The Brotherhood in Saffron Read online

  WALTER K . ANDERSEN & SHRIDHAR D. DAMLE

  THE BROTHERHOOD IN SAFFRON

  The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  List of Tables

  Introduction

  1. Hindu Revivalism

  2. Formation and Development of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

  3. RSS: Ideology, Organization and Training

  4. The RSS ‘Family’ Takes Shape

  5. The RSS in Politics

  6. The Triumph of Activism

  Conclusion

  Appendix A

  Appendix B

  Appendix C

  Appendix D

  Bibliography

  Notes

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  List of Tables

  Membership of Central Trade Union Organizations

  Jana Sangh Electoral Performance in Parliamentary and State Assembly Elections

  Jana Sangh Performance in State Assembly Elections in Selected States/Union Territories

  Jana Sangh Performance in Parliamentary Elections in Selected States/Union Territories

  RSS Membership by Jana Sangh Position Level

  RSS Position by Party Level

  RSS Position by First Party Position

  Value Orientations of Jana Sangh Cadre

  BJP Performance in March 1985 State Assembly Elections

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE TIGER AND THE RUBY

  WALTER K. ANDERSEN taught comparative politics at the College of Wooster, Ohio, before joining the State Department as a political analyst for South Asia.

  SHRIDHAR D. DAMLE is a private consultant and has written extensively on Indian political developments.

  We dedicate this book to our late parents, Mildred Korfitz-Andersen

  and Dattatraya Chimanrao Damle and to Shridhar Damle’s late father-in-law, Shankarrao Tambe

  Introduction

  Every morning at sunrise groups of men in military-style khaki uniforms gather outdoors before saffron flags in all parts of India to participate in a common set of rituals, physical exercises and lessons. For one hour each day in the year, they are taught to think of themselves as a family—a brotherhood—with a mission to transform Hindu society. They are members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh1 (hereafter referred to as the RSS), the largest and most influential organization in India committed to Hindu revivalism. The message of the daily meetings is the restoration of a sense of community among Hindus.

  Organizations like the RSS which advocate the restoration of community have a salience to those who feel rootless. Indeed, the alienation and insecurity brought on by the breakdown of social, moral and political norms have become major political issues in the twentieth century, particularly in the developing countries where new economic and administrative systems have rapidly undermined institutions and moral certitudes which traditionally defined a person’s social function and relationship to authority.2 Dislocations in primary associations which mediate between the individual and society have weakened the web of relations that provide individuals their self-identity and a sense of belonging. Social, religious and nationalist movements have proliferated to express a deeply felt need for the restoration of community.

  The initial expression of this yearning for community often takes the form of religious revivalism.3 In South Asia, religious revivalism has taken many forms, reflecting the cultural and religious complexity of the subcontinent. Moreover, revivalist groups represented a wide spectrum of ideologies, ranging from defences of traditional orthodoxy to completely new formulations of traditional norms and practices. They mobilized communal support both to reform group behaviour and to strengthen their own group’s bargaining position with the political authorities. In the process, they laid the groundwork for larger communal identities and, ultimately, nationalist movements.

  In pre-Independence India, the premier nationalist organization was the Indian National Congress, an umbrella organization which accommodated a variety of interests, including the revivalists. The Congress, to retain the support of its diverse membership, adopted a consensual strategy requiring the acceptance of compromise and, by extension, the principle of territorial nationalism. However, it was not entirely successful in accommodating all groups. Many Muslim leaders, for example, felt that the westernized Hindu elite who controlled the Congress did not adequately respond to Muslim interests. Moreover, there were Hindu revivalist leaders who also believed that the interests of the Hindu community were not adequately protected by the Indian National Congress. The founder of the RSS doubted whether the Congress, which included Muslims, could bring about the desired unity of the Hindu community.

  The RSS was established in 1925 as a kind of educational body whose objective was to train a group of Hindu men who, on the basis of their character-building experience in the RSS, would work to unite the Hindu community so that India could again become an independent country and a creative society. Its founder was convinced that a fundamental change in social attitudes was a necessary precondition of a revived India, and that a properly trained cadre of nationalists would be the cutting edge of that change.’ The two leaders of the RSS during the pre-Independence period—its founder, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1925–1940) and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1940–1973)—laid a firm foundation, supervising the training of the full-time workers who spread the organization outward from its original base in eastern Maharashtra.

  Linked to the RSS in India are several affiliated organizations (referred to in the RSS literature as the ‘family’),4 working in politics, in social welfare, in the media and among students, labourers and Hindu religious groups. The symbiotic links between the RSS and the ‘family’ are maintained by the recruitment into the affiliates of swayamsevaks (members) who have already demonstrated organizational skills in the RSS. This process guarantees a high degree of conformity to ‘legitimate’ behavioural norms among the cadre in all the affiliates. It has also resulted in a high degree of loyalty to the organization on the part of the cadre. The recruitment process employed by the ‘family’ of organizations around the RSS has enabled the RSS itself to remain insulated from the day-to-day affairs of the affiliates, thus protecting its self-defined role as a disinterested commentator of Indian society.

  From its inception, the RSS adopted a cautious non-confrontational approach towards political authority to reduce the chances of government restrictions, but it often failed in this effort. After Independence in 1947, the RSS has on several occasions been the object of official censure, in large part because political leaders feared that it had the potential to develop into a major political force that might threaten their own power and India’s secular orientation. The RSS was banned twice (in 1948–49 and in 1975–77), and restrictions have been periodically placed on its activities. These restrictions have not weakened the RSS. Quite the contrary, they have strengthened the commitment of its members and encouraged the RSS to expand the range of its activities. Indeed, such pressures against the RSS led the organization to get involved in politics.

  Nonetheless, the controversy surrounding the RSS made it (and to a certain degree its affiliates) an unacceptable partner in joint activities during much of the post-Independence period. Only since the mid-1960s has the RSS been accorded a measure of general public respect. This new respectability owes much to the participation of its political affiliate in state coalition governments during 1967–69, the active part played by the RSS and its ‘family’ of organizations in a popular anti-corruption movement in 1973–75, the underground movement against restrictions on civil and political liberties during t
he 1975–77 state of Emergency, as well as to its support for the political alliance that captured power in the March 1977 national elections. Its political affiliate, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, merged into the new governing party, the Janata Party, and former Jana Sangh leaders were included in the national cabinet and served as chief ministers in several states during the twenty-seven-month period that the Janata Party remained in power. Never before had the RSS worked so closely with such a broad range of groups, many of which had previously demanded restrictions on its activities. As a result, mutual suspicions were significantly diminished, though by no means eliminated.

  While the RSS is still the object of much criticism for its Hindu revivalist orientation, it is now far more self-confident about its place in Indian society than at any time since Independence. The unprecedented growth of the RSS and its affiliates in the 1980s may be related to the upsurge of militancy among Hindus following the much-publicized conversion to Islam in 1981 of sane low-caste Hindus in the village of Meenakshipuram in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The amorphous sense of danger to Hinduism intensified with the subsequent communal disturbances in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, two states with non-Hindu majorities, and with the increasing assertiveness of India’s non-Hindu groups. Many Hindus are also convinced that government ‘pampering’ of the minorities hampers their integration in the national mainstream. The government’s decision in March 1986 to enact legislation negating a court order that did not adhere to traditional Islamic law on the question of alimony is seen as a sign of such favouritism.

  The growing Hindu militancy is reflected in a proliferation of Hindu defence associations, in movements to restore temples now used as mosques, in renewed efforts to convert Christians and Muslims to Hinduism, and in efforts to get a uniform civil code enacted into law. The RSS and its ‘family’ of organizations have been in the thick of many of these activities. However, the deep regional, linguistic and social divisions among Hindus, as well as the lack of overarching Hindu institutions, continue to hinder the development of Hindu solidarity nationally.

  This study focuses on the ‘family’ of organizations around the RSS, especially its political affiliate.5 The affiliates all have a highly centralized authority structure very similar to that of the RSS. All of them recruit their cadre largely from the RSS, and the RSS-trained cadre occupy the key organizational positions. We propose that it is this recruitment policy which shapes the ideology and organizational dynamics of all the affiliates.We have given considerable attention to the political affiliate of the RSS, largely because information regarding its recruitment, organization and impact on the public are more easily available. Some of the field research was conducted prior to the 1977 amalgamation of the Jana Sangh into the Janata Party. In 1983, still more field work was carried out in India to reassess those earlier findings. Our initial analysis regarding the organizational dynamics of the RSS ‘family’ was substantially buttressed by the subsequent research. One significant change, however, is that the political affiliate has a diminished significance in the ‘family’, in part because the RSS leaders are less concerned about political protection and because they have decided that the RSS can make a greater impact on society through the non-political members of the ‘family’.

  This shift in orientation can be traced to the Jana Sangh’s participation in the Janata Party government (1977–79). The RSS was shocked by the attacks on the organization by the Jana Sangh’s partners in the Janata Party. The RSS leaders discovered that close association to political power arouses envy and opposition which hinders their efforts to influence the larger public. Indeed, the attack on the RSS was one of the reasons the Jana Sangh group withdrew from the Janata Party in 1980. Since the re-establishment of the Jana Sangh under its new name, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the RSS has been maintain to sanction the close association that existed prior to 1977, though almost all in the top leadership of the BJP have an RSS background, and they have recently indicated a growing desire to remain within the ‘family’ of RSS organizations. But still the RSS now seems reluctant to put all its political eggs in the BJP basket. Indeed, politicians from other parties are seeking its support.

  Most of the leadership and the leading activists of the Jana Sangh, as we shall show, underwent a period of training within the RSS. This continues to apply to its successor party, the BJP. This training is carried out in shakhas of the RSS which meet daily to teach character building (behavioural norms and a world view) to the swayamsevaks (participating volunteers). The founders of the RSS devised a training system which was intended to establish a brotherhood which, in the pursuit of a renewed sense of community, could transcend parochial antagonisms and social disorder. It was expected that this ‘enlightened’ group would work together to restore order and social harmony through reshaping society in a way compatible with the RSS interpretation of Hindu thought. RSS leaders maintain that this remains the organization’s raison dêtre.

  RSS training ideally starts in pre-adolescence and becomes more ideologically oriented during adolescence. The most explicitly ideological training occurs at a time when youth generally are working out in their own experiences a satisfying relationship between themselves and society. It is a period when the individual is particularly susceptible to ideological appeals.6 It is a time when, if G. Morris Carstairs is right, Indian youth seek a person or a cause to which they can give their uncompromising support and obedience.7 The RSS appeals to this impulse by advocating the sacrifice of self for society, organizationally expressed through service in the RSS and by deference to RSS leaders. The society envisaged is not the existing order, but a reformed and revitalized social order, a perception which permits young swayamsevaks to combine loyalty to the ‘nation’, (represented by the RSS) with rebellion against the various establishments which make harsh demands on the adolescent. The RSS holds out to its participants a cause to which they dedicate themselves and thereby transcend the mundane and ordinary affairs of the world.

  The RSS expects of its members something very close to religious zeal, demanding from them strict self-control, disciplined activity and identification with the group. A system of myths, rites and symbols are intended to fuse the individual’s identity to the larger Hindu community which the RSS claims to represent. In comparison with this larger community, the individual is only a minor element and he is valued as a part of a group and of a historical continuum. The training offered in the collective environment of shakha teaches the participants to identify private desires with the group and to enjoy cooperation and loyalty for their own sake.

  The shakha offers a unifying experience for the participants, providing them with a similarity in speech and outlook. It also creates a certain aura of uniqueness among those who successfully complete the training and induces them to respect each other for what they have become. The intensity of the bonds which are formed may account for the commitment to the ideology of the RSS. This commitment probably has a greater influence on organizational loyalty than the substantive content of the ideology itself.

  Members of all castes are welcomed into the RSS and are treated as equals if they conform to behavioural standards considered proper by RSS leaders. Those standards continue to reflect, to a large extent, the Maharashtrian brahmin values of the founders of the RSS. Many brahmins in Maharashtra had a world view that was both ‘priestly’ and ‘kingly’ (and this was not unique to Maharashtra).8 Aspects of both world views have been incorporated into the RSS. Its brahmanical orientation is reflected in its emphasis on a fastidious and ascetic lifestyle, selfless devotion to an ideal, learning and the symbols of the great tradition of Hinduism. The RSS, for its part, conceives of itself as a source of enlightenment and its leaders compare it to the ancient ashrams (traditional religious training centres). Its martial orientation shows up in its glorification of physical strength and bravery, and the use of traditional weapons and drills. The RSS discipline, its uniform and the Sanskritized military terms employed at
its meetings convey a martial impression. Those historical figures which it honours tend to be warriors that the RSS associates with nation building (e.g., Shivaji, Rana Pratap, and Guru Govind Singh). Conformity to the accepted behaviour patterns and the expression of loyalty to RSS symbols confer acceptance. However, acceptance is bestowed not because of individual achievement, but rather because of the participant’s contribution to the group’s collective efforts.

  We attended shakhas in several states and were struck by the group loyalty demonstrated by those who participated together in the small sub-units of the shakha. We observed friendships between boys from opposite ends of the economic, social, and ritual hierarchies. Many of those we interviewed claimed that those friendships formed in the RSS were among the strongest and most long lasting. We believe it is this strong group cohesiveness, developed within the shakha, which constitutes the ‘cement’ which binds the swayamsevaks to the organization. The strong bonds which develop between RSS participants also have an important effect on the cohesiveness of the RSS affiliates. When the RSS swayamsevak transfers to the affiliate, he brings along with him strong loyalties to his RSS comrades, many of whom will be in the affiliate. He also brings ideological and behavioural orientations which enable the organization to adhere to established principles and to an accepted command structure. The organizational skills developed within the RSS make the cadre of its affiliates the envy of other Indian organizations. Our interview data suggests that RSS socialization has a greater effect on the cadre’s ideological orientation than such socio-economic variables as age, income, caste and occupation.

  We maintain that it is participation first within the RSS and then the affiliate which creates an ‘interest’, rather than the objective class or social backgrounds of the participants. Organizations, in our view, are the necessary intermediaries through which social conflict takes on an ideological dimension, for it is within organizations that the linkages between norms and behaviour take place.9