The Brotherhood in Saffron Read online

  The RSS leadership justified its caution during the partition and pre-partition periods by pointing out that militancy would have undermined national unity at a critical time, that aggressive action would have made it much more difficult for the RSS to carry out refugee relief, and that the organization needed to protect itself for future work.5 In fact, the RSS leadership had failed to anticipate either the partition or the ban, and lacked a coherent policy regarding both developments. The RSS dream of playing a major role in independent India was shattered. Rather, it was on the defensive. The RSS leadership was under attack both from within and without. The RSS was treated as a pariah organization and the leadership was ridiculed in the press and by politicians. Its membership dropped and the number of pracharaks decreased. Morale within the organization was at an all time low.

  AFTER THE BAN: RETHINKING GOALS AND TACTICS

  But the organization was to revive. Emerging from the ranks were a few highly talented pracharaks, such as Eknath Ranade, Vasantrao Krishna Oke, Deendayal Upadhyaya, and Bhai Mahavir, who had demonstrated managerial skills during the ban which could be used to rebuild the organization. Most were in their thirties; most were college graduates; and most had been associated with the RSS from their childhood. It was this group, most of whom were activists, that managed the reconstruction of the RSS and organized the network of affiliates that grew up around it.

  The leadership agreed with its young pracharaks that mass contact work was necessary to demonstrate that the RSS still had support. The first step in this direction was to stage rallies for Golwalkar in late 1949. RSS pracharaks also began to organize various kinds of social welfare activities in order to give a new and less paramilitary orientation to the RSS and to make it more respectable.

  Between the lifting of the ban in 1949 and 1953, Golwalkar was confronted by an organization beset by internal divisions. This disunity was in part the result of the unprecedented independence of the pracharaks during the eighteen-month ban. They operated largely on their own, which gave the pracharaks a relatively free hand to experiment. The central leadership in the mid-1950s was alarmed by what this experimentation would do to the organization.

  The senior RSS figures, generally traditionalist in orientation, believed that the weakened RSS should concentrate on rebuilding the battered organization. This divergence of views exacerbated tensions within the ranks of the RSS.6 To restore discipline and a unified sense of purpose, the central leadership made personnel changes designed to place more reliable pracharaks in key state positions. Eknath Ranade, who replaced Prabhakar Balwant Dani as general secretary in 1956, was largely responsible for implementing this policy. Still another significant personnel change was the replacement of Vasantrao Krishna Oke, the Delhi state pracharak by Madhavrao Mule, the Punjab state pracharak associated with the traditionalist school.

  Golwalkar also moved to restore a greater measure of unity by re-establishing his own moral authority. In March, 1954 he assembled some 300 pracharak from all over India to spell out ‘positive Hinduism’ as a philosophic underpinning for their work.7 Golwalkar argued that Western philosophy, emphasizing materialism, was divisive and thus a dangerous model to follow. Rather, the country should rely on Hindu philosophy, which stressed the unity of man and society. Golwalkar argued that a person worships God through service to society and he advised his audience to carry out its work in this spirit. His presentation, the first systematic statement of the RSS world view after the ban, may have been intended to do more than refurbish Golwalkar’s moral standing within the organization. By virtually ignoring the paramilitary background of the RSS, his speech may also have been an attempt to improve the public image of the RSS.

  Golwalkar also recognized that he would have to accommodate the activist demand for new programmes to stem a large-scale defection of the remaining pracharaks in the organization. The activist case was buttressed by the need to improve the image of the RSS. But Golwalkar’s caution regarding new programmes was influenced by his concern that such programmes not undermine the central position of character building. In addition, Golwalkar was reluctant to act unless he had a consensus acceptable to the traditionalist element in the RSS. With these considerations in mind, Golwalkar in late 1949 assigned several pracharaks to work with Vinoba Bhave, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, in a voluntary land donation programme aimed at convincing land owners to give some of their property to landless peasants. The mass migration of Hindus from East Pakistan in early 1950 provided another opportunity for Golwalkar to involve the RSS in a programme that would be acceptable to the traditionalists and the activists, as well as enhance the public image of the RSS. Eknath Ranade organized a relief programme similar to the work the RSS had carried out for the Hindu refugees from West Pakistan in the wake of the partition. Pursuing this new stress on social welfare, Golwalkar ordered a large-scale RSS involvement in the rehabilitation of the victims of the 1950 earthquake in Assam.

  Besides addressing the concerns of those activists who wanted to get the RSS involved in social welfare programmes, Golwalkar clearly believed that he had to respond to the pressure of those activists interested in politics. Despite his apprehensions regarding political involvement, Golwalkar permitted several pracharaks to assist Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee—a prominent Bengali politician who had left the cabinet in 1950 over a disagreement with Prime Minister Nehru regarding his policy towards Pakistan—in establishing the Jana Sangh in 1951. While this step might have been calculated to help a political party that would offer protection to the RSS, his willingness to cooperate with Mookerjee probably was also motivated by a desire to accommodate the restive activists. The electoral debacle of the Jana Sangh in the 1951–52 first general elections demoralized the political activists and provided an opportunity for the central RSS leadership to enhance the position of the RSS relative to the party. The young party needed RSS workers; indeed, it depended on them to establish an organizational base. This dependency meant that the party leadership had to pay attention to the views of the RSS.

  Still another example of Golwalkar’s efforts to accommodate political activists was his support of swayamsevak participation in a move to liberate the Portuguese enclave of Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 1954. His favourable response to a request from Bombay state officials for such support was prompted by his fear that the communists might gain the upper hand in the struggle against Portuguese rule.8

  Golwalkar also gave those pracharaks seeking to organize workers and students an opportunity to lay the groundwork for affiliated organizations. Two of the more prominent were Dattopant Bapurao Thengadi, in labour, and Datta Devidas Didolkar, among students. Both men began their apprenticeship by working in non-RSS labour and student organizations.

  Golwalkar’s personal involvement in the late 1952 agitation against cow slaughter gave the RSS a chance to influence the Hindu religious establishment as well as to build up its popular support. At the grass-roots level, the agitation depended heavily on RSS volunteers who were largely responsible for the collection of signatures petitioning the president of India to ban cow slaughter. Like the tour campaign organized for Golwalkar after his release from prison, the involvement in the agitation against cow slaughter boosted RSS morale and demonstrated to the membership that the organization had the capacity for mass action.

  Despite these efforts, the RSS remained in bad shape. It continued to lose members and activist pracharaks. Some of the remaining activists even went to the extent of openly challenging Golwalkar’s leadership. Moreover, the RSS was unable either to recruit the desired number of pracharaks or to pay off outstanding debts. Regarding finances, Golwalkar was deeply worried over the inability of the RSS to quickly pay off loans arranged during the ban. Golwalkar was so concerned that he gave serious consideration to selling the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to raise the money. It was not until 1956 that the RSS was able to pay off the debt incurred during the ban.

  Given the continuing problems in the mid-1950s, the cent
ral leadership decided that further consolidation was needed. Eknath Ranade, appointed general secretary in 1956, ruled that the RSS could not afford to loan pracharaks to the affiliates when its own work continued to languish. The RSS would devote its resources almost exclusively to character building. This policy came as a blow to the affiliates and their leaders lobbied against it. Some activist pracharaks, such as the Deoras brothers (Balasaheb and Bhaurao), withdrew from RSS work.

  The consolidation phase ended in 1962. Two years earlier, Golwalkar had called an assembly of full-time workers at Indore to review the future orientation of the RSS. For the first time, pracharaks working in the affiliates were participants in such a national conclave. These pracharaks strongly recommended that the RSS again allow some of its own full-time workers to shift to the affiliates. They pointed out that the future of the affiliates would be bleak unless they could get RSS pracharaks. Their arguments made an impression. General Secretary Ranade, assigned to a long-term project aimed at popularizing the revivalist message of Swami Vivekananda, was replaced in 1962 by Prabhakar Balwant Dani, who had held the position between 1946 and 1956, and who was more sympathetic to the activist view. After 1962, RSS workers again were allowed to shift to the affiliates. Some of the pracharaks who had been disillusioned by the retrenchment policy returned to their work. Perhaps most prominent on this score were the Deoras brothers. Balasaheb was appointed assistant general secretary, and Bhaurao was given the position of northern zonal pracharak.

  Perhaps the major reason for the change in policy after 1962 was the enhanced respectability of the RSS, most dramatically demonstrated by the government’s decision to permit its participation in the 26 January 1963 Republic Day parade. The RSS clearly benefitted from the upsurge in nationalism sweeping the country in the wake of the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

  The growing membership and the successful recruitment of full-time workers were further proof that the organization had again been placed on a firmer foundation and could afford to pursue a more activist orientation without at the same time undermining its core character-building activity. This reorientation was buttressed by the appointment of Balasaheb Deoras as general secretary in 1965 on the death of Dani, following his informal exercise of the position during Dani’s illness in 1964. During his nine-year tenure in that office, Deoras stressed the importance of the affiliates, advocated improved coordination between the RSS and the affiliates, and supported their growing assertiveness. While he was general secretary, the affiliates began to take on a more populist orientation, and this was demonstrated by their increasing resort to agitation.

  RSS-AFFILIATED NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS

  One of the first non-traditional areas of work for the RSS was the print media. Given the critical national questions raised in the immediate post-war period, the RSS leadership wanted to communicate its views quickly to a rapidly growing membership and to the larger Hindu community, whose interest the RSS claimed to represent. There was a dilemma over what form this communication should take, for Hedgewar had, on theoretical grounds, discouraged the use of publicity and mass communications. He feared that publicity would undermine the character-building programme of the RSS. It might be tempted to employ publicity to recruit supporters who, without the disciplined training, would have only the most superficial commitment to the fundamental goals of the organization. Hedgewar believed publicity had been a major factor in undermining the idealism and commitment of almost every other nationalist movement. Throughout his tenure as sarsanghchalak and well into that of his successor, the RSS leadership refused to publicize its activities.

  Reluctant to employ publicity or mass communication, the RSS created an informal communications system based on verbal messages carried by RSS leaders, who were almost continually touring the country. The RSS in its formative stage published no newspapers or journals, and it had neither a written constitution nor a set of written rules. When the government of the Central Provinces issued a memorandum in December 1933, charging that the RSS was a communal organization which government employees were prohibited from joining, Hedgewar refused to issue a protest and requested sympathetic organizations to protest on its behalf.9 When RSS work was begun in Delhi in 1936, Hedgewar wrote to the organizer:

  It is a bad thing . . . that the news [concerning RSS work] appeared in the newspapers . . . Due to such publicity, many difficulties will be created in our work, so we don’t want publicity in the beginning. If we present some work before the people, it will naturally do the publicity and it is useful to organize so no such mistake should be made again [sic].10

  Soon after the war, activist pracharaks proposed that the RSS begin to use the print media to publicize its position on the question of partition, on the goals of an independent India, and on how Hindus should respond to communal tension. They argued that the RSS message was not reaching most Hindus at a critical period in India’s history. While the leaders refused to sanction the establishment of RSS newspapers and journals, they did consent to the creation of trusts which would publish newspapers and journals sympathetic to its goals. In late 1946, swayamsevaks in Punjab and Delhi began selling shares for the Bharat Prakashan Trust.11 The trust raised approximately 400,000 rupees and it began to publish Organiser, an English-language weekly published in the capital city, on 3 July, 1947, one month after Lord Mountbatten announced the British decision to partition the country and to terminate colonial rule in the subcontinent.12 The first several issues of Organiser focused on partition, calling for Hindu resistance to it.

  Organiser, which reached a national audience, became the most prominent forum for the activist viewpoint in the RSS. Indeed, the print media affiliated to the RSS employed many activists who were later to play a major role in the establishment of the RSS ‘family’ of organizations.

  The 1948 ban of the RSS, press attacks on it, and the decision of the Congress party to prohibit RSS members from participating in the Congress or its affiliated organizations strengthened the case of the activists advocating a network of newspapers that would present the RSS view on developments. In order to communicate with the vast majority of the population not literate in English, activist swayamsevaks decided to establish newspapers and journals in the vernacular languages. During the ban, swayamsevaks established two vernacular weeklies—Panchjanya in Hindi and Rashtra Shakti in Marathi.13 In the following decade, trusts were formed to publish newspapers and journals in twelve vernacular languages.14 Each of these publications is owned and managed by a trust, most of whose shareholders are swayamsevaks. Their editorial staff and reporters are recruited largely from among RSS cadre. Many of the staff members meet formally together a few times each year, usually at Nagpur, to discuss technical problems and policy stands. Their common membership in the RSS further strengthens the bonds between them.

  Activists were responsible for forming the Hindustan Samachar, India’s first vernacular news service. In 1970, with a network of over 1,000 correspondents and 24 news centres, it distributed news to newspapers and journals publishing in 9 local languages.15 Among its reliable customers were the 41 RSS affiliated newspapers and journals. The Hindustan Samachar was an important element in the communications network of the RSS, for it reported RSS activities as well as the activities of the affiliates. This news service also was important for mobilization purposes because most of the subscribers to its services were not members of the RSS ‘family’. Hence, it significantly increased the number of readers exposed to the views of the RSS.

  During the 1975–1977 Emergency, the government forced the four national news agencies to amalgamate as part of its post-Emergency effort to control the press. The Hindustan Samachar ceased to function as a separate news agency on 1 February 1976, when the four agencies announced to their customers that all news now would be sourced to the Samachar Society, the new unified wire service.

  During the Emergency, the RSS-affiliated print media tried to protect itself from government retaliation by strictly following c
ensorship guidelines. In some cases, they even published laudatory pro-government articles. Nonetheless, the government did close several RSS affiliated newspapers and journals, including Organiser and Motherland.16

  After the Emergency, the RSS-affiliated newspapers experienced a surge of circulation, though the number of affiliates in the print media remained stable. However, since 1977 there has been a rapid increase in the number of specialized journals published by the ‘family’ of organizations around the RSS.

  The Janata government which came to power in 1977 restored the four original news agencies that had been amalgamated during the Emergency. The Hindustan Samachar for its part experienced severe financial problems, in part due to the 1979 Palekar Award which mandated higher salaries to workers in the print media. The Samachar found it difficult to meet this additional financial burden in part because it had significantly increased the number of correspondents on its payroll. In addition, the United News of India, a large English press service, began to offer its services in the vernaculars. Because the RSS brotherhood refused to bail it out, the Samachar was forced to turn to the government for operating funds, a step which forced the Samachar to accept a government-appointed managing director. This incident underscores the usual RSS practice of demanding that the affiliates pay their own way after a few years of nurturing. Some exceptions have been made, but only if a convincing case could be made that the cause of national integration would suffer unless the affiliate received additional resources.