NAGPUR: Brandishing bamboo sticks and chanting patriotic hymns, thousands of uniformed men are marching across central India, a striking show of force by the country’s multimillion-strong Hindu ultranationalist group.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the National Volunteer Organization, or RSS – marked its 100th anniversary this month with a grand ceremony at its headquarters in Nagpur.
AFP was one of the few foreign media outlets granted rare access to the group, which forms the ideological and organizational backbone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power since 2014.
Like the 75-year-old prime minister, critics accuse him of undermining the rights of India’s Muslim minority and undermining the secular constitution.
In the parade, RSS volunteers in white shirts, brown pants and black hats marched, boxed and stretched to the rhythm of shrill whistles and barked orders.
“Forever, I bow to you, my loving homeland! Our homeland, we Hindus!” they sang, in a scene that evoked paramilitary exercises of the past.
“That my life […] be deposed for your cause! »
‘Proud’
Hindus make up about 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people.
Founded in 1925, the RSS presents itself as “the largest organization in the world”, although it does not give the number of its members.
At the heart of his vision is “Hindutva” – the belief that Hindus represent not only a religious group but also India’s true national identity.
“They are ready to fight against those who stand in their way […] this means that minorities, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other Hindus, do not subscribe to this idea,” said historian Mridula Mukherjee.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat used softer language, saying minorities were accepted but “should not cause division”.
Anant Pophali, 53, said three generations of his family were involved in the group. “RSS made me proud to be Indian,” the insurance company employee said.
Bloody origins
The RSS was formed during the imperial rule of the British. But it was a marked departure from that of the independence efforts of Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party, which their leader Jawaharlal Nehru considered “fascist in nature”.
Mukherjee said the records showed “a link between the RSS and fascist movements in Europe”.
“They made it very clear that the way the Nazis treated Jews should be the same way our own minorities should be treated,” she said. 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 partition of India in 1947 and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Hindu extremists accused Gandhi of breaking India. A former RSS member assassinated him in 1948 and the group was banned for almost two years.
But the RSS has quietly rebuilt itself, focusing on local units known as “shakhas” for recruitment. Today, it claims 83,000 across the country, as well as more than 50,000 schools and 120,000 social projects.
At a shakha in Nagpur, Alhad Sadachar, 49, said the unity was “meant to develop togetherness”.
“You can get a lot of good energy, a lot of good values, like helping those in need,” he said.
During a shaka which AFP was allowed to attend, dozens of members – many of whom were middle-aged or elderly, and not wearing uniforms – gathered for an hour of gymnastics and singing.
But in a display of symbolism, they gathered under a saffron flag – the color of Hinduism – rather than India’s tricolor.
“A country that is one”
The RSS remains deeply political. The group reemerged in the late 1980s, leading a movement that ended with the violent mob demolition of a centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya, now replaced by a gleaming temple dedicated to the Hindu god Rama.
“That was a turning point,” said historian Mukherjee, adding that the RSS was “capable of creating mass mobilization on religious issues, which became fundamentally anti-Muslim.”
The group helped Modi’s BJP party win a landslide election victory in 2014.
Since then, Modi – a former “pracharak” or organizer of the RSS – has pursued a policy that his critics say marginalizes India’s 220 million Muslims, or 15% of the population.
“There has been a marked increase in violence, lynching and hate speech since Modi took power,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, director of the American Center for the Study of Organized Hate.
RSS leaders deny involvement in atrocities. “These allegations are baseless,” Bhagwat said.
“The RSS has never committed atrocities. And if it happens anyway, I condemn it.”
Under Modi, it has expanded its reach. “The RSS has succeeded in moving Indian society in a more nationalist direction, less liberal in the Western sense,” said Swapan Dasgupta, a former nationalist parliamentarian.
But volunteer Vyankatesh Somalwar, 44, said the group was only promoting “good values”.
“The most important thing is to contribute to your country,” he said. “A country that is one, above all.”
