RSS’ success also has seeds of destruction

The RSS' intellectual stagnation and myth-based narratives risk alienating it from India’s knowledge-driven society

One hundred years ago, on Vijayadashami Day, September 27, 1925, the men who gathered at the residence of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur could have hardly imagined how powerful the organisation they were founding would become.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a name it acquired in 1926, has become the most powerful non-State organisation in India. No other entity enjoys the same ideological influence, a disciplined and controlled cadre, and strategic social depth.

Its executive political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), leads governments at the Centre and in 19 States and two Union Territories. Its political victories are powered by the grassroots mobilisation of the RSS.

The RSS cadre is embedded in an organisational structure that mimics paramilitary organisations, with uniforms, drills, a hierarchy of ranks, and specialised areas of work, and clear job descriptions. They amplify the cultural and political messages of the BJP both during elections and in governance, with cadre switching between ‘cultural work’ and ‘political work’.

BJP leaders are groomed by the RSS. Those who have graduated from its ideological schooling include Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, party presidents, and general secretaries. The continuing delay in the appointment of a new BJP president is attributed to the party and the RSS being unable to reach a consensus.

The RSS imprint on the BJP’s governance agenda is evident in key policies like the Citizenship Amendment Act, abrogation of Article 370, the push for a Uniform Civil Code, and the growing anti-immigrant stance, especially towards Muslim migrants from the neighbourhood.

From being a fringe movement, banned thrice — after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (as his assassin Nathuram Godse was a former member of the RSS), during the Emergency for anti-government activities, and after the demolition of the Babri masjid — the RSS has transitioned into a central power-broker in Indian polity.

It jostles for parity, if not for superior status, even with the ruling BJP — upbraiding it for its failures, appointing its leaders, frequent interaction with Union Ministers and with the Prime Minister himself writing paeans of praise for the RSS chief on his birthday.

Despite its transition from an austere organisation to having a Rs 150-crore multi-storeyed office complex, in the national capital, signalling a new corporatised structure for the organisation, the RSS remains ideologically stagnant. Success has only reinforced its Hindu majoritarian ideology, evident in its cultural campaigns, temple reconstruction movements, rewriting history textbooks, and re-shaping public narratives.

Its atavistic cultural war focuses on controlling education, with vice-chancellors and university faculty chosen for their ideological alignment. University and school curricula have been infused with Hindutva under RSS-linked ‘experts’. Revisions of history textbooks blur the line between myth-building and history, and the New Education Policy 2020 has incorporated many RSS suggestions, including emphasis on ‘Indian Knowledge systems’.

The ideological influence of the RSS on civil society was formerly channelled through its participation in disaster relief, rural development projects, tribal outreach for cultural assimilation, the promotion of Hindu festivals, Sanskrit learning, and yoga. It also sought to control and influence agencies like the Indian Council for Historical Research, the Indian Council for Social Science Research, and the Sahitya Akademi.

To these old instruments are now added prominent think-tanks like the Vivekananda International Foundation and the India Foundation, and others like the Deendayal Research Institute (rural development, self-reliance), S P Mookerjee Research Foundation (political philosophy, economic policy, BJP legacy), Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Institute for Legal and Constitutional Studies (legal reform, constitutional interpretation), Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal, Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (textbook revision, cultural education), and the Forum for Integrated National Security (national security, internal threats).

The recent statements of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat about ‘unity’ and ‘shared ancestral traditions’ are not indicators of ideological flexibility. Professions of inclusivity are situated within its majoritarian framework in which minority identities are subordinated under a shared ‘Hindu civilisation’.

The seemingly moderate statements for public consumption, hide an unchanged core agenda. Duplicity has been characteristic of the RSS — where public moderation (emphasising harmony and of Hindu-ness as a cultural rather than a religious or political identity) is accompanied by private consolidation (pushing for ideological purity, cultural dominance, and arguing for a nationhood defined by the majoritarian religion). The new ‘spin-doctoring’ of a retrogressive agenda is the result of the RSS becoming more media savvy, and more confident of its worldview as it becomes securely embedded in State institutions.

Yet, such visible dominance can also increase the RSS’ vulnerability.

It has thrived on being legally invisible and unaccountable. As an unregistered body, it has no legal existence, pays no taxes, and continues with opaque financing methods that operate through scores of affiliates.

Investigative journalism could expose its web of unidentified financers, including funds from Hindu groups abroad, and its financial dealings. The RSS could then lose its aura as a service-oriented organisation, revealing it as an unaccountable and shadowy power-centre.

Its ideological rigidity also pits it against the complex Indian social reality. Its upper-caste Brahmanism does not find resonance with many Hindu OBCs, Dalits, many tribals, and by definition, with the Christian-dominated population of India’s North East or Muslim-dominated Kashmir. Its attempts at homogenisation come into conflict with a highly differentiated Hindu population, in particular with Ambedkarite groups, the Bhim Army, and parties centred on regional cults and cultures.

At some point, the overreach of its ideological and majoritarian campaigns may face democratic resistance in terms of legal challenges, civil protests, and international backlash. Its undermining of democratic norms, academic autonomy, and media freedoms may lead to a push back from the courts, civil society, and international watchdogs, leading to reputational damage and legal constraints.

Ideological dogmatism has encouraged its intellectual stagnation, and the resultant echo-chamber effect could be the RSS’ undoing. Its cultural and historical claims are based on myths going counter to the worldview of a knowledge-based society, alienating public intellectuals, students, and thinking citizens.

As a result, its success is totally dependent on the electoral success of its executive wing — the BJP. This is its greatest weakness. If and when the BJP loses power or faces coalition pressures, the RSS will also diminish.

The RSS’ ideological inflexibility will eventually clash with the needs of the dynamic and pluralist democracy of India. Its rigidity, opacity, unaccountability, overreach, and overdependence on the BJP will then become major liabilities. Its majoritarian vision may then not be the default face of nationalism.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)