The RSS and Paradoxes

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation.

Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final assessment of Modi in that book is as a “narrow-minded, mean-spirited” man who cannot “rise above his sectarian political origins to the levels of statesmanship and good governance.” One could say the same thing about his roots, the RSS, too.

There is no deep vision that underlies the philosophy of the organisation. Expediency seems to be its only real guiding principle. Probably, Lord Krishna of the Mahabharata is their ultimate inspiration with his readiness to adopt unorthodox, pragmatic, and morally ambiguous methods to achieve dharmic goals. The rules of war were bent to suit his purposes, deception was practised whenever that suited him, ethical codes were reinterpreted, and even the nature was manipulated. The RSS and the entire right-wing in India do the same things today in the name of Sanatan Dharma.

One contemporary example. The cow became a religious totem in rather recent past of India’s history. Why? M S Golwalkar, one of the staunchest members of the RSS, told Varghese Kurian (quoted in his autobiography I Too Had a Dream) that the cow was a strategic symbol for unifying the Hindus. Expedient strategy, that’s all what the cow is in the end for the advocates of Hindutva. It is easy to manipulate people’s emotions with the help of some religious symbols. The cow, thus, became a religious symbol. If we look at the living conditions of the wandering cows in North India, we will understand how much love their militant protectors possess for them. 

The ostentatious temple built by the Modi government in the disputed land of Ayodhya has similarly nothing to do with spirituality; that is another expedient strategy for rousing people’s passions for a political cause.

Bhanwar Meghwanshi joined the RSS at the age of 13. Though he belonged to an untouchable caste, he rose to become a karyavah in the organisation’s rigid hierarchy, because of his passionate nationalist spirit. He hated Muslims with a venomous passion though he had never encountered a Muslim in his life personally. He joined thousands of karsevaks (volunteers) in Ayodhya. He participated in riots. Hindutva was an intoxication for him. Until the deep-seated falsehoods of his organisation disillusioned him totally. The RSS men were, in his own words, “petty, mean-minded, and hypocritical.” [In his autobiography I Could Not be Hindu]

While the RSS led to the loss of Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s religious faith, Shashi Tharoor succeeded in retaining his faith and went on to give us his reasons for it in his book Why I am a Hindu. Hinduism is “the only major religion in the world,” he says, “that does not claim to be the only true religion.” “Hinduism is a civilization,” he goes on, “not a dogma. Hinduism is a faith that allows each believer to stretch his or her imagination to a personal notion of the creative godhead of divinity….”

That Hinduism which is a great philosophy and a profound civilization has been straitjacketed by some “narrow-minded, mean-spirited” men in the RSS and its affiliate organisations. When the Sangh, as the RSS is known commonly in India, celebrates the centenary of its foundation, it can do well to contemplate on what they have done to a great tradition, a philosophy, a civilisation.