Full Text | RSS at 100: How the Sangh Both Aligns With—and Differs From—Classical Fascism

Leading political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot spoke to Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire about the origins and foundational thinking of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, how it both aligns with – and differs from – classical fascism and authoritarianism, and what the future portends for the organisation, and for India. The RSS turned 100 on September 27, 2025.

The text of the conversation, recorded in Paris, is being reproduced here in full with minor edits for readability. It has been transcribed by Anya Rajgarhiya, an editorial intern for The Wire.

Siddharth Varadarajan (SV): Hello, and welcome to this special interview for The Wire. On September the 27th 2025, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the RSS turns 100. The organisation was founded in Nagpur on the 27th of September 1925. And joining me to discuss the journey that it has been on for this past 100 years is Christophe Jaffrelot, professor at Sciences Po in Paris, author of several books on India and on South Asia, and of course somebody who has watched the RSS, its politics, its ideology as a scholar for decades.

I want to begin with a question that's on the top of the minds of our viewers, which is that here you have an organisation that's been around for 100 years. When it began its activities in 1925 and for the first few decades, it consciously kept away from the main political current in India at that time, which was the freedom struggle. They didn't take part in it. They kept off it and after India became independent in 1947, for several decades, this organisation, the RSS, remained sort of overshadowed by other political currents, other political trends. This process changes somewhere around the mid 70s. And if we consider the last 50 years of the RSS, clearly this organisation has grown in terms of influence, in terms of its ability to push and direct Indian politics by leaps and bounds. And today, of course, the RSS controls the Indian state. As a scholar who has studied the RSS and studied Indian politics, how do you assess the nature of this journey that the RSS has been for the past 100 years?

Christophe Jaffrelot (CJ): Well, in some ways, you can say it's a success story. They have achieved a lot in 100 years, which is in itself an achievement. How many organisations grow for 100 years? They were born in the 1920s but there were so many similar movements in Europe. None of these European movements survived. They did. So, you have first of all to explain this this capacity to continue the enterprise, the initiatives and one of the explanations there is, is that their modus operandi that was not depending upon a leader. So they are not defined as believers of a religion but as a race and the word is there in Savarkar's book. That's the first criterion for defining the Hindus and it is still there today. And the second criterion was territory - punymabhumi, the sacred land. Well, again, it has something to do with religion in terms of rituals, but not in terms of belief, not in terms of, I would say, doctrine. The secret territory and the Hindu race are the two faces of that coin. And this is so similar to Zionism. If we try to find an equivalent, a similar ideology, it is Zionism. It was there in the 1920s. It is there 100 years ago from there today. And the consequence is all those who are not from that stock, minorities, cannot be equal to the sons of the soil.

SV: So religion comes in but in an indirect sort of way.

CJ: Exactly. Religion comes as a kind of mode of exclusion for those who are not from that historical pool of people. That has remained the same. What has changed is, for me, first of all, the public engagement. Hedgewar, Golwalkar, had no interest in taking part in politics and even the Hindu Mahasabha tried hard in the 20s, 30s, 40s and Golwalkar made sure that they would not compromise the organisation – they would not take the risk of being repressed and suppressed by the British. So to do politics was certainly not on the initial agenda.

SV: But it was tactical, perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight.

CJ: It was tactical, but I think it was also a reflection of their long-term agenda. They did not want to conquer power. They wanted to conquer society. They wanted to reshape the mind, the psyche of society. That's still there, by the way.

SV: Yes.

CJ: That's still there. It has changed a bit. We will return to that, but it is still the main game, the main aim. You do not conquer power first because power can go. You need to conquer society because once you have society, power will come almost automatically. So it's a long-term agenda and in the 20s, 30s, 40s, there is no way you can dissuade them from that – focusing on the development of shakhas – and they will send pracharaks from Nagpur across the country for that only.

SV: Promoting ideology and belief system.

CJ: And the discipline, the organisation. Organisation is key. You have to be with the right uniform, with the right practices, on the shakha every morning, every evening. And that's what Golwalkar says – we will fight angularities. No angularities means you are all in line with the organisation. So that's the modus operandi till the 40s, till Mahatma Gandhi's assassination because then when Godse who was still part of RSS when he when he killed Mahatma Gandhi...

SV: But the whole membership was kept secret in a way, or the affiliation was kept secret.

CJ: Definitely. They had to take an oath that was secret. So you can say it was not part of RSS anymore but I've interviewed Gopal Godse.

SV: The brother. He confirmed it, right?

CJ: Yes. He said we never left. We never left. And he wrote that, even. So they were banned. RSS was banned for that reason and 20,000 swayamsevaks were put behind bars and then Golwalkar and others, there was a debate. Some old-timers told me – Nanaji Deshmukh or Vasantrao Oak, even K.R. Malkani told me, there was a debate and finally it was decided that we should enter the public sphere to have, first of all, a party that would defend us. That would lobby the other political forces. So they create Jan Sangh. But they create Jan Sangh as a joint venture with Hindu Mahasabha people. Syama Prasad Mookerjee and others. And gradually of course with Deendayal Upadhyaya as the sangathan mantri, RSS takes over Jan Sangh and this party will remain microscopic till the 70s. 1967, they are very lucky. The cow protection movement bears some fruit but they peak at 9% of the valid votes. So they are there in the public sphere but can't attract any attention, as you said.

SV: And in fact are overshadowed by the Communist parties.

CJ: Yes. By far.

SV: Which had a larger share of the vote and also incidentally who trace their history back to 1925.

CJ: Yes. Well, you know, 1925 and Nagpur are two amazing dates and places because it's also when Babasaheb Ambedkar started to use a new Dalit ideology. So what made them more successful in the '70s? Opposition parties. Why could they make some inroads? Not so much in the '71 elections, of course, but in state elections in Gujarat in the early 70s-mid 70s even before emergency because of the way opposition parties started to indulge in non-Congressism and for making the opposition stronger against Congress. They could have seat adjustments. By the way, that started in the 60s, that started in '63 by elections. But it became much more routinised in '71 – the Grand Alliance. Many people are joining hands with Jan Sangh and of course, the JP movement. The JP movement for me is the number one turning point when in the name of fighting corruption, fighting Indira Gandhi, you agree that you may differ ideologically but Congress is target number one. Morarji Desai, Charan Singh himself, BKD, BLD and some socialist leaders as well and this is the beginning of something that will gel during the Emergency because in the Emergency they will be all in jail together. It's a pressure cooker. 18 months together in jail. At the end, they take this they make this big decision to merge into the general party. So, it's a very important turning point that will, of course, be followed by another turning point and I would like to end with that one to respond to this question that you asked because the dual membership controversy finally-

SV: Breaks the Janata party.

CJ: Breaks the Janata party. Very quickly. '79, it's a two years story. And the socialist Madhu Limaye whom I interviewed at length was one of those who said no, to whom do you pay allegiance to Janata party or to RSS dual membership controversy because they were asking for a law against cow slaughter, a law for making conversions impossible. They wanted to rewrite the history textbooks already. So there was this tension and finally '79, they leave. March '80, they create BJP. This is the time when Deoras considers that there is no way you can make progress by following a strategy of coalition. Coalitions are not the solution. These other opposition parties cannot be reliable. We have to build the Hindu vote bank. And you have this amazing speech by Deoras saying, now we are going to teach a lesson to the politicians. We are going to make Hindus politically conscious of their rights and we will not need partners. And this is the beginning of the Ayodhya movement. The Ayodhya movement will be defined around that time. It will crystallise in the street for the first time in the 1984 demonstrations, when they will say God must be liberated. This is the beginning of the process. Of course '84, they can't make any difference because of the assassination of Indira Gandhi but they returned to the same agenda in '89 and that's a turning point.

SV: So, in a sense the long-term decision that the RSS takes in the 1920s and 30s which is to avoid directly pressing for political power, as you said, focus on mobilising society, mobilising ordinary Hindus. By the 80s, the party is ready to harvest the sort of long work that it's put in and to give a push to...

CJ: Exactly. We have to look at a long-term trajectory and events. That's why in my book, I try to constantly look at circumstances and the way our circumstances accelerated history, the long-term agenda or not. And sometimes, it did not. On the contrary, when Indira and before Jawaharlal Nehru are strictly secular and punish them and make their life complicated. Everything is slowed down. And when on the contrary, they play the game, the shilanyaas, the way Rajiv Gandhi really led down the first stone of the temple symbolically by saying the election campaign starts from Faizabad. Then you open an avenue for them to enter.

SV: Which is the game that they are much more skilful at playing than the Congress party could ever hope to do. You and other scholars have written about the influence of European fascist ideas, European fascist leaders on the RSS, on the Hindutva movement in general. Now that we have 100 years before us, would you say we have enough data, evidence to characterise the RSS as a fascist movement? I don't want to get fixated on labels necessarily. But if we think of the RSS in relation to some of these European progenitors, how different is it to those parties? How similar is it? You've already mentioned one difference which is that the relationship of the organisation to the leader is very different. But in terms of the approach to nationalism, approach to political economy, what would you say are the similarities and differences between the RSS and more conventional fascist movements?

CJ: Well, indeed, fascism relies on two pillars. The Führerprinzip, the leaders matter a lot. Secondly, political power is what you want to conquer as a priority and that's why Hitler in München in 1923 tried to conquer power by a putsch and Mussolini walked on Rome. RSS never walked on Delhi. These two pillars are not there. The priority being, I repeat, to conquer society, conquer the mindset of the people, and therefore try not to be coercive but to be persuasive. You may be coercive vis-a-vis those who cannot join because they are on the minorities side but if we have these two differences, we have one strong similarity and that's why I would not say that it's a fascist movement but a totalitarian movement because the similarity is there cannot be any dissent. We are part of a united, I mean, organic nation and there's no way you can dissent. You're part of this potentially harmonious body that is the nation. Those who cannot be part of it have to be excluded but otherwise you're there and that's why the caste system remains so important for them, at least originally. Even if they don't say it anymore, I think it is still there. You know, when you look at Upadhyaya's Integral Humanism, it's nothing but the Varna Vyavastha system...

SV: Repackaged.

CJ: Repackaged. That's totalitarian. The same way RSS as a disciplined body with the uniform, with the body language, is a totalitarian organisation. You can't dissent again. We have varieties of totalitarian movements. Fascism is one of the types but this is another type and that has something to do with some Hindu characteristics. The caste system, for sure, but also the Guru-Shishya Parampara. This faculty of the master to get disciples, we will never object. We will always bow to the personality of the so-called superior mind.

SV: They're doing that still without the Führer principle.

CJ: Yes. Because it's not in politics. All the pracharaks are somewhat gurus for this. There are many masters.

SV: I was planning to focus more on the history but this brings me to a contemporary question which is that if we look at varieties of totalitarianism, so you have Pinochet, you have Galtieri in Latin America, you have Mussolini, Franco, Hitler in Europe. All of them are totalitarian. None of them tolerate dissent. All of them are ruthless with critics. And trample on democracy. Not all of them necessarily marry this repressive state apparatus with an exclusionary sort of approach towards citizens, right? And it's in that respect – the relentless targeting of Muslims, the desire to exclude, discriminate, harass, to undermine the cultural, economic, social foundations of Muslims in India – that we see comparisons with the authoritarianism of a Hitler rather than necessarily a Pinochet or a Franco. So on this issue of similarities again, one need not be too fixated with analogies. But could it be, and this is this is what brings me to the contemporary, could it be that we are now witnessing under Modi – Modi is a pracharak, he comes from the RSS, he's now the prime minister of India, and in a way when we say RSS has state power, Modi is the face of that state power, of course, as an elected leader, not an RSS guy, but if you look at the kind of cult of personality that's built around Modi, the kind of obsequiousness with which ministers refer to government decisions and Modi's role and so on and so forth – are we now seeing the manifestation of a kind of Führerprinzip which may force us to then reassess where RSS has come now after 100 years?

CJ: We have to reassess for sure. The Modi era is opening a new chapter. Again, there is some continuity but clearly something new. Is Hitler the model or is Netanyahu the model? I would argue that it's more on the Netanyahu side for one reason. Hitler captured power by winning elections but there was no election after he won. Modi, like Netanyahu, like Erdogan...

SV: Keeps winning elections.

CJ: Keeps winning elections. And need to win elections for getting the legitimacy to say, I am the people and if I am the people, the judiciary cannot have any say in anything because my legitimacy is above their legality. And it's not only the judiciary or the institutions. And not only that, I am the people made of the sons of the soil. And this is why the comparison with Israel is so interesting. Here is a new form of national populism that is potentially authoritarian because the legitimacy comes from the verdict, the support given by the sons of the soil, the real people, the only people that matters, at the expense of the minorities. But there are elections now. And that's why the comparison is more and more with Netanyahu and Erdogan. You can't lose elections. And when your popularity is eroding-

SV: You then work on other methods.

CJ: You have to find the other repertoires. You have to rig elections in the first place. You may need sometimes to indeed fight battles which may renew your legitimacy of your popularity. That's why they are fighting wars also. But yes, that's new. That's new. But you see for me the newness is not so unique because we see very similar developments elsewhere in the world.

SV: But the difference in the sense, tempting as it is to compare Modi with some of these other people and vice versa, this is where we come back to the RSS, that not one of these leaders, not Putin, not Trump, even though Trump is creating a sort of MAGA base, none of these leaders has an organisation like the RSS to backstop them.

CJ: That's true. But as Modi, this organisation behind him, this is where he is opening something new because when you look at how he rose in Gujarat. By the elections of 2007, RSS was not happy with him. Told him and did not combat for him. So he had to invent a parallel power structure, relate directly to the voters. It's a populist modus operandi and the populists don't want organisations. They don't want to depend on organisations. So the big question now is, has he invented something that is so new that RSS has become somewhat redundant so far as power is concerned, or is it a parenthesis and when he'll go away, because he will leave the scene one day, will we return to the previous modus operandi and the organisation will again take over? If this happens then, yes, they will have invented something completely new because it means that a strongman can try to emancipate himself from an organisation that can stage a comeback and continue his journey.

SV: But the RSS may not be happy with a lot of aspects of – and we see tension between the RSS and the BJP under Modi on the question of who will be the next president of the BJP, who's Modi's likely successor to be, and so on and so forth. However, isn't it also true that the RSS has never had it so good? The kind of inroads that Mr. Modi has allowed them to make. In terms of bureaucracy, various institutions of the state, academia for example, I mean, the universities are filled with people whose only qualification appears to be their proximity to the RSS structure. And if you look at, again, the long-term game that the RSS is adept at playing, for them, this is a very valuable asset.

CJ: Certainly. The only risk is and it's a big risk, if you depend so much on one man, the man will go, the man may lose some of his popularity, and then you give a bad name to the organisation and you make the organisation much more vulnerable. In fact, he's making BJP very vulnerable. He's doing to BJP what Indira has done to Congress. It used to be a pyramid with state bosses and therefore there was a robust organisation. You may remember Indira appointed psycho fans, yes-men, who had no base in the 70s and congress never recovered from that. BJP is in a very similar situation today because who knows the chief minister of Gujarat before he's picked up from Delhi, and therefore where is the party? That is something RSS may be worried about.

SV: Just to summarise what you're saying, since we're talking of 100 years of RSS – you have an organisation that gets born in 1925, plays a long game. By 2025, after 100 years, is really at the pinnacle of its power and influence, so to speak. But the man who encapsulates or represents that power and influence is in a way somebody with whom the organisation has clear differences. And there is a possibility that through his actions, through the cult of personality, all the other things that people associate with him, he  may actually be undermining the influence of this organisation. So in the 100th year, the question for you which I want to end this interview with is, and perhaps you just look at your crystal ball and speculate—Can the RSS survive and thrive if it is out of state power? In other words, if Modi is gone, even if you have somebody else, but let's assume that the BJP itself loses an election. Does the RSS have enough momentum through its penetration of different organs of the state, institutions and so on to carry on and continue to thrive? Or will there be serious danger of a setback for this organisation?

CJ: Well, in fact, there are two questions, more than one. Can they reassert their authority in such a way that they decide who will be the next BJP leader after Modi? That's the first question because there'll be people fighting for the top post and they have resources. They have already captured the state. Can RSS be the kingmaker again? And if it is not in a position neither to be the kingmaker again nor to win if BJP loses the power it used to have, what can RSS be with a non-BJP government? And here, I would say that indeed, it has probably penetrated society in such a way that we have reached a point of no return in many domains. And this is, for me, the most interesting and boring development. This is what I call a deeper state. A state that goes so deep in society.

SV: You're talking about the polarisation, the division, the penetration of its ideology in different sectors?

CJ: Yes. So many red lines now. How do you undo what they've done regarding cow protection, the conversions laws, the-

SV: Even the politicisation of all these temples and so on. The revanchism.

CJ: Yeah. They have penetrated society and institutions and the mind of the people in such a way that even if they lose political power, that is something they will probably return to some extent and that's one of the lessons we've learned from the Pakistani trajectory. After Zia, there was no way to undo. Who could undo the blasphemy law? No one would dare to do that. Who will undo what they've done, I repeat, vis-a-vis cow protection? And you have people who will be on the ground, the vigilantes who will be there. And this is exactly what we see on the Pakistani side. How do you try? How do you dare to try? This is not legitimate. It may be legal. But we have again this contrast between legitimacy and legality. So even if they do not retain power at the top for all the reasons we've mentioned, that is probably where the battle is. The battle is in the social domain. It is not only in the political domain. And this is something the Congress leaders have more or less understood. But it requires a lot of stamina because you have to have an organisation that can compete with this organisation and these organisations, unions, all kinds of associations. So it's very challenging.

SV: On that note, Professor Jaffrelot, we'll have to end it there. Thank you very much for sharing your insights on the RSS on this occasion. Thank you very much.

CJ: Thank you, Siddharth.

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