The Brotherhood in Saffron Read online

  Regarding the presentation of the material, we analysed in some depth how events and circumstances shaped both the content of the curriculum of the RSS and its organizational structure. Consequently, the first chapter looks at the roots of the Hindu revivalist ideology of the RSS. The second chapter analyses the formation and early development of the RSS. The third chapter considers the ideology of the RSS and the fourth focuses on the establishment of the affiliates and on the symbiotic relationship between them and the RSS. The last two chapters concentrate on the RSS brotherhood in politics.

  1

  Hindu Revivalism

  The origins of the nationalist movement in nineteenth-century India can be traced to the expansion of Western education through the English language during the early part of the century.1 The English-educated elites were concentrated in Bengal, Bombay and Madras, three coastal presidencies where greater opportunities existed for the new education and for vocations based on it—law, medicine, journalism, education, banking, modern trading and manufacturing. Those attracted to the new education came primarily from caste Hindu groups in all three presidencies.2 The proponents of social, political and religious reform among Hindus were drawn from this English-educated class.

  Until very late in the nineteenth century, most politically articulate Indians were willing to collaborate with the colonial administration. Political action took the form of petitions for greater Indian participation in the bureaucracy and in the legislative councils, protection of indigenous industry, reform of judicial administration and legal procedure to bring them into line with the practices established in England, and reforms of the Hindu social order that would make it more compatible with Western norms.3

  MODERNISTS AND REVIVALISTS

  A shift from collaboration to criticism began in the latter part of the nineteenth century. This approach required new techniques of public protest. As older social, economic and psychological commitments were eroded among those most exposed to the change, newly acquired Western norms were employed to judge society.4 Two broad movements emerged among Hindus seeking to define their national identity, and we shall refer to them as the modernists and revivalists.5 The former adopted models of social and political change based upon Western patterns, and the latter looked to Hindu antiquity. Both groups found themselves wanting when judged by the new norms. Within both groups a broad range of ideological perspectives was present. Revivalism included those who wanted to preserve the traditional social order as well as those who sought to reform Hindu society as a way of strengthening Hindu solidarity. The RSS traces its roots to the latter and hence we shall limit our discussion of revivalism to the Hindu reformers.

  The Hindu revivalists sought to recover fundamental truth which they felt had been lost since the era of its original revelation. They argued that the loss of national consciousness had created conditions conducive to foreign domination. By appealing to an idealized past, the revivalists reminded the Hindu public of the suffering and degradation experienced under alien rule. The call for independence was a logical corollary, for the degraded present could only be overcome by eliminating the foreign intruders who had disrupted the original blissful society. Muslim rulers and the British were identified as sources of that disruption and many revivalist spokesmen sought to place limits on their political power and on their cultural influence. Consistent with the traditional Indian concept of knowledge, changes within Hindu society were justified by the proposition that the changes were not new at all, but were in fact a revival of older, purer forms of Hindu culture that had degenerated during foreign rule.

  The revivalists, unlike their modernist counterparts, spoke to an almost exclusively Hindu audience. The style of the revivalists was more aggressive and tended to reflect a kshatriya (warrior) world view.6 The identification with the martial tradition of Hinduism enhanced their self-esteem by the same standards used by many British to evaluate the worth of Indians.7 Research of Western orientalists confirmed the faith of the revivalists in the achievements of Hindu rule and civilization.8 The romantic nationalism sweeping Europe at the end of the nineteenth century provided additional intellectual justification for reconstructing the present by reaching back to the classical roots of the civilization.9

  PROTEST AGAINST BRITISH RULE

  The English-educated Indian elite organized political associations, located initially in the presidency capitals, primarily to persuade the colonial authorities to increase Indian recruitment into the bureaucracy and the legislative councils, and to legislate reforms of Hindu society. Several of these associations sent representatives to Bombay in 1885 to organize the Indian National Congress.10 While the Congress included many revivalists who advocated a militant style of protest and greater contact with the masses, it tended to be controlled, at least at the national level, by modernists until 1916 when it passed into the hands of a group associated with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Maharashtrian revivalist leader. The mantle of leadership then passed in 1920 to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who, while drawing heavily from Hindu concepts, was bitterly opposed by many revivalists, especially by the followers of Tilak.

  Opposition to British rule increased among both modernists and revivalists, as the contradictions between colonial rule and new aspirations became more obvious. Criticism of India’s colonial status was buttressed by the perception that the British viewed Indians and Indian culture as inferior. Educated Indians were incensed when the British began to characterize them as feminine, cowardly, and unrepresentative of the indigenous culture.11 The racial arrogance often expressed by European officials, businessmen and missionaries made a substantial contribution to nationalist sentiment. Constitutional reforms which offered increased Indian participation in legislative bodies and the bureaucracy did not match expectations. The Western-educated Indians believed that they should enjoy the same civil liberties as the English. With the development of new techniques of agitation, the government undermined popular trust by enforcing regulations which curtailed civil liberties. The claim that British economic policies caused a drain of wealth from India further enforced the view that the British were fundamentally unconcerned with the country’s well-being.

  Developments in the late nineteenth century created conditions conducive to the expansion of revivalism. Nationalism was beginning to assert itself. The revivalist message, based on traditional Hindu concepts regarding society, was appealing to many Indians. There were few other organizational alternatives for expressing grievances. Technical developments in the fields of transportation and communications provided revivalists opportunities to spread their message quickly to a larger audience.12

  INFLUENCE OF THE HINDU WORLD VIEW

  Revivalism was expressed in new organizations which attempted to blend religion with socio-economic values to foster a revived sense of community and ultimately to espouse nationalism. Hindu society had degenerated, according to many early spokesmen of revivalism, because Hindus had not observed dharma (a code of conduct for various social categories, situations and stages of life). Many revivalists argued that India could not regenerate itself unless dharma was properly observed. Aurobindo Ghose, an influential Bengali revivalist, maintained: ‘All great awakenings in India, all her periods of mightiest and most varied vigour have drawn their vitality from the fountain-head of some deep religious awakening.’13

  The causative relationship between religious observance and socio-political affects represented a general commitment to Hindu metaphysics. Major Indian schools of thought offered a moral conception of existence based on the view that behaviour and natural phenomena are guided by inviolable laws. A good society can exist only when it is rooted on correct principles of dharma.14 The state’s obligation in the classical Hindu texts was to protect the established order so that individuals could perform the duties prescribed by caste and stage of life.15

  To pursue and legitimize the political task of national integration and self-government, the revivalists selectively drew from a vas
t mosaic of often conflicting values. They redefined traditional concepts to justify public protest and to rationalize a restructuring of Hindu society. A central concern was to redefine the linked concepts of dharma-karma. Rules of dharma maintained social integration at the local level of Indian life and were enforced by a consensus of the elders of the local castes. The rules encompassed an individual’s moral and religious life, and regulated social, political, and economic responsibilities. Karma refers to the willed actions of an individual. These actions have a good or bad effect which determines the quality of life in succeeding incarnations. Hindu practice tended to specify dharma according to the endogamous caste into which a person was born, though many of the Hindu sacred texts do not make this connection.16 A person was required to observe dharma unselfishly and without interest in the results of the action. At a more advanced stage on the path to moksha (release from the bonds of existence), the devotee subjectively seeks ‘realization’ of the divinity. These concepts strengthened an identity with the small groups to which an individual belonged by birth and made collective identifications of a larger sort more difficult.17 According to P. T. Raju, the cumulative effect of Hindu thought is a negative attitude towards the material world.18 Rajni Kothari proposes that the strains produced by national defeat and humiliation further encouraged other-worldliness, fatalism and pessimism.19

  Many revivalists, in their reinterpretation of dharma-karma, attempted to substitute the larger Hindu ‘nation’ for primary group identification and to create a life-affirming orientation. Like millennial movements in Europe, the political character of Indian revivalism derived much of its strength from the importance of preparing for salvation.20 Three persons prominent in redefining the dharma-karma concept for political purposes were Narendranath Datta (1863–1902), who took the name Swami Vivekananda after he came in contact with Ramakrishna Paramahansa (the Bengali saint who was his spiritual preceptor), Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950) and Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920). They all employed the Bhagavadgita to legitimate their reformulations. The Gita had obvious advantages for the revivalists. It was both popular devotional literature and a source of Hindu philosophical speculation.21 Because it discusses the major paths that lead to salvation, the Gita provided an opportunity to speculate on their comparative merits.

  Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a leading Maharashtrian publicist of revivalism, sought to create a philosophic justification for ‘energism’22 that would replace a negative attitude towards life.23 Tilak dismissed the popularly accepted commentaries of the Gita by Shankara (AD 787–838) and Ramanuja (AD 1017–1137?), claiming that these writers were primarily interested in justifying their own interpretation of spiritual realization. He maintained that their commentaries ‘twist the meaning of such statements as might be totally inconsistent with their cults . . .’24 According to Tilak, the interpretations of Shankara (renunciation combined with knowledge) and Ramanuja (devotionalism) contributed to a negative view of life. Their mistake was the misuse of traditional hermeneutics. He accepted as authoritative Mimansa’s rules of interpretation (propositions at the beginning and at the end of a treatise should receive greater importance) to justify his case for karmayoga.25

  The Gita, in its opening passages,26 focuses on Arjuna, a military leader whose chariot had been driven between his army and that of the enemy. The opposing army is led by his cousins who wrongly occupy his throne. Recognizing friends, teachers and relatives on the other side, Arjuna is overcome by doubt and is not sure whether he should obey his kshatriya dharma and fight the battle. There then follows a dialogue between his charioteer, Lord Krishna (incarnation of the Divine), and Arjuna. Tilak maintains that, in the end, Lord Krishna rejects devotionalism and renunciation, and orders Arjuna to act according to his dharma; in other words, to order his army to fight the epic battle.27 Rather than teaching that life is a necessary evil, Tilak proposes that the Gita demands action (karmayoga) with the implication that it is a ‘great good fortune that one got human birth’.28 In a departure from conventional Hindu norms, he delinks dharma and caste by claiming that Hinduism teaches that the individual must decide which duty is most suitable.29 Moreover, action is ‘selfless’ if it is ‘for the public good and not for the enjoyment of pleasure’.30 The Gita’s justification of social involvement and its emphasis on single-mindedness in secular pursuits made it a favourite among revivalists generally.

  Bipin Chandra Pal, a Bengali revivalist contemporary of Tilak’s, felt that India’s decline could be traced to the Hindus’ separation of spiritual enlightenment from society’s welfare.31 Two fellow Bengalis provided a linkage between spiritual enlightenment and society’s welfare in theological terms.

  Aurobindo Ghose and Swami Vivekananda based their formulations on advaita (non-dualist) philosophy and the doctrine of shakti. Advaita philosophy is a form of monism which postulates the identity of the individual soul, jiva, and the divine soul, jagadishwar. Salvation is achieved when the former merges into the latter by a recognition of their essential unity. By recognizing this unity, the ‘true believer’ also recognizes the divine component in every person and demonstrates faith ‘when the distress of every other man bearing that name Hindu comes to your heart and makes you feel as if your own son were in distress’.32

  Both men drew on the traditional religious concept of shakti (the kinetic power of the divinity, symbolized by the feminine aspect of the divinity) to argue that every person possesses a vast potential power.33 Shakti doctrine holds that this power can be tapped by the practice of sadhana (form of worship) that leads to a realization of the unity of the individual soul with the divine soul. Having realized this unity, the worshipper fuses his Self with the Goddess (shakti) and can partake of divine power.

  Aurobindo Ghose, in the spirit of such European nationalists as Mazzini, saw a divine expression of God in the nation. Nationalism for him was not merely a form of patriotism, but ‘nationalism is a religion that has come from God’.34 Both Ghose and Vivekananda believed that national rejuvenation would come only when Indians tapped that potential source of power and directed their energies to the ‘Mother Goddess’ as she manifested herself in the Hindu nation.

  EXPRESSION OF GRIEVANCES THROUGH REVIVALIST ORGANIZATIONS

  When the Hindu revivalist movement developed in the late nineteenth century, there were few channels for the expression of grievances except through traditional caste structures or religious sects and movements. However, few traditional organizations were suited to mass mobilization, and most were ideologically incompatible with the reformist orientation of the revivalists. Few traditional organizations were capable of advancing the revivalists’ desire for an expanded sense of community. New organizational forms and tactics were required.

  The nineteenth-century revivalists, unlike their modernist counterparts, sought to create a mass movement, and many expressions of revivalism succeeded in attracting widespread popular support. Revivalists generally spoke in a traditional idiom and utilized philosophic concepts and symbols which were widely understood. Revivalism also offered enlarged communal identities without necessarily demanding a denial of the heritage and culture of its recruits. Revivalist leaders inside the Congress, such as Tilak and Ghose, argued that the activities of the Congress were too narrowly based; each of them turned to traditional symbols to arouse mass support against the British. The Congress itself did not develop a mass base until after Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi took control of it in 1920.

  Revivalist activity emerged first in Bengal, Bombay and Punjab. Each presidency had its own distinct problems caused by social and economic change, and in each the revivalists used Hindu symbolism salient to their own region. In the nineteenth century, it would be more accurate to speak of Hindu regional revivalism. Only gradually did revivalist groups develop syncretic symbols capable of arousing support on an all-India level. Not until the twentieth century did revivalist organizations succeed in appealing to an all-India audience.35

  Organized revivali
sm had its initial success in mobilizing support in Bengal, headquarters of England’s Indian Empire. The Hindu Mela was formed in 1867 to revive a pride in Hindu civilization. At the annual meetings of this group, self-reliance and self-respect were promoted by exhibitions of indigenous arts and crafts, traditional sports, and the performance of patriotic songs and dramas. The widely read novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee popularized the concept that Hindus had a divine sanction to struggle for a society in which their dharma could be freely expressed. In his novel, Anandamath, he identifies the Goddess Kali (the ‘Mother’) with Bengal. Hindu revivalists all over India later adopted this symbolism and his poem, ‘Bande Mataram’, identifying the motherland with the ‘Mother’, was set to music in 1896 and became a favourite anthem among them.36 Secret societies were formed to struggle for political emancipation, recruiting primarily young students from the middle-class elements of Bengal. Some of these secret societies evolved into revolutionary groups.37 Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission and its Order to teach karmayoga and shakti. Although both the Order and the Mission remained outside politics, they provided the rationale for political activity; and many revivalist activists, including the founders of the RSS, were inspired by Vivekananda’s message. The second head of the RSS was himself an ordained member of the Order.

  Patriotic folk festivals were organized by Tilak in the Marathi-speaking part of Bombay Presidency to worship the god Ganesh and to honour Shivaji, the seventeenth-century Maratha ruler who successfully challenged Muslim rule. These festivals became extremely popular and were occasions for heightening Hindu group identity and self-esteem through songs, lectures and ritual.38 The festivals became catalysts for the formation of secret societies pledged to the independence of India.