By Aakar Patel
Next year, the world’s largest NGO marks its centenary. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was founded in 1925 at a single shakha in Nagpur and today, according to its website, has over 57,000 daily shakhas across India. The RSS says it doesn’t keep a record of its members, so it doesn’t know how many there are.
Why was it formed? We are told the reason for this in the six-volume official history of the BJP, published by the party in 2006. The party quotes Hindu Mahasabha leader B.S. Moonje as saying that communal violence frequently happened in Nagpur because though Muslims only numbered 20,000 of the city’s population. “we (Hindus) felt insecure because the Muslims were never afraid of 1.3 lakh Hindus”. Moonje felt this was because Hindus were divided into watertight compartments, “each having a special and cultural life of its own that there is hardly any association between them”. This was in contrast to Muslims, who “form one organic community, religiously well organised and disciplined”. And because of this “any injury done to any part of the community anywhere is felt as keenly all throughout”.
The book says the RSS’ formation was to address this problem of disunity of Hindus in relation to taking on Muslims. It would work towards the cause of Hindu unity and solidarity and cultural nationalism. Its founder K.B. Hedgewar went about organising Hindu society and addressing its two problems of disunity and the caste system. He did both of these through the mechanism of the shakha, where Hindus of all castes would gather for an hour daily. They would play games, exercise, learn to march and do some drills. They would also sing songs together addressed to Bharat Mata. The problem of caste would be addressed through their playing and eating together. M.D. Deoras, the third head of the RSS, described it thus: “I was present in the first Sangh camp. In that there were quite a number of Mahaar brethren. At the time of meals, some began hesitating to sit with them. They had never before in their lives sat for meals with Mahaars. They placed their problem before Doctorji (Hedgewar). But he did not enforce the discipline of the camp and ask them to get out. Doctorji simply said: “Our practice is to sit together. We shall sit accordingly.” All of us sat together for meals. Those few that were hesitant sat in a separate line. But for the next meals those very people came to Doctorji, and apologised and sat with us of their own accord.’ Hedgewar died in 1940, by when the RSS had spread beyond Nagpur and had 100,000 members. His successor was Golwalkar, under whom the RSS continued to grow and spread. Golwalkar was pragmatic and felt the RSS had to operate within the law. When the British forbade Indians in 1943 from military dress and drill, the RSS gave it up immediately.
This story was originally published in deccanchronicle.com. Read the full story here.