Rss 360° Page 2

  It is only under Nehru that the RSS came to be dubbed as ‘communal’ and ‘fascist’ and hounded systematically out of the Congress party as well as all positions of power. Ratan Sharda’s book provides a brief overview of the calumny and persecution faced by the RSS at the hands of Nehruvian Congress ever since its inception.

  The Sangh also continues to be stigmatised for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi even though it has come out clean in the enquiry commission reports as well as through the actual trial of Nathuram Godse. The left academics have ensured its place in history as a “fascist” organization by describing it thus in their “scholarly” writings and political tracts. This stigma and defamation has been immortalised by inclusion in the curricula of colleges and universities not just in India, but internationally as well. This is an important reason why young people without prior family connections with the RSS, grow up with a strong aversion to having even the remotest connections with the RSS or Hindutva, which often extends to deep suspicion of any organisation claiming ‘Hindu’ identity.

  I would put the blame for this in large part on the shoulders of the Sangh leadership. It defies comprehension why it has avoided filing defamation suits against some of the stalwarts of incessant hate campaigns against the RSS for decades. A few legal wins would silence such malafide criticism.

  The second major flaw of the RSS is that it has chosen to be known to the world mainly through the accounts of its enemies. There is virtually no scholarly study of the RSS by any of its own, or at least those who are not pathologically averse to its very existence. Leading national and international publishers have been publishing ill-informed tracts against the RSS for decades on end, but there has never been an effective scholarly counter to such publications. As a result they are used in various universities of the world as the most authoritative accounts of what RSS represents.

  Even with regard to its cause célèbre, the ‘Ram Mandir campaign, the RSS-BJP combine failed to disseminate the enormous body of archaeological and historical evidence made available by credible independent archaeologists and historians. Archaeologists like B.B. Lal, credited with path breaking work in digging out irrefutable evidence of the existence of a Ram Mandir underneath the Babri structure, and many other scholars, have not been promoted as iconic figures the way the Leftists and Islamists have promoted the likes of Romila Thapar or Irfan Habib, who provided intellectual fire power to the Islamist denial that a Ram Mandir ever existed at the site. Independent historians who documented the history of the Ram Mandir demolition and the centuries-long battles waged by Hindus to reclaim the shrine held sacred by millions worked without due recognition and backing from the RSS. By contrast, the Babri Masjid Action Committee turned all those mediocre academics, who became its sepoys, who acted as foot soldiers of Islamists got anointed as cultural czars and czarinas, “award winning” writers, theatre persons, and film makers.

  None of the books of independent scholars like Sita Ram Goel, Dharampal, Ram Swarup, Koenrad Elst, Meenakshi Jain, B.B. Lal and now Rajiv Malhotra, who challenged the Left-Islamist narrative are part of the curriculum even in BJP-ruled states. Ratan Sharda acknowledges this lapse, but understandably in a very mild tone of self-criticism. Failure to nurture high quality scholarship in the domain of education and culture— the two areas that the Sangh claims to hold most dear for the civilisational renaissance it wishes to bring about—has been one of its biggest handicaps.

  An important reason for this could well be rooted in the language issue. The Sangh has rightly chosen to work through Hindi and regional languages. The core of its political base in the heartland of India mainly consists of Hindi and regional language speaking middle and lower middle class families. Therefore, most of its workers and ‘intellectuals’ are not from elite English education backgrounds; and in that sense, the RSS could well be said to represent the cultural subalterns of India.

  Negative sentiments towards RSS are also in part due to the fact that its leaders live spartan lives and are not the kind to be part of elite cocktail party circuits. Their “desi” culture makes them very unattractive to the media. The total mismatch between the expectations and spoilt habits of media personnel and the value system and culture of RSS makes it unworthy of media attention.

  Combine with it the chosen strategy of RSS leaders to avoid seeking publicity for its activities, because they believe in discretely conducting their work in the spirit of nisvarth seva,—you have a perfect situation whereby all the good work done by the RSS can be discounted and negative stereotypes allowed to hold sway. On the flip side, avoiding media publicity is one of its greatest strengths because it keeps individual egos under check and sustains the culture of giving to society without expecting anything in return. However, given that the world we are in, where demonic forces are able to dominate public discourse with aggressive self-advancement, this strategy of avoiding self-promotion needs to be carefully reconsidered and re-crafted.

  The selfless work of RSS volunteers during natural and manmade disasters is unparalleled. What is more, they do not practice the slightest bit of discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, class or religion. But neither do they give press releases nor have they ever documented their enormous body of self-less work. On the other hand, the media men covering such tragedies deliberately block out mention of RSS seva.. Similarly, their work among poor tribals and Dalits, and their consistent efforts to eradicate the curse of untouchability and bridge caste divides not only goes unacknowledged, but they continue to be damned for promoting upper caste domination.

  One of the criticisms of the RSS has been that its ideology is inherently divisive, that it is rabidly anti-Muslim and anti-Christian. That its vision of the Hindu rashtra excludes people of both these religions. However, Ratan Sharda’s account of the core principles of the RSS makes it clear that if evaluated on grounds of its own stated values, this charge is malafide. Neither its daily prayer nor the daily activities of Shakhas nor the relevant extracts from the RSS constitution or the principles around which RSS has sought to organize itself indicate a divisive mindset. However, as an organisation, which has taken to heart the wounds inflicted upon Hindu civilisation by Islamic invaders and British colonisation, and is obsessed with finding ways to avoid any further partitions or enslavement of India by foreign imperialists, its publicly stated mistrust of those who ‘believe in extra national loyalties, or resort to violent and/or secret activities to achieve their ends, or which promote or attempt to promote, or have the object of promoting any feeling of enmity or hatred towards any other community or creed or religious domination’ gets easily interpreted as being anti-Christian and anti-Muslim. These two religions systematically use demonization of Hinduism to persuade people to convert to Islam or Christianity.

  However, it must be noted that the Sangh does not have a close door policy towards Christians or Muslims. It welcomes them into the Shakha and at all levels of the organization, though it is inconceivable that a Muslim or Christian can ever become head of the Sangh, just as it is inconceivable for a Hindu or a Buddhist to become the chief minister of J&K though there is a substantial population of both in the state. RSS has even set up a special platform for ‘nationalist Muslims’.

  The stated aim of the RSS is samajik samrasta (social harmony). Unlike, the Communists and Marxists whose self-declared ideology is the class struggle and class war involving principled hostility and commitment to vanquish class enemies, the self-proclaimed aim of the RSS is to bridge social divides, whether of caste, language, ethnicity, gender or faith. And yet the RSS is demonized as a “fascist” organization. !

  This is how I would explain the pathological hatred displayed by Christian and Muslim leaders as well as their Leftists, pseudo-secular allies towards the RSS:

  1)RSS is not against ‘freedom of religion’ (FoR) nor does it want Christians and Muslims to be banished out of India. However, it is not willing to extend ‘FoR’ to mean freedom to convert Hindus to Islam or Christianity
through means fair or foul.

  2)RSS rightly sees Christianity and Islam as non-Indic religions that imposed themselves on India through military conquest and political domination. However, it does not insist that Christians and Muslims abandon their faith or have crippling restrictions on practicing their religion, as in China or the erstwhile Soviet Union. The sum total of the RSS message to these two groups is that they should not disown the history, culture and civilisational values of this land nor nurture extra-territorial loyalties.

  3)RSS is not willing to be unconditional in its commitment to non-violence as was Gandhi. They reserve the right to violence in self-defence as in Kerala where the Communist-Islamist combine have used brutal violence, outright murders as well as the might of the state machinery to prevent the Sangh from gaining a political foothold.

  4)RSS is firm in the belief that the road to samajik samrasta lies in treating Hindu faith and traditions with respect and allowing them a respectful place in public life, because only those parts of the Indian sub-continent survived as a multi-cultural, multi-faith, open society where Hindus are a majority and the Indic world-view is a vibrant force. Wherever Islam or Christianity have come to dominate, other faith groups are wiped out as in Pakistan or even India’s Kashmir. In other words, RSS is rightly convinced that India’s liberalism is rooted not in a copy-cat version of European secularism, but in Hindu/Indic values.

  5)The speed with which the RSS is expanding its base among Dalits and various backward castes is a key source of angst and outrage for its political adversaries, because these groups are primary targets of conversion.

  Its adversaries are petrified at the speed with which RSS is refashioning its orientation, adapting its ideology to the regional aspirations of India and embracing large communities that had hitherto remained allergic or indifferent to it. It is the Shakti that energizes BJP’s spread into hitherto inaccessible regions.

  Ratan Sharda has done a great service to his organisation by providing brief glimpses of the range of such engagements and achievements of the RSS in fields where it is most misunderstood. Hopefully, it will encourage independent scholars to carry out more in-depth research on the organisation.

  Finally, so long as the Sangh Parivar continues to let the pseudo secular Leftists, evangelicals and Islamists monopolise the championship of human rights, women’s rights, minority rights, environmental concerns and protection of vulnerable caste communities, RSS will not be able to become an effective catalyst for a Resurgent Bharat. For that, it needs much deeper engagement with academic, intellectual and cultural challenges facing India–that is Bharat.

  Madhu Purnima Kishwar

  Preface

  For any author it is sense of great satisfaction when a prestigious publishing house shows readiness to publish a new version of a book already in market. I must admit that I had to work really hard on this version due to high critical standards of their editorial team. I had to revisit the entire manuscript with a fine sieve, edit out some repetitive ideas, tighten the content and most importantly, validate many of my views and references. I also updated a few chapters with information about new developments in RSS that I have gathered lately. So, I can confidently say that this is, indeed, a “New Improved” version! This is the reason ‘Secrets of RSS – Demystifying the Sangh’ has taken new form as ‘RSS 3600 – Demystifying Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’.

  I feel truly privileged that Ms. Madhu Kishwar agreed to write the foreword to this book. It was gracious of her to put her pen to paper for an author who is not an academic in a truly academic sense. My interactions with Madhu ji are quite recent, though I have been a fan of her sharp and well researched writings for quite some time. Her espousal of feminism from Indian perspective is path breaking, considering she began her work decades back in the backdrop of a highly hyped and dominant western world view. I regret that the foreword had to be edited to nearly half of its original size due to the compulsions of publishing conventions, though even this is much longer than the normal forewords! Inspite of this, I and the publishers believe that we have been able to keep the spirit of her views alive.

  Madhu ji’s foreword is actually a critique of the RSS, quite harsh in some places. Honestly speaking, more critical than I had expected! I did not go back to her to counter her criticism or soften it. As an eminent intellectual with good of the nation at heart, she is welcome to express her ideas. This is in keeping with the spirit of open dialogue that I, as a person trained in RSS school of thought, believe in. Hindu philosophy is the bedrock of pluralism with respect for diverse views, not just tolerance. I believe that reading the foreword would be a good starting point for the readers to form their own opinions in a more critical manner as they progress with RSS 3600.

  When I wrote the ‘Secrets of RSS’ I was virtually a nobody, an erstwhile RSS worker who had worked in various capacities in it for decades, known well only within RSS network. I had just edited a score of books with varied content, as a hobby. The book was born out of my urge to tell the people, not brought up in RSS milieu, about RSS. After Mr. Nitin Gadkari released it in Delhi, it got a very good coverage, but with a twist. The headlines said, “BJP President comes out to defend RSS”! It was the time when the sinister plot to implicate the RSS in so-called ‘Saffron Terror’ was in full flow. This was the most concerted government backed attempt to crush the RSS since the time of Mahatma Gandhi ji’s assassination in 1948 and Emergency in 1975. RSS was virtually alone, yet again, in this battle to save its image as no media house or party wanted to be seen being sympathetic to it and get ‘tarred’. None of them paused to think that if RSS was, indeed, a terror organization it would be impossible to stop it due to its intensive and extensive network. Political untouchability, coupled with already enforced intellectual untouchability had reared its head again.

  By the time the second edition of Secrets was published, history had turned a new leaf. Mr. Narendra Modi, an erstwhile RSS prachaarak, a dedicated BJP worker from a humble background had risen to the post of Prime Minister of the biggest democracy of the world with a massive mandate. By then, interest in the RSS had already risen sharply inspite of its political isolation with the terror tag pinned on it, proved by rising hits on RSS website with requests to become its member. However, with advent of Modi ji, this interest rose astronomically. One would meet people routinely claiming earlier allegiance through family or childhood association! I too had been given new responsibilities in the RSS by then. I must add here that no one at any level of the organisation questioned me for my criticism of the organization in the book.

  Now, as ‘RSS 360°’ is ready to go press, new motivated attacks on RSS have been mounted with renewed ‘Hindu Terror’ allegations. Old beaten to death allegations are being repeated by frustrated Left Secular cabal. The big difference is that there are many in electronic, print and social media who are ready to defend RSS against these attacks. Hindutva, Dharma, Cultural Nationalism has found new defenders and intellectual evangelists who have no relation with RSS. What could be a better tribute to its steadfastness to its objective of ‘Sanghmay samaaj’, that is – a society imbued with spirit of Hinduness! In the meanwhile, I have also become a much sought after commentator on RSS, Hindu society related issues and political scenario. When I meet people in TV studios, I am amused with comments like, “We didn’t know that RSS people are so knowledgeable and reasonable.” Some of them are like, “Are you real?” Thus, this period has been a roller coaster ride for me personally as a keen observer of socio-political scenario of India.

  Response to this idea of 360° degree view of RSS has been very positive both from supporters and critics of the RSS, and most importantly from the people who had no clue what RSS is all about. This last segment is the one that was my primary target, and I feel deeply satisfied that this audience has found the book informative and quite objective. Some of the TV co-panellists to whom I present my book, warn me that they would send me a critical comments after reading, and
I am still waiting for them!

  These interactions revalidate my premise that there is big hunger among people to know the RSS and understand it better. It is good to see that my efforts to. present a 360° degree view of RSS in a simple form as an outsider in an as unbiased manner as possible though I am insider, has found wide acceptance. With a publisher like Bloomsbury, I am sure the book will reach much larger audience not only in India but across the globe and help people understand RSS better.

  Ratan Sharda

  14th Jan, 2018

  Acknowledgements

  I thank all my colleagues in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - each of whom was a source of inspiration in my life, and whose silent work motivated me to write this book.

  I have given real life examples of many of my seniors and colleagues, without taking their consent. Many of them being publicity shy would surely grumble at their names being mentioned! But, I do believe, a story is heartening when it presents an individual in real flesh and blood, hence this liberty.

  My friend Sandeep Singh deserves to be mentioned for pushing me to write this book. He seriously believes that there is a discernible gap between the public perception of RSS and the reality.

  I thank senior prachaaraks and leaders of RSS who encouraged me when I discussed the idea of writing this introductory book on RSS with them. The inspiration for presenting ideas in a simplistic way comes from the senior RSS prachaarak Shri Ranga Hariji. I have quoted him extensively in the book. My heartfelt gratitude to this great noble soul, who represents the best in the prachaarak tradition of RSS.

  I would be remiss if I didn’t express my debt to Shri Bimal Kedia who has greatly encouraged me take up writing and helping others as well to write over the past few years. He has also been an inspiration as a living embodiment of a selfless RSS worker to the core.