RSS at 100: Hindutva is an ideological camouflage for its Brahminical core

This October 2 brings up an unprecedented commemorative concurrence of three diverse streams of thought that have shaped India's current socio-political personality in mutually exclusive and, perhaps, lasting ways.

In terms of a milestone, it's when Hindutva fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) completes 100 years of existence. Also, it marks the 156th birth anniversary of the 'Father of the Nation', Mahatma Gandhi, and the 69th anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism.

While in Gandhi's case, it is not a Hindu calendar 'tithi' (a Hindu nomenclature for any day), in the other two instances, it is the auspicious 'tithi' of the Hindu festival of Dussehra or Vijaya Dashmi.

RSS had a different core thought to pursue than the Hindu, something that couldn't have been explicitly rationalised in those times of growing radicalisation of the anti-Brahminism movement.

To be sure, as per the Gregorian calendar, the RSS was born on September 27, 1925, while Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with lakhs of his Dalit (Hindu low castes) followers on October 14, 1956.

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However, both Ambedkar's followers and the RSS choose to celebrate the occasion on the Hindu 'tithi', not on the Gregorian calendar day.

Interestingly, the three occasions this year have Nagpur as the place of happenstance, which, in more ways than one, has a cause-effect dimension among all three in different permutations and combinations. Each one was influenced by the other in defining ways.

Hence, although this Vijaya Dashmi is an occasion of special remembrance for the RSS, the Gandhian and Ambedkarite influences on its birth and the century-old journey can't be overstated.

The future of India with RSS

But central to this October 2 is the critical question about India's future trajectory as a nation with the RSS as a force that can't be wished away — whether in the driver's seat, like it is today, or not.

It is thus necessary to understand the RSS in a nuanced way — how it was born, what is its core ideology, how was its journey over 100 years and how its future journey is likely to be.

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First and foremost, it is an astounding feat for any organisation to not just survive for 100 years but grow into a behemoth like the RSS has today. All the more so, given its exclusivist and reactionary ideological core that has not changed a bit over a century.

This stands in sharp contrast with other such reactionary movements across the world, none of which has survived that long.

Where is RSS different?

So, if reactionary ideologies have, historically, been short-lived because of their built-in effervescence, what's so different about the RSS?

The secret of the RSS's longevity is a mix of several pluses and minuses.

On the positive side are patience, perseverance, cadre dedication and discipline, and most importantly, keeping the organisation supreme and free of personality cult.

Also read: RSS at 100: How relevant is the Sangh in Modi era? | Talking Sense With Srini

And on the negative side are deception, camouflage, ideological jugglery and an iron curtain to hide the real scheme of things, infiltrating government and non-government systems and organisations, and inducing militancy in the Hindu society without directly being involved in the resultant social strife.

All these characteristics make RSS an inalienable, if not desirable, stakeholder in India's long foreseeable future.

Hence, to deal with it in a country aspiring to shake off its regressive socio-religious past, it becomes important to understand the organisation's true core.

Communalism the means, not end

While many thinkers have identified the RSS as a fascist organisation thriving on a Hindu supremacist vitriol, what seems to be lost on many is that for it, communalism is the means and not the end.

The end is to restore the supremacy of the Brahminical order within the Hindu fold, and Hindu supremacy is the tool to not only achieve but also camouflage it.

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To understand why and how, one needs to carefully study its journey over the last 100 years.

The initial indicators of this subtle pursuit of Brahminism can be found in the circumstances in which the RSS was born in 1925.

This was the time when pacifist Mahatma Gandhi had become the face of the Indian National Congress that was spearheading the freedom struggle against British colonial rule. It was a decisive shift in the Congress's politics, with Moderates within the organisation becoming the prime movers and Extremists, led by Lokmanya Tilak, getting relegated.

Non-violence became the vehicle to carry forward the struggle.

This had the whole world sit up and take notice. It was left wondering if and how non-violence could be the weapon to cast off colonial slavery.

Brahmin supremacy felt threatened

The other story that was parallelly developing was the struggle within the Hindu society. The social justice movement among Hindu lower castes had started gathering steam all over the sub-continent with a radicalised anti-Brahmin core.

The hidden Brahminical agenda of the RSS can be further illustrated by the fact that the organisation was enamoured of the experiments of achieving racial purity by Fascist and Nazi regimes in Italy and Germany, respectively, in the inter-war period.

Emergence of leaders like Mahatma Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar in Maharashtra and Ramaswamy Periyar in the South were cataclysmic events for the repugnant 'varna' system in Hinduism that had put the Brahmins at the top of the social hierarchy in the Hindu society for thousands of years.

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The supremacy of Brahmins had been severely threatened for the first time ever in the journey of Hinduism.

The birth of the RSS at the hands of a Brahmin — Keshav Baliram Hedgewar — from Nagpur, along with only fellow Brahmins, can't but be seen against this backdrop because if Hedgewar was honest about serving the Hindu cause as his cherished goal, he should have started off by taking all sections of the Hindu society, and not just the fellow Brahmins, at the very formative stage of his organisation.

What also strengthens this perspective is the fact that Hedgewar found it necessary to launch a new Hindu forum despite the fact that there already existed the Hindu Mahasabha, claiming to fight for the "Hindu cause".

It had a leader like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who occupies the highest place among the Hindu pantheon that the RSS finds 'pratahsmaraniya' (with whose remembrance should the day of a Hindu begin).

Also, Balakrishna Shivram Moonje, a leading light of the Mahasabha, whom Hedgewar respected like a guru, had played a stellar role in the RSS's furtherance.

RSS vs Hindu Mahasabha

The abiding question that, therefore, arises is: Why did Moonje help the RSS grow when he could have got Hedgewar on board the Mahasabha?

What was the need for a separate Hindu organisation?

The only plausible explanation could be that the RSS had a different core thought to pursue, something that couldn't have been explicitly rationalised in those times of growing radicalisation of the anti-Brahminism movement, which effectively was aimed at challenging the self-given supremacy of the Brahmins.

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Gandhi's call to support the Khilafat Movement (1919-24) — a global assertion of Muslim unity in the aftermath of fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914-18) — served as the perfect alibi.

What helped this overt excuse for Hindu unity was the separatist tone of Muslim assertion by the Muslim League and Muslim "appeasement" by Gandhi.

Anti-Muslim stance

Of course, the RSS did suffer from an anti-Muslim mentality too. So, adoption of Hindutva as an ideology served both the purposes at one go — divert the attention of the Hindu lower castes from their real struggle for social justice and involve them as foot soldiers in the fight against the enemy called Muslim and thus also target the community

So, the 'Muslim threat' bogey served as an ideal launching pad for what essentially was a Brahminical construct.

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A reference in this context in a speech made by current RSS Sarsanghchalak (chief) Mohan Bhagwat in one of his Vijaya Dashami speeches is instructive. Bhagwat had said that India saw the ascendance of many great leaders during its freedom struggle and while they all did great work for the country, nobody had thought of doing what Hedgewar did.

If "Hindu unity" was Hedgewar's intended goal, then wasn't the Hindu Mahasabha doing it too? So what was so different about what Hedgewar did, and which no one else did?

What came in handy for the RSS was the aggregating effect of festivals like Ganeshotsav initiated by Lokmanya Tilak for the Hindus, who started sharing public camaraderie as followers of a common faith, something that was alien to the faith before the British began treating the entire sub-continent as one administrative entity called India.

Racial purity experiments

The hidden Brahminical agenda of the RSS can be further illustrated by the fact that the organisation was enamoured of the experiments of achieving racial purity by the Fascist and Nazi regimes of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany, respectively, in the period between first and second World Wars, as explicitly mentioned in the writings and speeches of the second RSS chief, Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, and Hedgewar's mentor Moonje.

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"Racial purity", when seen in the cast-ridden Hindu social context, can't but be a Brahminical dream since the Brahmins used to and still, by and large, do consider themselves as racially superior to other Hindus.

They were mostly Brahmins

Another compelling reason to see the RSS as essentially Brahminical is the fact that for the entire period of its 100 year, it has been led by Brahmins, with the exception of Rajendra Singh alias Rajju Bhaiyya, a Kshatriya (second highest Hindu caste), who served as the fourth Sarsanghchalak for only six years (1994-2000), the shortest tenure among all those who held the post, before paving the way for a Brahmin, Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudershan (2001-2009), who was followed by Bhagwat, also a Brahmin.

The first three chiefs were Hedgewar (1925-1940), Golwalkar (1940-1973) and Balasaheb Deoras (1973-1994).

RSS and non-Brahmins

The RSS's essential Brahminical character is also buttressed by the fact that there is a minuscule number of non-Brahmins among its active cadre too.

The RSS that makes it a point to give a count of participants at its annual all-India training camp in Nagpur and at other places, according to their professional background — such as doctors, engineers, scientists, teachers, PhD holders, and others — has always maintained that it doesn't believe in caste identity and its doors are open for all.

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It never gives any count of how many non-Brahmins constitute its basic core base, even if to just steer clear of the Brahminical tag that has come to be attached to it, just as it does to counter the perception of it being followed by people of 'low intellect'.

This is because it doesn't have, rather can't have, any such caste statistics to flaunt.

Brahminical hegemony

Could this have been without the organisation consciously keeping itself as a Brahmin monolith?

If it were to be working for the interest of the Hindu society as a whole, then its core should have acquired by now a distinctive and diverse Hindu face. That remains a far cry even after a hundred years, and why if not for its uncompromising Brahminical hegemony?

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After all, a hundred years is not a small period for casting off the Brahmin face and slowly but surely acquiring a face representative of the entire Hindu society.

So, while packaging its project as a civilisational reconstruct to rid the Hindu society of its inherent "disunity " and "slave mentality", the RSS kept claiming that it only aims to achieve Hindu unity, when at its heart it was only a means to the end of saving the Brahmins from the backlash that growing social justice struggles within the Hindu fold were likely to generate.

While radical anti-Brahminical resistance spurting up in the late 19th and early 20th century was the first inflection point against the Brahminical hegemony, the second major inflection point came in the 1980s when the Mandal Commission made many in the upper castes uneasy. There were massive protests for and against the commission's recommendations for Other Backward Classes' (OBC) quota.

Kamandal response to Mandal

Curiously enough, the RSS deployed its characteristic diversionary tactic by launching a movement for the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, popularly described as the Kamandal response to Mandal.

There is nothing to show that the RSS had then supported the Mandal concessions to the OBCs despite claiming to serve the Hindu cause.

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Clearly, its sly opposition to social justice uprisings was in evidence once again during the Mandal days.

Its advocacy in the past of Manusmruti — the most regressive Hindu law text that unambiguously pitches for Brahminical supremacy, and the current attempts to include it in the educational curriculum — also exposes the RSS Brahminical core.

RSS in BJP's 11-year rule

During the past 11 years, with its political affiliate Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being in power, the RSS per se hasn't ceased to be a Brahmin-faced organisation despite its several other affiliates beginning to look more inclusive of other castes.

Even the broadbasing of other RSS affiliates in terms of caste diversity has come about because of non-Brahmins — the OBCs in particular — gravitating towards the Sangh Parivar (as the RSS and its affiliates are together referred to) to have their share in the massive power the Parivar as a whole has acquired today, and not because of any unfailing ideological conviction.

If and when the BJP loses power, this newly acquired artificial caste inclusivity will likely wither away.

In this context, the example of Narendra Modi, an OBC prime minister, is often cited as the RSS's caste neutrality.

RSS and Modi as PM choice

But the circumstances in which Modi became PM and the preceding events in the BJP don't really suggest Modi was a RSS volunteer and considered choice.

The RSS had catapulted then little-known Nitin Gadkari, a Maharashtrian Brahmin from Nagpur, in 2009, to the BJP president's post with a view to giving the party a young face.

This had followed previous RSS chief Sudarshan publicly rebuking former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his deputy Lal Krishna Advani for not following the RSS agenda and asking them to step down and pave the way for young blood.

While radical anti-Brahminical resistance spurting up in the late 19th and early 20th century was the first inflection point against the Brahminical hegemony, the second major inflection point came in the 1980s when the Mandal Commission made many in the upper castes uneasy.

The RSS wanted to give Gadkari a second term as the BJP president in 2013, but Modi had by then emerged as the popular choice within the party.

Obstinate, headstrong leader

Also, the established top leadership then, including Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Arun Jaitly, didn't want Gadkari to overtake them in the quest for power both within and outside the party.

This is when the alleged irregularities in the Purti Group of industries pioneered by Gadkari made headlines and he had to bow out, paving the way for Modi to stake his claim as the PM candidate.

Of course, it was more because of Modi's reputation as an obstinate and headstrong leader not given to accepting anyone else's authority except that of himself that was behind the RSS scepticism about him and not his caste. But the fact that it had Gadkari in mind as the BJP's future face clearly showed its inherent Brahminical configuration.

Another fact that underscores the lack of warmth between Modi and the RSS was the strained relationship between the two over the past few years, punctuated by the RSS chief's veiled attack on the PM and the ongoing protracted tussle over the choice of the new BJP president.

If RSS has its way, it will most likely choose a Brahmin like Devendra Fadnavis, the current chief minister of Maharashtra, to be its future PM face.

Lateral entry programme

That said, there are several other indicators of the RSS's Brahminical cliquery.

Its attempt to push upper castes in higher echelons of administration through 'lateral entry" programme, creation of government reservation quota for "economically backward" classes with Rs 8 as lakh as the annual income threshold, non-filling of backward class quota posts in states like Uttar Pradesh as claimed by the BJP's own alliance partner Apna Dal (Anupriya Patel) and a ban on caste rallies in UP as recently as last week, are to name a few.

The RSS's purported support for the reservation policy flies in the face of its active cadre leading the "Save Merit" agitations at many places.

But true to its characteristic style, it can always shrug it off, saying that they, as an organisation, are all for reservation and don't tell the Swayamsevaks to oppose it.

RSS and Rahul Gandhi challenge

Having come thus far, the self-styled Hindutva organisation now faces yet another challenge to its Brahminical agenda — the social-justice plank taken up by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul has been trying to bring the social justice issue back into the reckoning by pitching for proportional representation for backward castes in legislative, government and private institutions.

He is framing it in '90 versus 10 per cent' terms — indicative of the backward castes and upper castes populations, respectively.

This is aimed at countering the BJP's '80 versus 20 per cent' narrative intended to widen the Hindu-Muslim divide.

The demand for a caste census, since being accepted by the government grudgingly, also goes against the RSS's Brahminical grain. It, however, had to reconcile to its potential as the third possible inflection point in its 100-year journey after the radical social-justice movement led by social reformers in the early part of the last century and the Mandal Commission report in the closing decades.

Social justice, its Achilles' heel

Its acceptance of the demand for giving backward castes concessions but "not for political purpose" shows that social justice clamour remains the RSS's Achilles' heel.

For the Opposition, particularly the Congress, social justice could serve well as an antidote to the RSS-BJP's Hindutva poison.

The RSS-BJP combination would love the Opposition to join the issue with them on the Hindu-Muslim divide to avoid getting sucked into any social-justice inflection situation.

While even well-meaning social scientists might find the social-justice plank being played out in terms of caste struggle potentially troublesome, that's perhaps the only legitimate cause for the Opposition to espouse in the current challenging times.

Not weaving its politics around the social justice theme would mean giving the Hindutva forces a free pass to further consolidate the supremacist Brahminical grip over the Hindu society and everything concerned with it.

If that happens, the end losers would not only be Muslims but the socially underprivileged among the Hindus too.

Therefore, if and how the social justice issue pans out will decide if, how and how long the RSS will save its Brahminical soul.

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal.)