By ASHUTOSH
The biggest lie about the RSS is that it is not a “political organisation” and that Hindutva is not a “political ideology”. So, I was not surprised to read (‘Attack on RSS is a self-goal,’ IE, July 3) Rakesh Sinha’s claim that “Hindutva is not a political ideology”.
The RSS was started as an organisation in 1925 by K B Hedgewar, with the political purpose of uniting Hindus. In his understanding, Hindus in India had been subjugated for a thousand years because they were not socially and politically united, fragmented into different castes and sub-castes, and regions and kingdoms. The fact is that the Muslim and Christian invasions were not a religious project but a political one. Muslim invaders came to India not to convert Hindus but to create empires. If conversion had been their goal, then India would have been a Muslim country long back — like other countries in the Middle East and East Asia.
History suggests that Hindus converted to Islam because the oppressed classes in India were not treated equally, were socially ostracised and accorded worse-than-human status. Islam arose as an egalitarian religion and was willing to treat India’s oppressed classes as equals. It is also true that a few Hindus changed their religion due to the influence of Muslim Sufi saints.
If the RSS was the social organisation it claims to be, it should have launched a movement to free India from its social evils like the caste system. It has never shown any intent to launch any social reform movements. Unlike Babasaheb Ambedkar and Gandhi, it never fought for the rights of the Dalits. Its endeavour had always been to fight Islam and Christianity, politically.
If the RSS is not a political organisation then why did it openly criticise the Constitution? It did so when it was adopted by the Constituent Assembly for not being Bhartiya in intent or content. To fight the hegemony of the Congress, which was opposed to the RSS ideology, it created a political party in 1951 called Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
