MARCH 30, 2025 -- Gudhi Padwa (Hindu New Year Day and birth anniversary of founder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar) -- will get written in the Sangh history as a very important day and date. For, on that day, as the RSS completed its 100 years since inception, Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi made a trip to Nagpur to visit the memorials of Dr Hedgewar and second Sarsanghachalak Shri Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar ‘Guruji’. The Prime Minister also shared a public platform with RSS Sarsanghachalak Dr Mohan Bhagwat and asserted that the RSS was the banyan tree -- Akshay Vat -- of Indian culture (from which the larger society draws its sustenance). Mr Narendra Modi became the second Prime Minister to visit the RSS headquarters, the first being Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.

 

 

 

 

 

The visit took place under intense public glare as rumours were doing the rounds about possible differences between the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Intense political loose talk in the media and political circles also surrounded the visit -- paving the way for further speculations about the manner and method of the functioning of the RSS. The Prime Minister’s visit to Nagpur also marked the centenary of the RSS -- though the organisation chose not to make a celebratory splash on the occasion. In the evening of March 30, there was a massive gathering of the Swayamsevaks at Nagpur, addressed by a couple of RSS luminaries, all right. But that was taken as a routine event -- though attended by more than 10,000 Swayamsevaks who were digitally registered for accurate data-gathering. On the sidelines of that eventful day, senior RSS functionaries and Swayamsevaks insisted that it was it was only unfortunate to connect politics to any development within the Sangh Parivar. As a person who has watched the RSS seriously without any political intention, this scribe can assert that it is only foolhardy to consider the RSS as a political organisation. It is true that the RSS has never shied away from its national responsibility when things came to crunch even in politics. Yet, its core value is nation-building through man-moulding -- manushya-nirman se rashtra-nirman. Despite this, the RSS has always remained shrouded in political gossip -- which reflected itself when Mr Narendra Modi visited the Smruti Mandir in Nagpur on Gudhi Padwa. There should be no doubt that the RSS and the BJP often engage themselves in intense deliberations on national situation from time to time.

 

When two of the country’s central organisations stand on a common foundation, then there is likely to be some scope to have different opinions and approaches on issues. But the beauty of the Sangh Parivar is that it is a community of institutions set up to serve different purposes that ultimately serve the larger India vision that prompted the foundation of the RSS a hundred years ago. No matter the political speculations, the RSS has its own way to handle such situations. As a political observer said long ago, the RSS leadership enjoys keeping the political community confused about what the organisation is all about. The trouble, actually, is that those in politics and public affairs and the media have not made sincere attempts to understand what the RSS is all about. That is mainly so because they have never tried to understand the alignment of its original purpose and age-old practice. For, they have missed the intent expressed by RSS founder Dr Hedgewar and his subsequent successors without any deviation. It is pertinent to understand what Dr Hedgewar told Mahatma Gandhi in the winter of 1934 in Wardha, nine years after the inception of the organisation. The RSS had organised its training camp at Wardha (Maharashtra). Mahatma Gandhi also was visiting his Sevagram Ashram at the same time.

 

Through his personal secretary Mahadevbhai Desai, Gandhi Ji communicated to the RSS office-bearers at Wardha his inclination to visit the training camp. The RSS officers agreed and Gandhi Ji visited the training camp on December 25, 1934 at 6 in the morning. The Mahatma found about 15,00 Swayamsevaks in uniform -- and appreciated the sense of discipline, cleanliness and alertness etc. To Mr. Appaji Joshi, a close aide of Dr. Hedgewar, the Mahatma said, “I am very happy. I have not seen a more alluring scene than this”. The next day, on December 26, 1934, Mahatama Gandhi also met Dr. Hedgewar and asked him what the definition of a Swayamsevak was. Dr. Hedgewar said (as quoted by senior RSS functionary Mr. Sunil Ambekar in his book The RSS Roadmaps for the 21st Century -- Rupa Publications 2019), “One who would happily, of his own free will and with goodwill towards all, succeed in submitting everything for the national cause, I would consider his a swayamsevak leader. My target is to raise such swamyamsevaks. In this organisation, there is no difference between a leader and a swayamsevak. We are all swayamsevaks.

 

Bearing equality towards all, we make no distinctions and have no place for hierarchies.” O F COURSE, an organisation must have its hierarchy, all right, the RSS is no exception. Yet, over time, it has perfected a system of command and control that has helped the organisation for the last hundred years -- with some appropriate changes in the systems as needed by changing times. But those who keep making wild guesses and loose talk about the RSS and its (so-called) political activity often go terribly off-mark because they have not tried to understand the core thought of the organisation, its original purpose of being, and its management systems. If they do that, they will be able to decipher the RSS thought and action more accurately. One of the most intriguing aspects of the RSS is its philosophy of its own existence. Around early 1970s when the then Sarsanghachalak Golwalkar ‘Guruji’ was recuperating from a critical surgery, this scribe picked up courage to ask him a naive question, in effect, if he was concerned about his years left and worried that the work would be left unfinished. ‘Guruji’ smiled and said, in effect, ‘The work the RSS does is in line with historic task of nation building that has been going on for centuries and being carried on by great men and women.

 

To think that such a work would remain unfinished if one lifetime is over, is totally wrong’. This sense of continuity with history, such sense of nationalism has been at the core of the RSS and its thought and action. At times, the RSS may find itself engaged in some political thought -- NOT activity. But its core value is to promote nationalism beyond politics and beyond social fault-lines. To achieve this, it has created a structure and style of organisational management that has survived through vagaries of time. This is best explained through an age-old slogan the RSS often put forward -- ‘Sangh Samaj Banega’ -- means Sangh (RSS) would become society. In other words, it works towards an ideal situation when RSS and the society become one singularity. This is not poetry. Those who have watched the RSS seriously know that a serious effort is being made for the past one hundred years to make this Sangh Samaj Banega singularity practically possible.

 

This may appear to be a lofty ideal, all right. But every elevation of larger human society to the next level has come only through pursuit of lofty ideals. As the RSS steps into the next century, its challenges are going to be far more complex than ever. Yet, those who have studied the organisation also realise that the RSS is engaged in a serious preparation to meet those challenges that India and the world would face. There is every reason to believe that it -- the RSS - - would continue to be one of the drivers of the idea of New India and its position as the world leader -- Vishwa Guru -- in a true sense .