Rastriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) popularly called Sangh is going to complete 100 years in 2025. This will create a moment in which Sangh will be evaluated by its own cadres, leaders and sympathisers of its works, functioning, success and failures during these last hundred years. It will be also analysed by others too. The friends and critique both at one time may evaluate the Sangh in this coming centenary year. The Sangh will be contemplated, discussed in various forms of media and various kinds of narratives and discourses around Sangh and many knowledge stock will be produced in this historical moment. This knowledge production may emerge in the form of books, articles, videos, collected volumes and special issues of journals and magazines. I may call this as an’ intellectual moment’ in the history of Sangh and also for the public of India. I am not saying that all and everything which will be discussed about Sangh at this moment, may be positive, but it will create a public sphere of various undertones to re-evaluate the Sangh in the changing time.
This piece I am writing here as background piece of hundred years centenary celebration which will begin some time in January, 2025. Why I write it? I write it as student and scholar who is observing Sangh since around 30 years. I wrote a book-Republic of Hindutva: How Sangh reshapes Indian Democracy published from Penguin in 2021 which created a heated discussion among various kinds of ideological public. It was appreciated a large group of readers consisting general reader, neutral public and young aspirant minds of the country and abroad. It encouraged lot of new researches on the contribution of Sangh in the making of society and democracy in India. I received various calls, mails and words from young scholars Indians and non-Indian, working in various universities of West and America to discuss about new research questions generated in their mind. Most of them received it as neutral academic research on RSS with new lens emerged from the field study but it also faced harsh criticism by an ideologically biased readers, scholars and few authors, some of them were my old friend turned as enemy. Interestingly some of the fringe elements of rightist ideology and many of my leftist friend scholars and writers turned as my personal enemy. This section of the readers of this book started attacking me personally and some of started attacking on my carrier too. This experience which I gathered from my intellectual life- gave me two lessons-scholars are mostly alone when they assert truth of social reality explored from their researches. Secondly, readers become some prisoner of their own liking and disliking, don’t allow the author to change his or her lens. However socio-political reality keeps changing and require new lens to understand, document and research them.
The narrative which I produced about Sangh and its contribution in reshaping and deepening Indian democracy and various social prediction which I did about Sangh in this book are moving on the similar direction. That requires -new research on the question which I raised in this book published in 2021. The critiques and supporter of this book may get opportunity to study the further socio-cultural action of Sangh at the grassroot and may observe whether the Sangh is further moving on same direction which’ Republic of Hindutva’ articulated and identified. Secondly a new question appears, what will be other new research narrative(questions) emerges from Sangh socio-cultural actions which are constantly taking place in Indian society.
As a researcher when we go in the field and trying to observe Sangh-society relationship, It reminds me constantly the famous statement of Sunil Ambekar which he written in his book on RSS that Sangh is like sugar(chini) in the milk- fully diluted in the society which makes social life sweeter without being visible. This sugar-milk model of Sangh -Society may be observed in many cases if someone go to understand new changes which are taking place in Indian society. After my book ‘Republic of Hindutva, I got new research questions to do further research on Sangh that is -Sangh a social reform organisation? Sangh modes of working in Indian society remained constantly-reaching to the people through Sewa Karya but in that process also keep reforming the society. The Sangh keeps adopting new changes with its core values what Deen Dayal Upadhyaya use to say-Yuganukul and producing a model of social work which was conceptually different that Christian missionaries and western mode and deeply rooted in Indian tradition. Recently Shri Mohan Bhagwat ji also told that Sangh keep changing in the context of changing society. My readers and critiques both may remember that this was my basic conceptual departure of Republic Hindutva book. I want to say here that this enormous capacity of adoption of new realities, Sangh acquired a capability to reproduce new ideas and social action which may reflect in various social reforms campaign initiated by Sangh. I also feel that Sangh has appeared as filling the gaps which emerged due to weakening of great social reform movement like Arya Samaj and others. These social reform action of Sangh may be observed in the sphere of material and non-material like religious, cultural and spiritual domain too. The Sangh social reform action may be observed in the spheres of nature as well in the sphere of social universe.
This new research question-Sangh as social reform movement may be one of the important narratives need to be studied, discussed and researched in the coming centenary year by public, social activists and intellectuals. The coming centenary year of Rastriya Swayam Sangh may be an year of various kinds of researches, narratives and enquiries about Sangh and its social presence. Let’s see what emerges as core discourse about Sangh in coming year and how people are going to evaluate its contribution.
