5 min readSep 4, 2026 07:04 AM IST
First published on: Sep 4, 2026 at 06:02 AM IST
RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s speeches, including the one in New York, carry a message for both domestic and foreign audiences. First, he has redefined the RSS’s positioning regarding minorities, especially Muslims, which has been used as a weapon to question its legitimacy in secular democracy. Second, and more importantly, Bhagwat critiqued the philosophical basis of neoliberalism, which increasingly legitimises conflicts and immorality to gain wealth and coercive superiority. In this context, he said that India’s ultimate ambition is “to be a vishwaguru rather than a superpower”. Finally, he didn’t confine himself to the controversies around the RSS but spoke at length about the idea of India and presented the RSS through that lens.
Bhagwat inaugurated the global role of the RSS through people-to-people dialogue. The RSS has a foreign department to understand the culture and politics of different nations and has branches of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) abroad. The RSS, it seems, now want to expand that footprint.
An ossified perception about the RSS creates hurdles for its progressive socio-economic role. Here, Bhagwat’s observation that a Hindu would lose his Hinduness if he seeks to oust Muslims from India deserves serious discussion. This becomes difficult because of the unthinking professional critics of the RSS dubbing his words as doublespeak, citing anti-minority statements by some political leaders. The RSS leadership has refused to be a part of this coarse conversation.
The RSS has wrongly been perceived as a rigidly doctrinaire movement. Unlike other ideological movements that remain tied to the words and actions of their architects, its founder K B Hedgewar consciously became part of a collective leadership. Despite being the sole founder of the organisation, he ensured there was no “Hedgewarism”. This privileges flexibility and instils confidence in the leadership to interpret his ideas in new contexts. Such nimbleness is missing in communist and socialist movements.
Bhagwat’s approach to the Muslim question is consistent with his predecessors. For example, Hindu Mahasabha leader B S Moonje was rebuked by Hedgewar and Martand Jog for his argument in a public meeting in Nagpur in 1930 that the British should not leave India till it was ensured that Muslims would not dominate politics. Moonje wrote in his diary, “They said that the Hindu-Muslim question is our internal affair which we will settle out. And the British have to go first.” Hedgewar’s successor, M S Golwalkar, surprised both friends and foes of the RSS when he said in his interview to the RSS daily Motherland on August 23, 1972, that personal law was justified as long as it did not endanger national unity.
This makes it obvious that there is a fundamental difference between Hindutva as perceived both by friends and foes and the variant theorised by the RSS. The former is a political consolidation for the Hindus. It was espoused by the Hindu Mahasabha. The RSS and Hedgewar faced resistance and criticism for their approach, which is civilisational. Bhagwat has assertively championed this legacy. There is a space for Hindus’ anger, given the role of the Mughals and Muslim League in the past. But this anger is not a path to resolution and instead creates what Antonio Gramsci called a “war of position”. Such elements do little to fight the social and cultural divides that are reasons for a fractured Hindu social order and a weak Indian polity. The RSS is the only social movement that is committed to creating a meaningful “meeting pot” (not a melting pot).
For the last few decades, extreme elements from both sides — egged on by social media — have contributed to making the RSS seem, erroneously, like a radical outfit. Some anti-RSS elements have been more than unfair when they compare it to the White supremacist Ku Klux Klan. Unfortunately, parties that claim to be secular have often projected the RSS as a parallel to the Muslim League. It is this perception that has travelled outside India.
Bhagwat’s aim is not to perpetuate the status quo but to convey to minorities that Hindus’ unwavering conviction about multiculturalism should lead to cultural flexibility among them, as they become part of India’s spiritual democracy. Unwillingness to depart from institutionalised prejudices is among the major challenges before the evolution of secularism in India. The Bhagwat doctrine is an opportunity for them to have further dialogue with the RSS to ensure the success of India’s secular democracy. Will they?
The writer is a former BJP Rajya Sabha MP
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat speaks at 'One World, One Humanity' faith leaders' conference, in New York, USA. (PTI Photo) 
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