The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, provides ideological guidance to the ruling BJP. It was founded a century ago with the professed aim of creating a Hindu Rashtra. But the strong foundations of secularism set by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru remain mostly unshaken. The Indian society, comprising mostly Hindus or their adjuncts, is mentally conditioned to a secular ethos. This makes the RSS attempts to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra a failure. The RSS itself has, however, marginally changed its basic perceptions to suit the new situations. A reason why its chief Mohan Bhagwat has repeatedly been advancing the theory that “all those who live in Bharat are Hindus.”
A problem with the RSS leadership is its narrow outlook on life, set against the modern mindset of western-educated Jawaharlal Nehru. This situation was compounded by the obsessions the RSS has to harp on the past and be less mindful of the issues of the present. While a mix of the past and the present in one’s thought process is a happy blend, the over-emphasis on the past would make us stuck to a state of decadence. Yet, the BJP-led central government in the past nearly 10 years has been, for most part, careful in not taking matters to a boiling point. The government has been run on secular lines but for the occasional obsessions of the Hindutva fanatics to challenge the established order, both with words and actions. Palpably, the days of hardcore Hindutva proponents like Pravin Togadia are over.
While the RSS chief might seem to adopt a middle course, giving an impression to non-Hindus that they too form part of his organisation’s scheme of things, the underlying worries of the minorities are there for all to see. India is a mosaic of religions, castes, races and cultures. Therein lay its beauty. To make all Indians as Hindus, even at a conceptual level, is to rebel against the ground realities. Hinduism is today the world’s third largest religion. Hinduism flourished since the Medieval period, after the decline of Buddhism. However, unlike Christianity and Islam, and due to historic reasons, it remains mostly rooted to India. Notably, most of those who are now labelled as Hindus — namely the BCs, the Dalits, sections of the tribals, who form the bulk of the Indian population — are still segregated from the Hindu mainframe. They are the underlings, the outcasts. Caste-based and other sectarian discriminations are the worst in Indian society and its governance systems. There exists a grave challenge to equality of opportunities. The RSS is oblivious to all these. To exist here is to happily co-exist.