Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: RSS History, Ideology, Founder
A paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization on the right side of Indian politics, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh relies on the support of ordinary citizens.
Introduction of RSS: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the organization that laid the foundation and serves as the umbrella organization for a broad network of organizations that are active across Indian society (Hindi for “Sangh family”).
On September 27, 1925, the inaugural meeting of what would become the RSS took place. At the close of 2014, the organization had somewhere between 5 and 6 million members.
The primary goal was to create a Hindu society that adhered to the Hindu Rashtra philosophy and provided moral instruction via the Hindu disciplinary system. A secondary objective was to unite Hindus under this ideology (Hindu nation).
The mission statement of this organization is that they want to “strengthen” the Hindu community via the propagation of the Hindutva ideology as well as the promotion of the values of maintaining Indian culture and the virtues of a civic society.
Founding of RSS
In the year 1925, a local physician in the then-part of British India known as Nagpur named Keshav Baliram Hedgewar established the RSS.
Hedgewar, a Tilakite Congressman, a politician in the Hindu Mahasabha, and a social activist from Nagpur, was a student of B. S. Moonje’s in the realm of politics.
Moonje was in charge of Hedgewar’s relocation to Calcutta so that he could study medicine and get training in combat from Bengali anarchist underground organizations.
Hedgewar had been dispatched to Calcutta by Moonje. Hedgewar became a member of the revolutionary group Anushilan Samiti, which was opposed to the British government, and rose rapidly through the ranks of the organization.
When he was organizing the RSS, he took advantage of the covert methods that these other organizations used.
History of RSS
Hedgewar stopped the RSS from joining political parties against British rule. RSS rejected Gandhi’s request to collaborate with Muslims.
Anti-British political activity was avoided to follow Hedgewar’s lead and keep the RSS out of the Indian Independence fight. C. P. Bhishikar, who authored a biography of the RSS, maintains Hedgewar never made any political pronouncements.
The RSS commemorated the Indian National Congress’s “Independence Day” in 1930, but not in later years. The Indian independence emblem Tricolor was ignored. Hedgewar joined Gandhi’s April 1930 “Satyagraha,” but not the RSS. He told everyone the RSS wouldn’t join the Satyagraha.
Participants were welcome to attend. Congress banned its members from joining RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, or Muslim League in 1934.