselytisation by the Christians, how can it ignore the activities of hundreds of Hindu godmen, working overtime in the USA and the UK? And swarms of Hindu Swamis propagating the Hindu faith and establishing ashrams and constructing temples in foreign lands?
If the RSS objects to inflow of foreign funds into India even for education and social service, how about the inflow to the coffers of the VHP, for its campaign to demolish masjids and churches and building temples all over the country?
If the RSS believes in the glory of India, a time is bound to come when act of national disgrace, perpetrated in the name of Hinduism will, in the global village today, make the Hindus in India and abroad lower their heads?
The RSS believes in a destiny for India. But by dividing the Indian society, vertically, it is weakening the foundation of unity for building a great country, T'he RSS is trying to row its ship against the contemporary currents of Democracy, Secularism, Ethnicity, Multi-culturalism and Social Justice. Therefore, its ship is bound to sink, sooner or later, because with its narrow outlook and fossilized minds, it is simply incapable of coping with the storms of post-modernism. The RSS is largely silent on social reform, though it has begun to formulate 'dogmas' and standarise, some say 'semitize', Hinduism. But many feel that the RSS really wishes to restore Brahmanism and the authority of the 'dwijas' and the Savarnas'.
With its network of organisation, its massive cadre. The RSS could have served as the architect of Hindu Renaissance a sine qua non for the Indian Renaissance. But instead of launching a positive, constructive programme for reforming and upgrading the Hindu society, for inculcating in the Hindu masses, love, respect and friendship for other Indians, the RSS has adopted a negative programme of vilifying the 'others', rewriting history, creating ill-will, distrust and even hatred within the Indian society.
Back in 1925, the RSS was born as a reaction to the Muslim minority ending up with an upper hand in a communal flare-up in Nagpur, presumably to provide muscles to the local Hindus. But conceived in hatred, born in hostility, it has never shed its anti-Muslim thinking. The gradual parting of ways, the Pakistan Movement the Partition, all left their mark on its mind. So did the communal holocaust. Though claiming to represent the Hindu majority, it developed a 'minority complex' and it fed the Hindu masses on half-truths of history and taught them to 'fear' the violent, fanatic and intolerant Muslims - the historic adversary with pan-Islamic connections. That is why the cap of secularism does not fit, even when it wants to try it for tactical reasons. Indeed, it has never got over its frustration that a Hindu country was declared a secular state and why the Muslim Indians were not thrown across the border, lock, stock and barrel. Hence, every political move by the RSS, is, in the final analysis, based on the zero-sum-game theory: any possible gain for the Muslims is seen as a loss for the Hindus. In the same way. India and Pakistan are seen locked in perpetual struggle and any possible gain for Pakistan is seen as a loss of India. It is this obsession with Muslim Indians and with Pakistan which undermines the great role that the RSS could have played and should play in consolidating the Hindu community, reforming the Hindu society and modernising India.
RSS has come a long way, indeed. But the elan' and 'ethos' which could have remoulded the Hindu society got lost, somewhere along the way and it has been fighting imaginary demons in an intellectually barren wasteland, forgetting that never in human history has anything great been achieved under a negative impulse!
To realize its full potential, the RSS needs a dose of the same medicine it has been prescribing for Muslims and Christians - INDIANISATION.
1" November, 2000
