Akshay vat !

 

PRIME Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s description of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as the Akshay Vat -- timeless banyan tree -- on the centenary of the iconic organisation creates a grand picture of the contribution the RSS has made to India’s cultural persona in the past one hundred years. The metaphor just fits well -- of a massive, timeless spread of the banyan tree with countless stilt-roots adding value to the grandeur of the great canopy under which Indian culture has stood protected and preserved in difficult times. Mr. Narendra Modi was not only paying tributes to the organisation to which he belonged in a lifelong commitment but was also defining the signal contribution of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has made to India’s public life from a purely nationalistic standpoint.

 

The Prime Minister’s words, thus, embody a whole range of issues on which the RSS’ stance made a critical difference in India’s national discourse. The task of upholding Indianness of the larger society, of bringing about a stronger unity in the Hindu community, of highlighting the importance of fine cultural value-system for nation-building -- all these have been the parts of the RSS footprint in the past one hundred years.

 

The Prime Minister highlighted those in his own way. Though the RSS did not make any pronounced programme of celebrations of the centenary, it has launched a five-pronged action-plan for a greater, deeper and wider connect with the larger Indian society at different levels. Without any pomp and show, the RSS has re-committed itself to continue doing better what it has done for the past one hundred years since its inception on March 11, 1925 -- the Gudhi Padwa Day, the first day of the Hindu calendar. Though it has seen much transformation in its method and manner, the RSS has never deviated from the path chalked out by its founder Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. He identified the cause of much of the trouble the country was facing in those days under alien rule -- absence of strong sense of unity in the Hindu community in tune with India’s ancient culture, ethos and history. By founding the organisation, Dr. Hedgewar showed the way that goal could be achieved. Mr. Narendra Modi -- along with countless numbers of important functionaries in India’s political pyramid today -- has been a Swayamsevak -- volunteer -- of the RSS since his childhood back home in Vadnagar in Gujarat. As a school-going child, he started spending his evenings at the RSS shakha -- branch -- and earned higher acceptance in the organisation before he was shifted to do political work with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

 

That proved to be a momentous shift whose effect the country and the world are experiencing now. Having seen the RSS from within in this manner, the Prime Minister has a good idea of the place the organisation occupies in the larger context of India. Of course, the journey of the past one hundred years was not easy for the RSS. It suffered political attacks of the worst kind, and even faced two bans -- first in 1948 following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and the second during the Emergency slapped on the country by Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1975. Through those ordeals, the RSS stood its ground, and ultimately emerged victorious. Thanks to its consistent stance on issues of critical national importance, the RSS came to be known as a strong pro-democracy voice with an ability to influence the overall discourse. However, politics is never the forte or core area of the RSS. It is only incidental, to say the least, in pursuance with its philosophy of cultural nationalism as an extension of forces of ancient history in the Sanatan tradition. That is the actual strength of the RSS, its essence of existence.