Dr. K. B. Hedgewar formed the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh ("National Volunteer Corps," afterwards RSS) Hindu nationalist movement in 1925.
The RSS has adhered to Hindutva values from its founding,
believing that Hindus are a nation despite geographical, linguistic, and
cultural distinctions.
The RSS has long been known as a cultural and
character-building organization that has avoided direct political action for
most of its existence, yet wielding tremendous power via its numerous linked
groups.
RSS training emphasizes devotion, obedience, discipline, and
commitment to the Hindu nation's growth, but it discourages the formation of
independent thinking.
The daily meetings of its local units, known as shakhas
("branches"), are at the center of its program.
Members, known as svayamsevaks ("volunteers"),
spend part of their time at these meetings playing games, part of their time
doing martial arts drills (including sparring with sticks), and part of their
time debating and learning RSS beliefs.
A full-time RSS worker known as a pracharak
("director") administers the shakhas in any particular region,
serving as a bridge between the local units and the RSS leadership and
overseeing RSS operations in his area.
The RSS is an aristocratic group whose self-proclaimed
objective is to offer leadership for a resurgent Hindu India.
The majority of its members will never get beyond the local
level, but those that do are astonishingly efficient and successful leaders.
Although the RSS has avoided direct activity in order to
protect its self-proclaimed cultural focus, it has had a significant impact via
the development of allied organizations for which it has supplied leadership.
From labor and student unions to service groups, religious
organizations like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), and political parties like
the Bharatiya Janata Party, these organizations may be found at every level of
Indian society.
The RSS has produced some very successful leaders, but it
has also sparked a lot of debate.
One explanation for this is that it is a very authoritarian
institution modeled after the Hindu joint family.
All power is concentrated in the hands of a single supreme
leader, the sarsanghchalak, and it is passed down from there.
In this regard, the RSS is very undemocratic, and many of
its critics, notably in politics, have expressed concern about it being the
controlling hand behind its associated groups.
Other critics have expressed concern about the
organization's anti-Muslim and anti-Christian tone—non-Hindus were not
permitted to join until 1979—a tone based in Hindutva ideology.
Finally, I have a social reservation regarding the RSS.
The RSS has always condemned untouchability and claimed that
there are no caste disparities inside its ranks; in line with its Hindutva
traditions, it declares that all of its members are Hindus and Hindus
exclusively.
However, opponents have pointed out that the majority of RSS
members are from the brahmin and other privileged castes, and that all of the
RSS's leaders are brahmins.
These opponents argue that such apparent denial of caste
distinctions is a ruse to maintain brahmin power and hide who the RSS genuinely
represents.
For more information, see Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D.
Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron (1987); K.
