As RSS has completed a hundred years of existence, there will surely be multiple analyses of the organisation and its achievements. In view of its sudden ascendancy in the last decade, the RSS is bound to appear larger-than-life to both its opponents and supporters. Therefore, it will be meaningful to note two key achievements that may impact India’s public life in the decades to come.
One suspects that the RSS itself may not exactly boast publicly about these achievements because, for the last hundred years, it has remained taciturn about its actual goalposts and achievements. Nevertheless, it will surely intensify efforts to consolidate these gains. Therefore, students and observers of Indian society need to note these achievements and discuss their effects.
The first achievement is to twist and transform the meaning of Hinduism, the idea of Hindu religiosity and the practices adopted by Hindus. From its early days, the organisation has always been in awe of its bête noire — monotheistic religions. So, efforts to imitate them in shaping Hindu sensibilities have always proved attractive to it. At the same time, the early 20th-century European idea of nationalism as a phenomenon based on the complete oneness of a community has also dominated Hindutva thinking. Combining these two urges, Hindutva has sought to intervene in the bewildering diversity of ideas and practices that are adopted by different groups claiming to be Hindus. In order to bring homogeneity to this chaotic-looking diversity, Hindutva has offered two pathways.
One is that of nationalism based on an identity that is named as Hindu identity. In reality, this identity is often predicated on the idea of the other and deep suspicion of that other. The “other” is most often identified in terms of followers of Christianity and Islam. In this sense, the idea of “we” acquires strength from exclusion rather than inclusion.
Over time, besides parochial and religion-based nationalism, Hindutva has also sought to redefine the meaning of being a Hindu. Particular symbolisms have been popularised as pan-Hindu. Since the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, an effort was undertaken to identify a particular idea of Lord Ram as the core of being Hindu. Geographically and across social hierarchies, Lord Ram may have had different connotations but a particular image of the deity was popularised as the symbol of common religiosity. Thus, Hinduness came to be identified with loyalty to this symbolism.
Hindutva is currently engaged in a more complex project. It seeks to ensure that local deities and traditions are “nationalised”. Rather than conceding the local flavour and autonomy of many practices and deities, the effort is to weave them into a more sanitised and straightforward narrative. This project involves an unprecedented homogenisation of traditions and practices in a manner that disconnects those traditions from their local meanings and reference points, converting them into regional cogs and facilitating the construction of a new, all-India idea of the Hindu.
The success of this project means that being Hindu will eventually have a non-local, non-diverse and uniform meaning that will be easy to connect to the stigmatisation of any divergence. This is no mean achievement. More than constructing an electoral bloc of Hindus, this achievement of transforming the flexible meaning of being Hindu into a regimented identity acquires significance for bridging regional Hinduisms to a pan-Hindu conception of Hindutva. This is nothing less than demoting a civilisation to the status of a religion-based nation.
The second achievement of Hindutva has been its clever capture of the entire social space.
RSS was never confined to only the religious, the cultural or the political. It has practically been everywhere. In each sphere of public life, Hindutva floated parallel organisations of its own. Simultaneously, it ensured a presence for its sympathisers and supporters. While the former allowed Hindutva to evolve into a social universe dedicated to the propagation of its views — a universe that would replace pre-existing social organisations when opportune power equations would emerge, the presence of its supporters in all walks of life meant that through them, its ideas would continue to penetrate the mainstream and gain slow legitimacy.
Thus, while it continued to have sympathisers in the media, among Congress politicians, judges and bureaucrats, RSS also made sure that it would be ready with an alternative social sphere through its own media, think tanks, banks, training centres, schools, policy organisations and so on. Just as the much-documented relief and seva work of Hindutva, this intellectual preparation and the social outreach represent the broader socio-cultural assault that Hindutva aimed at.
Today, when Hindutva is becoming the only game in town, it is no wonder that film stars and sportspersons, scientists and army personnel are queuing up to join various pro-Hindutva outfits. But it is more significant that the Hindutva project continued to strive to occupy the entire social space through its seva and its “cultural” activities — in both, many “public personalities” joined lending these activities a cherubic face. In its effort to win over the social space and emerge strong in the “war of position”, Hindutva did not mind collecting certifications from adversaries.
That is why stories of Gandhi being influenced by the RSS and Ambedkar being pro-Hindutva abound and instances such as Jayaprakash Narayan certifying the patriotism of the RSS are flaunted. Getting non-RSS persons to address RSS gatherings is a famous practice that lured even an ex-president, supposed to be a lifelong Congressperson. Any national icon is quickly appropriated — dead or alive — even without that personality being directly connected to the RSS; because by association, Hindutva gains social acceptability. Opponents of RSS may have historically ridiculed these practices, but today, they would do well to take into account the social capital that Hindutva gained from these.
Now, the capture of the social sphere moves to another level. Sections of the social sphere that are opposed to Hindutva are being eased out — allowing Hindutva to become coterminous with the social sphere in its entirety. For the RSS, the awkward relationship with Narendra Modi notwithstanding, the Modi period has offered a golden moment precisely at a time when Hindutva has already penetrated the social sphere. This is because, now, under state tutelage, Hindutva can declare its version of Hindu religion as the official version and can preside over the social sphere where competing views will have no elbow room.
The writer is based in Pune, and teaches Political Science. Views are personal.
