During a discussion on the biography of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), written by Dhirendra K. Jha, journalist Hartosh Bal asked why the RSS wants to identify with the freedom movement, by appropriating its key figures and events, when it did not take part in the anti-colonial national liberation movement. Why does it want to make the national liberation movement its reference point when it had made all attempts to distance itself from it?
Before answering the question, it can be said that the RSS is trying to prove its authenticity as the bearer of the Indian dream in the eyes of its people. Even 75 years after the freedom struggle, we still draw our authority by establishing our relationship with the freedom movement. “What were your ancestors doing then?” is a common question. It is essential to establish your relationship with the freedom struggle. Only then would your lineage be respected.
The RSS does not have that lineage. The biggest accusation against the RSS is that it did not take part in the national liberation movement. In fact, on many occasions, it actually worked against it. It refused to accept the tricolour for a long time. There are several other examples in Jha’s book about the RSS consciously keeping itself away from the national movement.
As Jha shows in his book, the then RSS chief, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, had refused to meet the same Subhash Bose whom it considers the biggest national hero today and pretends to worship, even pitting him against Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. Bose had left the Congress due to differences with Gandhi and was in the process of forming a separate organisation to fight the British. He was looking for allies. He had heard about the RSS and Bose wanted it to join him. But Hedgewar was not interested in his proposal because he was averse to the idea of taking part in the movement against the British. According to the RSS, British rule was an act of providence. Therefore, when Hedgewar’s old associate, Balaji Huddar, came to him with Bose’s message, he pretended to be ill and refused to even reply to Bose, let alone meet him.
Similarly, after the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, the RSS kept away from any protest against these hangings. Jha, through the account of Bala Saheb Deoras, who later became the third chief of the RSS, tells us about his meeting with the Hedgewar after the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. They were all young and were very upset and agitated by this hanging. Protests against the hanging were taking place all over the country. Deoras and his friends also wanted to participate in this protest. But Hedgewar stopped them from participating in this ‘foolish plan’ and discussed, for seven days, the importance of doing the work of the RSS rather than wasting time and energy in protests against the British.
The argument given by Golkwalkar, as to why the youth should not follow the path of Bhagat Singh, is the best example of the mentality of the Sangh. Golwalkar wrote that people like Bhagat Singh could not be considered as ideal in a society as he did not succeed in his objective. In Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar condemned ‘unsuccessful’ people like Bhagat Singh and wrote, “It is clear that those who are unsuccessful in their lives must have some serious flaw. How can a person who himself is a failure give light to others and show them the way?”
According to the RSS, Bhagat Singh and his comrades were weak personalities because they did not succeed. Do we agree with this? But now Bhagat Singh is useful to the RSS because he can be pitched against Nehru and Gandhi. Gandhi can be questioned as to why he did not die saving Bhagat Singh, but the RSS should not be asked about its refusal to even mourn and protest his hanging.
The RSS, which swears by the Gita, is actually an organisation that worships success. It does not believe in the principle of ‘do your work, don’t worry about its results ‘. Not only this, it does not want to follow any path that involves risk. Today, it certainly garlands the statues of Khudiram Bose, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose, but when it was time to support them, the RSS chief instructed his followers to stay away. There is no place for sacrifice for any purpose in the philosophy and working of the RSS.
This is why bravery is not a worthy quality for the RSS because bravery lies not so much in violence against others as in dying for one’s ideals. The Sangh does not accept this. It believes the lives of others are expendable and giving up one’s own life is foolishness in its eyes. It does not want its cadre to be brave, it only asks them to be strong. A recent speech by the current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat proves it. He said that the world worshipped only the strong.
The ‘qualities’ that RSS inculcates in its cadre are hatred, violence, cunningness, half-truths and lies. RSS believes that one should achieve one’s goal by any means. Deceit, half-truths, lies,and violence are justified by calling them ‘Krishna niti.’ All this is considered necessary if Hindus have to trounce their enemies. The ultimate goal of Hindus is to take the whole of India under their sole control. India should belong completely to Hindus. All others will be subject to their will. Muslims, Christians and others will have to follow the Hindu way of life, which is synonymous with the Indian way of life. This is the principle of Savarkar and Golwalkar and patriotism according to the RSS.
This is the reason why the RSS did not once think of fighting the ‘strong’ and ‘successful’ British. It sided with the British during the ‘Quit India’ movement. The RSS can argue that its major goal was the establishment of a Hindu nation and it was preparing for it. It did not want to waste its energy by going with Bhagat Singh, Bose or Gandhi. Therefore, there was no question of its having any relation with the national movement. It was preparing for a Hindu Rashtra which was lost long ago, much before the British came as a divine blessing.
Unlike the RSS, the common people of India were ready to go to jail and die for freedom. Gandhi made mass participation the basis of the national movement. Because of his approach , which was very different from the secretive approach of the revolutionaries, the public imagination of India transformed completely. Charkha, Khadi and the tricolour reached every home. They became inseparable from the Indian identity. Gandhi’s image can also be added to this. Right or wrong, the people of India started looking at themselves as Gandhi’s people.
It was a tall order to change this imagination through the saffron flag, the Ram temple in Ayodhya, etc. Hedgewar or Golwalkar were too small to replace Gandhi. Moreover, there is no evidence of their participation in the freedom movement. Savarkar’s prison life had certainly created an aura around him. He could be placed opposite Gandhi by creating myths around him, about his bravery, etc.
The RSS had to find a place in the popular imagination or change it. It could be strategically effective to pave the way for a new imagination by appropriating elements of the earlier one and gradually adding new elements to it. Slowly the new elements would become prominent and the older ones would fade out. For example, it would not have been possible to propose the Bhagwa flag as the national flag. Why not appropriate it and make it an instrument or shield to dominate Muslims? That is why the leaders of the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) started hoisting the tricolour and taking out tiranga yatras. These yatras were divisive and the governments had to put restrictions on them. Then an outcry could be made that the governments are anti-national as they do not even allow a tiranga yatra. Recall the tiranga yatra by Sushma Swaraj, which was an attempt to capture Idgah in Bangalore. Similarly, the tiranga yatra by Murli Manohar Joshi to Kashmir was aimed at establishing “Indian supremacy” there. It is the same tricolour which the RSS had rejected by calling it inauspicious. Their dislike for the tricolour remains. Recall the statement by Lal Krishna Advani, who said that it was not secular at all as the Chakra in the middle was a Buddhist symbol.
The transition from tiranga to saffron flag has been a long process. Ten years ago, for the first time, we saw the tricolour along with the saffron flag in the kanwar yatras. This was a clever attempt to change the public imagination of Hindus. Then the Hindus started demanding that if we can carry the tricolour on our religious occasions, why can’t Muslims and Christians do so. Why won’t mosques hoist the tricolour on Eid? Muslims could now be attacked with the shield of the tricolour. The tricolour, the national anthem and ‘Vande Mataram’ were essential elements of the new national imagination. Now we can add Jai Shri Ram to it.
The biggest campaign to change the public imagination of Hindus was the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1980s. It was actually a mobilisation to demolish the Babri Masjid. It was a comprehensive and intensive campaign through which the image of an aggressive Ram, the saffron flag and the slogan of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, were popularised.
For a long time, and to some extent even now, the national movement was considered to be the source of values for the public life of independent India. We have always justified any action or principle by citing a precedent in the freedom movement. What would Gandhi have said or done if he were here? What would Bhagat Singh or Bose have said? We often hear such contemplations and seek validation from these personalities for our decisions even today. How many national leaders have we heard seeking legitimacy from Hedgewar, Golwalkar or Savarkar? They have still not become the norm-setters. The paradigm for society is still set by Buddha, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Bose. Consequently, the RSS was forced to somehow connect itself with all of them.
Gandhi’s Hindu identity made it easy for the RSS to cover itself with his skin after his murder by one of its members. Bhagat Singh and Bose’s violence was also useful. Patel’s ‘toughness’ was ideal. In this way, RSS took these elements from the freedom movement and incorporated them into its ‘national imagination’. The lack of bravery was also compensated by calling Savarkar a hero. There are also parts in B.R. Ambedkar’s writings that were used to justify anti-Muslim sentiments by taking them out of context.
The RSS made a place in public imagination with the help of these. But at the same time, a gradual change was carried out in the public imagination of the Hindus of India. Time also helped the RSS. By the 1980s, the generation for which the national movement was important, was leaving. The political reference point was now 1974 or 1977. The Congress party, which was once the heir to the freedom movement, had now become a symbol of dictatorship. The original freedom movement was replaced by a second movement. The stigma on the RSS of not participating in the freedom movement was washed away by the grace of Jayaprakash Narayan and the socialists. It became the leading force of the so-called total revolution of India. With the help of Ram Manohar Lohia, Deendayal Upadhyaya’s integral humanism was pitted against Gandhi’s Swaraj.
At the same time, keeping to its basic ideological plan, the RSS kept pushing back in time the reference point of this popular imagination. A myth of Hindu slavery was already prevalent in the Hindu common sense. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee believed in it, so did Ramchandra Shukla. Even the most intelligent Hindu says that Muslims came as invaders to India.
Muslims and invasion, these two words come together in our classroom discussions or public discourse automatically. The unthoughtful belief that Muslims enslaved Hindus is at the foundation of Hindu public imagination. Therefore, it became natural for Hindus to believe that they have been slaves for 1200 years.
Gandhi and the Congress party snatched away the opportunity to make India a Hindu nation from the Hindus’ hands in 1947. That opportunity finally came in 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while giving his first speech in Parliament after the 2014 election victory, said that India had been freed from 1,200 years of slavery. He was not opposed by the secular opposition then. He got away with it.
Since 2014, Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Hemchandra Vikramaditya, Lachit Barphukan and others have been proposed as ideal reference points for Hindus. According to the RSS, they were all fighting wars to free India from the clutches of Muslims. This was the real slavery of India. The British left India. But the Muslims continue to remain here. In fact, in many ways, India is identified by Muslim symbols. Any foreign guest who visits the country has to necessarily visit the Taj Mahal. On Independence day, the national flag is hoisted from the Red Fort. Every visitor to Delhi wants to first see the Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb, or Nizamuddin Auliya. This is, in a way, an extension of that 1,200 years of slavery. The real Indian identity can be revealed only by removing the ‘Muslim coating’ on Indian identity. This is real decolonisation. The RSS’s problem is that we are not yet culturally independent. That is its mission: to bring this ‘cultural freedom’ which cannot be done unless all essential reference points are either Hindu or battles against Muslims and invaders.
In fact, according to the RSS, India has been a colony of Muslims, not of the British, for a long time and continues to be so mentally. Hindi too is yet to be freed from ‘Urdu-ness’. This battle for freedom is still being fought. Until Indians and Hindus are completely unified against these foreign influences, this war will continue.
That is why the reference point of our identity has been shifted to the Sengol. Legal expert Mohan Gopal and lawyer Indira Jaising have analysed the decisions of the courts of the past years and shown that they are making religious texts and scriptures, instead of the Constitution, the reference point for their decisions.
Through all this, the public imagination of Hindus is being changed. Images of the freedom movement, and those of the mediaeval and ancient times have been mixed up. Gradually, the freedom movement would fade away and the ‘ancient’ images would occupy a central place. Today, there seems to be a huge confusion in the Hindu mind and heart about its lineage. Where does it come from? From the freedom struggle or from some ancient Hindu Rashtra? The RSS alone benefits from this.
Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.
