The Brotherhood in Saffron Read online

  While the VHP has had only limited success in uniting the various Hindu religious organizations, and almost none in establishing a common doctrinal corpus, it does give the RSS an opportunity to identify itself with the Hindu ecclesiastical community, thus enabling the RSS to lobby for its views among a larger audience. For example, former general secretary Apte, at the third annual conference of the Andhra Pradesh unit, appealed to the people to ‘clean every home of “Suvarna Mrigas”—the evilsome [sic] temptation of foreign “isms”: foreign fashions, and ideologies’.90 Apte also warned the group that if the area along the River Brahmaputra in north-eastern India were culturally alienated from the Hindu mainstream, all Hindu society would be threatened.91 With this in mind, the Karnataka Conference urged the government ‘to expel all foreign missionaries from the country forthwith and not to permit their further entry’. In addition, the conference condemned a proposal that would give members of the Scheduled Castes and other backward Hindu castes the right to receive special concessions after their conversion to Christianity.92

  The VHP has concentrated its resources since the early 1970s on north-eastern India, a region with a large tribal population. Prompting the VHP is its fear that the various tribal groups are susceptible to ‘foreign’ ideologies which could trigger the formation of separatist movements. To counter this, the VHP has established schools, orphanages, clinics, temples, etc., in an effort both to block the further expansion of Christianity and to enhance national identity.

  In the early 1970s, the number of social welfare projects operating under the VHP umbrella increased dramatically. In large part, this was because it absorbed many projects begun by swayamsevaks, such as the state Kalyan Ashrams (societies working among tribals), the Vivekananda Medical Mission, orphanages, student hostels, etc. This development, sanctioned by the RSS leadership, may have been intended to make the ecclesiastical establishment more sensitive to the social needs of many Indians and to involve it more closely in social welfare work. At the same time, this step gave the RSS pracharaks working in the VHP an enhanced moral standing as they deal with the religious leadership.

  During the Emergency, the VHP maintained a low profile regarding political events, despite the seizure of Kalyan Ashram centres and schools in some states. Probably the major reason for its forbearance was the unwillingness of the religious leaders to challenge the government. When the Emergency was lifted in March 1977, the VHP again took control of those projects taken over by the government.93 By 1981, the VHP claimed to have 3000 branch units in 437 of India’s 534 districts, and to have 150 full-time workers. It operated 442 hostels, orphanages and vocational schools, some 150 medical centres, and published ten journals.94

  The national furore aroused by the conversion of some untouchables to Islam in Tamil Nadu during 1981 prompted the Parishad to embark on one of its most ambitious projects to date. In January 1983 the VHP launched a campaign to collect about 50 million rupees (approximately $5 million) for a missionary order that would work among untouchables, tribals and the rural poor, groups considered especially vulnerable to conversion.95 Such a religious order was necessary, according to an editorial in the official VHP journal, because ‘in Bharat [India] religious conversions pose a grave threat to national security and integrity. A large area of our motherland . . . is now foreign land to us, because Hindus in those places were converted to/alien faith on a large scale.’96 Reconversions of Muslims and Christians became a major objective of the VHP. VHP sources in early 1986 highlighted ‘return’ of two Muslim sub-castes in Rajasthan as an indication of the programme’s success.97

  The VHP organized a month-long Ekatmata Yagna (national integration procession) from 16 November to 16 December 1983, all over the country to raise additional money for the missionary order.98 Fund-raising was only one objective of the yagna. It was also intended to strengthen Hindu solidarity. There were three major march routes through various parts of India as well as same ninety shorter processions, totalling in all 85,000 kilometres in one month and involving almost 60 million participants.99 The various processions converged on Nagpur, the central Indian city that is the headquarters of the RSS. The processions were accompanied by a portrait of Bharat Mata (the representative of the ‘holy motherland’ portrayed in the form of a female deity) and large urns containing water from the River Ganga (a river considered holy in the sacred geography of Hindu India) and from local rivers. The Ganga water was distributed to Hindu temples for use in the worship of the temple deities, and over 1.5 million bottles were reportedly sold.

  Building on the perceived Ekatmata success, the VHP in late 1983 became an active participant in the campaign to restore the birthplace of Lord Ram, a popular Hindu deity, as a temple. The issue was controversial, for the site, Ramjanmabhoomi, located at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, had been used as a Muslim mosque since the sixteenth century, and its conversion to a temple has been a major item on the Hindu revivalist agenda since the late nineteenth century.

  The VHP credited itself for playing a major role in the February 1986 court decision permitting the performance of puja (worship) at the Ramjanmabhoomi. In its campaign to get the site converted into a Hindu temple, the VHP received help from the Hindu religious establishment, including all four Shankaracharyas (senior interpreters of Hinduism) who had formerly remained aloof from VHP activities. In addition, the Ramjanmabhoomi Liberation Committee (RLC), which managed the public relations efforts, included politicians from several political parties. The RLC concentrated on rural areas of the Hindi-speaking heartland, and its public relations effort featured processions portraying Lord Ram behind bars. This tactic reportedly succeeded in arousing mass sympathy.100

  The VHP celebrated the court’s decision as a major victory for Hinduism. It established a trust to rebuild the temple and pledged to raise 250 million rupees for the project.101 Encouraged by this development, the VHP has demanded the conversion of still two other historic sites in Uttar Pradesh: Krishnajanmabhoomi, birthplace of Krishna at Mathura; and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple at Benares. In addition, the VHP identified 25 other mosques to be converted. While this effort is clearly popular, and may result in enhanced Hindu solidarity, it almost certainly will exacerbate Hindu–Muslim tension. Muslims, who themselves are increasingly assertive, will resist. Indeed, the Ramjanmabhocmi campaign itself triggered a wave of rioting across northern India.102

  In an effort to establish greater solidarity among the various Hindu sects, the VHP in March 1981 formed the Marga Darshan Mandal, a forum or religious leaders who would advise the Parishad trustees ‘on Hindu philosophical thought and a code of conduct’.103 The Mandal provides the VHP leadership still another link to the religious establishment. In 1982, the Mandal established the Dharma Sansad, a deliberative body of religious figures who would formulate a Hindu perspective on social and political problems. In its first year, the Sansad considered such issues as conversion, Hindu–Sikh tensions in Punjab, and the decline in the percentage of Hindus in Kashmir.104 Some religious leaders in the Dharma Sansad wanted the VHP to support certain candidates in the 1984 parliamentary elections, prompting the VHP in mid-1985 formally to keep the organization aloof from partisan politics.105 However, the VHP in mid-1986 may have shifted its stance on partisan politics. Shiva Nath Katju, its president, stated that the VHP would work against candidates considered antagonistic to Hindu interests.106

  In 1970 several RSS members resident in the United States met in New York City to form the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of the United States of America, and the first annual conference was held in Canton, Ohio.107 Swayamsevaks who came to the United States are encouraged to support the activities of the American branches of the VHP, which organizes summer camps, celebrates Hindu festivals, and runs classes to teach Indian history, culture and languages. The American and Canadian units jointly publish a bimonthly magazine. The most popular programmes are the summer camps. Camps were held in four different places during the summer of 1984. Senior RSS figures from I
ndia regularly tour the US to encourage cooperation among the various RSS-affiliated groups in the US, as well as to strengthen their links with counterparts in India. One sign of the VHP’s growth in the US was the large turnout for its tenth session at New York City in 1984, attended by some 5000 delegates, in contrast to the 35 delegates who attended its first session in Canton, Ohio, in 1970. Besides the US and Canada, the VHP has spread to other countries with a large Indian diaspora, especially England and several East African and South-East Asian states.108 In Great Britain, the VHP now claims 40 branches, its own publication, and camps to train workers. Operating from its British base, the VHP organized a European conference at Copenhagen, in September 1986, as a first step towards establishment of chapters in other European countries with large Indian populations. In Kenya, the East African state with the most active VHP, the organization takes at least partial credit for the declaration of Diwali (Hindu festival of lights) as a national holiday, and for the issuance of a stamp featuring the symbol Om, the sacred sound associated with God. Kenya is the base for expanding the VHP elsewhere in Africa.

  The foreign branches of the VHP, like the overseas organizations of the RSS itself, provide several important mobilization functions for the RSS. They reinforce RSS socialization in an environment where alternatIive socialization messages might undermine the ‘faith’; they recruit new supporters who, on their return to India, might support the RSS; they generate financial support for various projects managed by RSS affiliates. They also place Indian RSS leaders in a position to dispense rewards (e.g., through contacts with foreign swayamsevaks who may offer a range of services to Indians who plan to leave the country).

  The direct involvement of the RSS leaders with the VHP became more pronounced in the late 1970s. The RSS leadership may have felt a certain obligation to the VHP out of respect for Golwalkar (who died in 1973), who had a special interest in its activities. In addition, Balasaheb Deoras, who replaced Golwalkar as a trustee of the VHP in 1973, was much more of an activist than his predecessor.109 Because the VHP is engaged in a kind of character building and is non-political, the RSS leadership could participate actively in its work without losing the aura of disinterest it seeks to portray to the public.

  RSS AND A NEW CHARACTER-BUILDING ORGANIZATION

  To commemorate Swami Vivekananda’s birth centenary in 1963, the RSS leadership decided to bring out a collection of Vivekananda’s writings.110 Eknath Ranade was commissioned to edit the volume. After completing the book, Ranade became intrigued by the idea of further popularizing the views of Vivekananda, and in time decided to establish a secular lay order to do so.111

  Swami Vivekananda preached a message of revivalism in the late nineteenth century which the RSS finds compatible with its own belief system. He has become an important symbol within the RSS and an inspiration for a Hindu lay order dedicated to strengthening Hindu identity among groups vulnerable to other creeds (e.g., tribals, untouchables). Perhaps only Shivaji receives comparable attention. Vivekananda’s picture hangs on the walls of many swayamsevaks’ homes; books about him serve as primers on nationalism; his message of self-esteem and national revitalization are the subject of innumerable RSS baudhik sessions.

  Ranade did not start out to create a new RSS affiliate. The idea for such an organization took root in the wake of the effort to create a memorial to Vivekananda. As part of the 1963 Vivekananda centenary celebrations, a committee was organized to establish a modest memorial on a small island off the southernmost tip of India, where Vivekananda is reported to have received the inspiration to take his message of advaita vedanta to the West. There was, however, opposition to the memorial from the large Roman Catholic community in Kanyakumari, a mainland village not far from the island.112 The island is also revered by Christians as the place where Saint Francis Xavier brought his mission to south India. The Government of Tamil Nadu, to forestall communal friction, refused to allow the committee to construct the memorial. The controversy was widely reported in the Indian press, and the Vivekananda Memorial Committee approached the RSS for help. Golwalkar instructed Ranade to contact prominent politicians in New Delhi who could bring pressure on Tamil Nadu to change the order. Three hundred twenty-three members of Parliament, according to RSS sources, signed a petition requesting that the decision be reversed. Ranade’s well-orchestrated publicity campaign was successful, and he was asked to take charge of the project.

  The original plans called for a simple stone marker; however, Ranade and his colleagues decided that a more impressive monument was needed for the ambitious project they planned to organize around the memorial.113 It was intended to serve as a catalyst for a lay order that would carry out Vivekananda’s teaching. A large plot of ground was acquired not far from Kanyakumari and on it the Memorial Committee has built a complex of buildings where young men and women are trained for a lay order of Hindu missionaries. This order differs from religious orders in that the participants wear no religious garb and their training and duties are primarily educational and humanitarian. They are not required to take vows of celibacy, though they must promise not to marry for three-and-a-half years prior to their initiation into the order. Having completed the six-month training at Kanyakumari, they are then commissioned.114 At the conclusion of a three-year internship programme, the trainees become full-time workers in the order. In 1984, the Vivekananda Kendra claimed 80 full-time workers.115

  Not until the early 1980s did the Kendra spell out the areas where it would concentrate its efforts. In a 1982 revision of its constitution, the Kendra decided to emphasize rural development. Accordingly, it selected three target districts in Tamil Nadu. The choice of the state of Tamil Nadu may have been influenced by the close contacts that Ranade had established with senior government figures as head of the organization. Besides this, the Kendra could help the RSS mobilize support in a state where the RSS is relatively weak.

  The Kendra continues to operate in north-eastern India, where its earliest projects were located. It manages thirteen schools in Arunachal Pradesh and two in Assam. As in Tamil Nadu, Ranade had established good relations with the political authorities in the north-east and his schools in Arunachal Pradesh receive substantial government assistance.116

  The Kendra has not experienced the rate of growth of the other RSS affiliates. One reason for this could be the extremely high standards required of the Kendra’s full-time workers by Ranade and his successor. Still another reason may have something to do with Ranade’s cautious temperament. His neutral stand regarding the Emergency put him out of step with his RSS colleagues. In addition, his long illness, beginning in 1979 and lasting until his death in August 1982, prevented him from lobbying vigorously on behalf of the Kendra. His successor, Dr M. Lakshmi Kumari, is considered a very competent organizer, but she is not a member of the brotherhood.

  POST-1977: A TIME OF EXPERIMENTATION

  In March 1977, following the lifting of the ban on the RSS, an assertive RSS leadership supported a wide range of new programmes, focusing attention on work among tribals, untouchables and the very poor in both rural and urban areas. These groups are considered vulnerable to ideologies which could undermine national solidarity (e.g., communism, Christianity, Islam, regional nationalism), and therefore, are in need of programmes that strengthen Hindu identity.

  Large-scale economic development, as a tool for integrating the poorest parts of society, is a new approach in the RSS ‘family’ of organizations. Economic development as a tool of national integration is an outgrowth of RSS flood relief efforts begun following the devastating cyclone which struck the south-eastern coast of India on 19 November 1977.117 The original RSS programme there included the disposal of the dead, the construction of community halls, the reconstruction of housing, and providing educational opportunities for orphans.118 The Deendayal Research Institute (DRI) took control of the work, underscoring the enhanced role of the relatively new DRI in the ‘family’ of organizations. The DRI, launched in 1972 at Delhi,
was originally intended to be a research facility to provide RSS scholars and researchers with the facilities and time to develop a more sophisticated presentation of the RSS belief system and apply it to specific problems.119 Nana Deshmukh, one of the most prominent RSS pracharaks, has given it a broader mandate.

  Deshmukh vastly expanded the scope of the DRI’s activities. Besides the disaster relief work started by the RSS itself, the DRI constructed a model village, named Deendayalpuram, in Andhra Pradesh soon after taking over the relief work from the RSS. With the experience gained from the model village, Deshmukh selected Gonda district, a district in Uttar Pradesh which he then represented in Parliament, as the site for a large-scale development project. His scheme, referred to as integrated rural development, called for irrigation facilities, new agricultural techniques, small-scale industries and craft centres, vocational training institutes, producer cooperatives, schools and medical clinics. Work began in late 1978 with 50 volunteers. Operating on the premise that the very poor will not feel a sense of community with the larger society, Deshmukh declared that the immediate objectives of his development programme were full employment and a minimum income of 2500 rupees per year for every family.120 The Uttar Pradesh experiment was judged to be so successful that Deshmukh selected three additional model districts in other states. Besides this development work, the DRI is now trying to coordinate and guide similar local projects begun by swayamsevaks.