Vijayadashami, the tenth day of the waxing moon in India’s national calendar, also known as the Saka Samvat coincided with the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 this year.
This auspicious day marks the triumph of good over evil, the slaying of the demonic Mahishasura by Goddess Durga, and the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after killing Ravana.
This day was observed nationwide as the 100th anniversary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s foundation.
The release of a commemorative postage stamp crowned celebrations.
The achievements of the Sangh, despite decades of negative propaganda and misinformation, are too numerous and incontrovertible to deny.
However, like all great things, the precise beginnings of the RSS are also difficult to pin down.
In fact, not just its exact, determinate commencement, but several other facts and facets of its extraordinary history right up to the present times remain not properly explained, let alone fully understood.
No wonder, for many outside the fold, the RSS has remained somewhat of an enigma.
Few, for instance, know that what actually transpired on Vijayadashami 1925 in Nagpur was only an informal gathering of a small band of young patriots and nationalists, at the behest of Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.
Doctorji, as he was popularly known, was then thirty-six years of age. Trained and qualified in the famous Calcutta Medical College as a physician, Hedgewar, on his return to Nagpur, devoted himself to national service rather than his medical practice. Even the name of the organisation was then undecided and took close to seven months to finalise on April 17, 1926. In fact, several names cropped up, but none were accepted by all.
Finally, it came down to three: Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Jaripataka Mandal, and Bhadratoddharak Mandal.
We know which one won, and with hindsight, rightly so.
Even the Sangh’s unique methodology of assembly daily in shakhas or branches took some time to crystallise. The very first one was held on May 28, 1926, in Mohitewada, where part of the RSS headquarters stands to this day.
The colonial authorities, whose hawk eyes rarely missed any sign of dissent, let alone revolt, believed that the Sangh was little more than an open-air gymnasium, a slightly innovative version of a traditional akhara. They were, of course, quite mistaken.
For the Sangh’s goal was nothing short of a total reconstruction of the nation, especially Hindu society.
But why ‘Sangh’? This question is not answered clearly in secondary literature.
The letter, which analyses what ails India and what must be done, is so movingly relevant even today.
I have only quoted excerpts from it, to suggest the atmosphere and situation, whence the deeper impulses of the formation of the Sangh.
The general dissatisfaction with the main thrust of the freedom movement, so obsessed if not handicapped by Gandhian ahimsa and moralism, combined with the rising threat of Muslim separatism in the subcontinent, no doubt encouraged by colonial power in its last gasp.
Sri Aurobindo’s clarion call to reawaken the soul of India, such that in the temple of India, not only Hanuman, representing might, but Sri Rama, the Godhead, the Avatar, Divinity itself, might take his rightful place, would surely resonate with the restoration of Ram Janmabhoomi, the birth-shrine of Lord Rama, which occurred in January 2024.
To me, the purpose of the true Sangha, from the Buddha to RSS, would be to inspire and shape a spiritualised and exalted “life divine” on earth, which Sri Aurobindo fleetingly refers to in his letter but spent much of his energies conceptualising and creating. It is only from the loftiest ideals of our civilisation that the limitations and drawbacks of the Sangh, such as they are, might be viewed.
Not as failings or pitfalls, but steps on the way, given the present stage of evolution of Hindu and Indian society. Thus, the ultimate aim of a centennial cogitation would dare to go beyond the official narrative, enforcing or admiring the Sangh’s innumerable accomplishments or even the removal of misunderstandings.
I called my latest book, Hindutva and Hind Swaraj: History’s Forgotten Doubles, a ‘Swaraj Samvad’. Perhaps, what we need, in a similar spirit, is a ‘Sangh Samvad’ commemorating RSS@100.
Because merely praise, let alone blame, on such an occasion will not suffice. What we need is nothing less than a meditation on the meaning of Sangh as it—and a grateful nation—celebrates its 100th birth anniversary.
Makarand R Paranjape | RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE | Author and commentator
(Views are personal)
(Tweets @MakrandParanspe)