The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is celebrating its centenary and its epic successes in the cultural and, especially, political field. Readers who are familiar with the organisation, the font of Hindutva ideology, but unclear about what it specifically stands for might benefit from this column. The RSS’s longest-serving (33 years from 1940 to 1973) chief was MS Golwalkar. Two books are attributed to him, of which one is disowned. The other one, Bunch of Thoughts, is the subject here and we will look at what it says. It must be noted that it is not a book in the sense that it is a written work, but a compilation of Golwalkar’s speeches and interviews and excerpts thereof. This gives it a jumpy and sporadic feel, but it is worth going through nonetheless. What follows is your columnist’s representation of Golwalkar’s views, in as unbiased a fashion as is possible.
Golwalkar says the RSS called itself the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and not the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. This was because ‘Rashtriya’ naturally means Hindu and therefore the word ‘Hindu’ need not be used. The first RSS head Keshav Hedgewar had said: ‘If we use the word Hindu it will only mean that we consider ourselves only as one of the innumerable communities in this land and that we do not realise our natural status as the nationals of this country.’
Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha was wrong in once having passed a resolution that the Congress should not give up its nationalist position by holding talks with the Muslim League but instead asking the Hindu Mahasabha to do so. This ceded equal position to the Muslims and was a perversion of the reality that India was wholly and only a Hindu Rashtra.
Federalism was a problem and the only way out was to be courageous enough to declare a unitary type of government by amending the Constitution. The country was one, the people were one, and therefore India ought to have only a single government and a single legislature. Executive authority could be distributed, but legislative authority should be one and not devolved to the states. One central legislature for the whole of the country should satisfy the demands of democracy.
India was special in the world because it offered something nobody else could and that was Hindu thought. The excellence of Hindu thought was that it alone knew something about the nature of the soul. This could be proved because it was only in India that from ancient times individuals rose to unravel the mystery of human nature, the ‘science of spirit’. Golwalkar says Jesus saw Satan and the prophet met Gabriel. It was only in India that sages actually saw god. Westerners, no matter how much they understood the science of matter, would remain ignorant of the science of spirit. This unique offering was under threat because Hindus were abandoning their ancient wisdoms and it was the RSS which must revive them within India and organise Hindu society. It would do this by reversing the things that were damaging Hindus. Progressive societies were permissive. This lead to licentious behaviour with respect to sex, food, drinks, family life and free social intercourse. These things did not produce real happiness. The individual must subsume himself into the larger nation, else the social fabric would be destroyed. This was what Hindu philosophy promoted and that was what would make Hindus happy.
All Hindus did not have this special Hindu knowledge; only some did. The common mass of people needed to be properly educated and enlightened. Making them merely literate would not serve the purpose because this special knowledge would still be absent. People were unequal in other ways also. Democracy was flawed because it excluded experts and preferred politicians. Panchayats functioned best when run along caste lines, to represent the interests of society as a whole. Elections should not be competitive but unanimous. (Again, if this sounds disjointed and rambling, it is because that is how Bunch of Thoughts is put together).
India was the nation from the oceans to the Himalayas. Not just the edge of the mountains but beyond them, which is why the ancients had places of pilgrimage (Kailash Mansarovar) on the northern side, making these regions ‘our live boundary’. Tibet was the abode of the gods and the Hindu epics also give Hindus possession of Afghanistan, Burma, Iran and Lanka. Bharat Mata, for thousands of years, had dipped her arms in the two seas, from Iran to Singapore, with Sri Lanka as a lotus petal offered at her sacred feet. Bhoomi poojan was done because the entire earth was sacred, but Bharat Mata was the most sacred. She needed total devotion, and not engagement through the intellect.
Partition was unacceptable because it was not a division of property between brothers: one does not cut up one’s mother as settlement. The concept of Hindu Rashtra was not a mere bundle of political and economic rights. It was essentially cultural and not political or legal. It revealed itself through the urge for realisation of God: a ‘living’ god and not an idol or immaterial form. ‘Our People Are Our God’ is what the ancients had said. But they had not meant all our people. Ramakrishna Paramhans and Vivekanand said, ‘Serve man.’ But man in the sense of humanity was too wide and cannot be grasped. It should be an Almighty with certain limitations. Man here meant only the Hindu people. The ancients did not use the word ‘Hindu’ but they did say in the Rig Veda that the sun and moon are his eyes, the stars and skies created from his navel and that Brahmin is the head, King the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. The people who had this fourfold arrangement were the God. Service to and worship of this caste-defined society was then service to God.
There is more, and we will take it up another day.
By Aakar Patel