(“director”) The pracharaks are full-time RSS workers who provide the link between the local units, known as shakhas ("branches"), and the RSS higher authorities in the Rashtriya Svayam sevak Sangh (RSS), a conservative Hindu organization whose express purpose is to provide the leadership cadre for a revitalized Hindu India.
The RSS is a very authoritarian organization, with all
authority held in a single, unelected head known as the sarsanghchalak, and the
pracharaks serve as a vital connection between this highly centralized
leadership and the extremely dispersed local units.
The pracharaks are in charge of organizing and supervising
RSS operations in their region, as well as reporting on them at different
levels of RSS meetings; they may also be loaned out to RSS associated groups to
give leadership.
Pracharaks, on the whole, are entirely dedicated to the RSS
cause, and the most of them have been associated with it from infancy.
Their ethos is one of service and sacrifice, both to the RSS
and, by extension, to the country: They are usually single, have no other
source of income, do not get a salary from the RSS (though the local unit
usually covers their living costs), and are known for leading a basic and
ascetic lifestyle.
The majority of them are likewise highly-educated, and they
are chosen for their ability to work effectively with others.
See Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The
Brotherhood in Saffron, 1987, and Daniel Gold, "Organized Hinduisms: From
Vedic Truth to Hindu Nation," in Martin Marty and R.
Scott Appleby (eds. ), Fundamentalisms Observed, 1991, for
further information.
