'Hindu Mahasabha floated two-nation theory ahead of Muslim League'

As the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) marks 100 years of its founding, debates around its historical role, especially during the 1940s, Partition era, and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, have resurfaced with renewed urgency.

The Federal spoke to historian Sucheta Mahajan, an eminent scholar of Modern India, to unpack the evolution of Hindu communal politics, the RSS’s rise, its role in the turbulent 1940s, and why many of the organisation’s ideological positions continue to shape political discourse today.

Edited excerpts:

How do you place the RSS within the three major political currents shaping the 1940s as India moved toward Independence?

There was a very clear and fast-growing current represented by what I would call the Hindu communal grouping or Hindu communal formation. I avoid using the term “Hindu nationalist” because that concedes nationalism to them, which I don’t want to do. “Majoritarian” is more accurate.

This current certainly had an analogy with the Muslim League to the extent that both were communal formations and the antithesis of secular politics. On many issues, including the two-nation theory, VD Savarkar of the Hindu Mahasabha was actually a step ahead of the Muslim League. He articulated the two-nation theory before the League turned it into the demand for Pakistan.

I avoid using the term “Hindu nationalist” because that concedes nationalism to them, which I don’t want to do. “Majoritarian” is more accurate.

However, the majoritarian nature of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha made them unique. They claimed to represent the Hindu majority, which meant they did not or could not play on the politics of fear. Nehru made a distinction between honest communalism—based on fear—and dishonest communalism—based on reaction. The RSS belonged to the latter.

Nehru also compared them to the brown shirts and black shirts of Europe, especially when he saw how riots were being instigated. Their politics was aimed at capturing the allegiance of the Hindu public, but electorally they had no chance. In the 1945–46 elections, they won just one seat—Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s in Bengal, which the Congress did not contest. Knowing they could not win electorally, they increasingly relied on non-constitutional methods, including violence and riots.

From the mid-1940s, the numbers involved in organised violence rose from hundreds to thousands to lakhs. Gandhi even referred to a figure of two lakh members of an organisation opposing partition—clearly the RSS.

They worked among populations in regions like West Punjab and West Bengal, especially in areas likely to go to Pakistan after partition. Their influence grew significantly at this important juncture, especially in 1947.

Is there any historical instance in the 1940s where the RSS or the Hindu Mahasabha participated in the struggle for Independence?

None at all. They were a loyalist body from the very beginning.

Savarkar, and even Nathuram Godse, mobilised support for the British war effort. They were absolutely clear that they wanted to back the British during the war. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was also part of the pro-government alliance with Fazlul Haq in Bengal. There is no question of the RSS being on the side of the forces fighting for Independence.

You argue that after Independence, especially from late 1947 to early 1948, the RSS posed not just a law-and-order threat but a threat to the very idea of India. What is the basis of this argument?

There were direct attempts to suborn the police and military, with speeches urging them to “do something for their nation.” Public calls were made to murder Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Maulana Azad. “Gandhi murdabad” was shouted openly at prayer meetings.

The important distinction I make is between spontaneous bitterness—often attributed to the refugee crisis—and an organised, ideological campaign. The narrative that angry young men acted out of grief collapses under evidence of systematic mobilisation.

From September 1947 onwards, multiple sources depict the RSS as an organised force. Kingsley Martin, who visited Delhi then, called it an “unofficial Hindu fascist army.” Nehru too described a conspiracy involving Hindu and Sikh communal forces to overthrow the state.

The princely states played a major role. We often talk only about Gwalior and the pistol given to Godse, but what about Alwar, Bharatpur, Nabha, Jind, Patiala, and Kapurthala? These states witnessed horrific killings and supported extremist groups. Many demobilised soldiers from the British Army and even the INA ended up in militias sponsored by princely states.

In September 1947, Delhi was under serious threat. Only the collective action of Mountbatten, Nehru, Patel, the ICS, and the emergency committee saved the city. The violence was organised, conspiratorial, and ideologically driven—not spontaneous.

How did the RSS gain popularity in refugee camps during and after Partition? Were there family stories that illuminate this?

Yes. My mother narrated an incident—interestingly, only to my friend, historian Swarna Aiyar—about armed men seeking refuge in our home in Lahore one night in 1947. My father knew them. My mother overheard them describing how they had just burnt a Muslim village. She insisted such groups should not be given shelter again.

This shows that RSS involvement was not limited to refugee camps or post-violence relief. From the mid-1940s onwards, their presence had been growing exponentially. Home Department political files for the 1940s, which I examined while editing the Towards Freedom: 1947 volume, show that RSS and other volunteer organisations grew from single digits in 1942 to lakhs by 1947. Their geographical spread also widened dramatically.

This laid the foundation in Punjab. My father, who had already inclined towards them, supported the Jan Sangh in Delhi after migrating. We grew up in Lajpat Nagar, a refugee colony, where the Jan Sangh was overwhelmingly dominant.

Interestingly, the women of the family interrupted this political trajectory by voting for Indira Gandhi in 1967 and 1971. But my father’s affiliation remained.

After Gandhi’s assassination, even supporters of the RSS were shocked. They recoiled from that politics. Horace Alexander wrote about the national shock. Only in the 1960s, with riots in Jabalpur and Jamshedpur, did communal politics resurface strongly.

Leaders like MS Golwalkar continued to insist on ‘Akhand Bharat’ even into the 1960s. How do you see this idea shaping the RSS’s long-term agenda?

Golwalkar’s insistence that “if partition is a settled fact, we are here to unsettle it” shows continuity of the core agenda.

Nathuram Godse too repeatedly spoke of Akhand Hindustan in his journals Agrani and Hindu Rashtra. During the war, an “Akhand Hindustan Conference” was held. The imagery of a mutilated motherland, violated by partition, was powerful political rhetoric.

Godse even instructed that part of his ashes be preserved—not immersed in rivers “polluted” by Gandhi’s ashes—until India became one again. Only then should they be immersed in the Sindhu river. This demonstrates how deeply the project of undoing partition was embedded in the ideology.

Savarkar never publicly expressed such extreme language about Gandhi, but Godse made the ideological core explicit.

Akhand Bharat has been an unwritten agenda of the RSS since the 1940s and remains so. Realpolitik prevents the RSS or BJP from saying this openly today because it would amount to declaring war on Pakistan and Bangladesh. But the ideological aspiration persists.

Golwalkar argued that only Akhand Bharat could solve the “Muslim problem,” while current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat says all Indians are “Hindus.” How do you see this continuity?

This is a continuation of Savarkar’s punyabhoomi formulation—that this land belongs to those whose sacred geography lies here. Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism qualify; Islam and Christianity do not.

The RSS’s long-standing belief is that Muslims are “a problem,” not that Muslims have problems. Gandhi became their target precisely because he stood as the protector of Muslims. They accused him of appeasement constantly.

Multiple attempts were made on his life before 30 January 1948. Godse’s statement at his trial is full of venom, accusing Gandhi of emasculating Hindus and needing to be removed.

Golwalkar addressed 50,000 people near the Red Fort and openly threatened the government. These were not secret conspiracies. They were public declarations of war on the Indian state.

Sardar Patel, often portrayed as sympathetic to the RSS, was in fact as firm as Nehru in identifying the threat they posed. He ensured that the RSS could function only after adopting a written constitution—something they never had before.

The government at the time saw the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha as inseparable, describing their relationship as a “division of labour”—a political wing and an organisational wing. This remains true today, with the Sangh Parivar spanning dozens of organisations.

Today the RSS and its affiliates praise Gandhi, Patel, Rajendra Prasad and others—leaders they once opposed or despised. What does this contradiction reveal?

It shows the power of nationalism in India.

To gain legitimacy, they must claim a nationalist lineage. They do this in several ways:

1. They exaggerate small roles played by certain leaders.

2. They appropriate icons like Patel or Shastri, whose moral authority boosts their own legitimacy.

3. They selectively reinterpret history to fit their ideological project.

Despite pursuing a majoritarian agenda, they cannot afford to reject symbols of the national movement outright. To persuade people, they must position themselves as inheritors of that legacy—even when their actual historical role contradicts it.

The content above has been transcribed from video using a fine-tuned AI model. To ensure accuracy, quality, and editorial integrity, we employ a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) process. While AI assists in creating the initial draft, our experienced editorial team carefully reviews, edits, and refines the content before publication. At The Federal, we combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise of human editors to deliver reliable and insightful journalism.