NAGPUR
Brandishing bamboo sticks and chanting patriotic hymns, thousands of uniformed men parade in central India, a striking show of strength by the country’s millions-strong Hindu ultranationalist group.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — the National Volunteer Organisation, or RSS — marked its 100th anniversary this month with a grand ceremony at its headquarters in Nagpur.
AFP was one of a handful of foreign media outlets granted rare access to the group, which forms the ideological and organisational backbone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power since 2014.
Like the 75-year-old prime minister, critics accuse it of eroding the rights of India’s Muslim minority and undermining the secular constitution.
At the parade, RSS volunteers in white shirts, brown trousers and black hats marched, boxed and stretched in time to shrill whistles and barked orders.
“Forever I bow to thee, loving Motherland! Motherland of us Hindus!” they sang, in a scene that evoked paramilitary drills of the past.
“May my life […] be laid down in thy cause!”
‘Proud’
Hindus make up around 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people.
Founded in 1925, the RSS calls itself “the world’s largest organisation”, though it does not give membership figures.
At the heart of its vision is “Hindutva” — the belief that Hindus represent not only a religious group but are India’s true national identity.
“They are willing to fight against those who will come in their way […] that means minorities, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other Hindus who do not subscribe to the idea,” historian Mridula Mukherjee said.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat uses softer language, saying that minorities were accepted but that they “should not cause division”.
Anant Pophali, 53, said three generations of his family had been involved with the group. “The RSS made me proud to be an Indian,” the insurance company worker said.
Bloody origins
The RSS was formed during the imperial rule of the British. But it diverged sharply from that of independence efforts by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party, whose leader Jawaharlal Nehru considered them “fascist by nature”.
Mukherjee said archives showed “a link between the RSS and fascist movements in Europe”.
“They have said, very clearly, that the way the Nazis were treating the Jews should be the way our own minorities should be treated,” she told AFP.
The RSS does not comment directly on such parallels, but Bhagwat insisted that “today we are more acceptable”.
The RSS was an armed Hindu militia during the bloody 1947 partition of India and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Hindu extremists blamed Gandhi for breaking India apart. A former RSS member assassinated him in 1948, and the group was banned for nearly two years.
But the RSS rebuilt quietly, focusing on local units known as “shakhas” to recruit. Today, it claims 83,000 of them nationwide, as well as over 50,000 schools and 120,000 social welfare projects.
At a shakha in Nagpur, Alhad Sadachar, 49, said the unit was “meant to develop togetherness”.
