The Sacred Project

INDIA WITNESSED major Hindu revivalist movements in the late 19th and early 20th cen­turies when religious pa­triotism was seen as the legitimate expression of a people against colo­nial misrule. Reforming the Hindu religion, cre­ating greater unity and preparing Indian society for the struggle for independence, as not just a political right but a sacred duty, were the main ob­jectives behind such movements. Promi­nent among those movements were Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s Arya Samaj es­tablished in Punjab in 1875, Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s Brahmo Samaj founded in Bengal in 1828, Prarthana Samaj started by Atmaram Pandurang and RG Bhandarkar in Bombay in 1867, Satyashodhak Samaj founded by Jyotiba Phule in Poona in 1873, and Ra­makrishna Mission established by Swami Vivekananda in Bengalin 1897. Leaders like Sri Aurobindo with Aurobindo Ash­ram in Pondicherry, Anne Besant with the Theosophical Society, and Madan Mohan Malviya and Lala Lajpat Rai with the Hindu Mahasabha joined this club in the early 20th century. Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, VD Savarkar and BR Ambedkar, too, belonged to the same streak of leaders who kept Hindu so­cial reform ahead of the movement for independence.

That national emancipation was pos­sible through socio-religious reformation was an accepted formulation for most leaders throughout the struggle for In­dia’s independence during the hundred years between the mid-1800s and Inde­pendence in 1947. Swami Vivekananda’s description of India as “Dharma Prana Bharata”—Bharat with religion as its soul—became the basis for these move­ments. “If you want to speak of politics in India,” Vivekananda told a Califor­nia audience in 1900, “you must speak through the language of religion.” They understood that the national soul could be stirred through religion and spiritual­ity alone. The European idea that religion should be banished from social and po­litical life in the name of secularism was seen by all these leaders as anathema to the Indian reality.

Leaders like Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi and Tagore rested their political and social thought on certain religious beliefs concerning the nature of man and the Absolute. “For each of these Indian thinkers, a divine Absolute exists, and the individual is seen as part of that Absolute; that is, the nature of man is divine. For each, it followed from these beliefs that the highest aim of man should always remain the discov­ery of his own nature; the attainment of this goal they called self-realization or spiritual freedom. In order to achieve this, man’s behaviour must be moral. He must follow the dictates of the Absolute,” wrote Dennis Dalton in Indian Ideas of Freedom. Gandhi often used to claim that he was guided by the “still small voice” within.

Gandhi also was categorical that “those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what reli­gion means”. “My national service is part of my training for free­ing my soul… For me the road to salvation lies through incessant toil in the service of my country. So my patriotism is for me a stage in my journey to the land of eternal freedom and peace. Thus it will be seen that for me there are no politics devoid of religion,” Gandhi argued in his autobiography. He insisted that his aim was to purify and purge the “whole of Hinduism”, which he described as “the greatest reform of the age”.

These movements brought a new iconography and vocabulary into the independence movement. The country ac­quired the form of ‘Mother’—Bharat Mata. ‘Vande Mataram (Hail thee, Mother(land)’, a song from the novel Anandamath written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1882, emerged as the new battlecry of the freedom movement. “It was thirty-two years ago,” wrote Aurobindo in 1907, “that Bankim wrote his great song and few listened; but in a sudden moment of awakening from long delusions, the people of Bengal looked round for the truth, and in a fated moment somebody sang ‘Bande Mataram’. The man­tra had been given, and in a single day, a whole people had been converted to the religion of patriotism.”

BANKIM’S ANANDAMATH IS aptly described as his greatest contribution to the early growth of nationalism in India. The novel was based on a his­toric rebellion that took place a century earlier in Bengal against the atrocities of the British East India Company. De­scribed by Warren Hastings, the first governor general of Bengal, as the “Sannyasi Rebellion”, this revolt took place in the 1770s and 1780s until it was brutally suppressed by Hastings’ armies. It was a revolt against the Company’s new taxation policy that had made life even more miserable for the people of Bengal who were already reeling under the after effects of the Great Bengal Famine of 1770 in which an estimated 10 million people had perished. The rebellion was led by Hindu sanyasis and Muslim fakirs jointly in the form of attacks on Company properties and officials. Bankim’s words in the novel that “until Hindus are wise and virtuous and strong, the English power will remain unbroken” carried a potent message for those fighting for independence.

‘Vande Mataram’ became the mantra of the independence movement launched by Congress in 1905. The main objec­tive was to oppose the Bengal partition plan of Viceroy Lord Curzon. The movement soon acquired a nationwide character with Lala Lajpat Rai taking the lead in Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Maharashtra, and Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal. The trio became famous as Lal-Bal-Pal and led the movement to a successful culmination when, after six years, King George V visited India in 1911 and annulled the partition.

While Bankim’s ‘Vande Mataram’ continued to play a critical role in motivating the freedom fighters, it also inspired youngsters to launch their own movements. One such organisation born in Bengal in 1902 was the Anushilan Samiti. Started initially by a group of young nationalists led by Pramathanath Mitra and Satish Chandra Basu, the group soon attracted many later-day promi­nent freedom fighters like Aurobindo Ghosh, Barindra Ghosh, Jatindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin), and Rash Behari Bose. The Samiti was inspired by Hindu philosophical ideals drawn from the Bhagvad Gita and Vivekananda’s teachings, including self-culture and discipline. Its inspira­tion was Bankim’s “Anushilan-Tattva”, or theory of discipline. Its focus was on preparing youngsters for revolutionary activity against the British by building physical, mental and spiritual strength. It opened clubs in Calcutta (Kolkata) which trained youths in physical fit­ness, self-defence and the use of weap­ons, including the making of bombs. It published revolutionary journals like Jugantar and Bande Mataram.

Into that unique organisation in Kolkata entered a 21-year-old young man from Nagpur named Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in 1910. Hedgewar, who later founded the Rashtriya Sway­amsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925 in Nagpur, came from a lower middle-class Hindu priestly family in Nagpur. Enduring dif­ficulties in childhood like the loss of par­ents and insufficient financial resources, Hedgewar pursued his education under trying circumstances. But he also devel­oped high patriotic ideals in his child­hood, which had actually resulted in get­ting rusticated from a school run by the British. In RSS, Hedgewar is described as “Janmajat Deshbhakt”, or born patriot. Incidentally, these two qualities, humble living and high idealism, would remain Hedgewar’s hallmark till the end.

With financial support from friends and well-wishers, Hedgewar moved to Kolkata to join the Calcutta Medical College and pursue the Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery (LMS) in 1910. He finished his education in 1916 and returned to Nagpur a year later after com­pleting his internship. A patriot at heart, Hedgewar soon came in contact with Anushilan Samiti in Kolkata and be­came an active, albeit secret, participant in its activities. Years in the organisation introduced him to the ideals of Hindu revivalist movements in vogue during those times in Bengal and elsewhere. He was particularly influenced by leaders like Aurobindo Ghosh in those formative years. Aurobindo’s term “preservation by recon­struction” seems to have had a lasting impact on Hedgewar as his later activity demonstrates. The importance of physical strength, discipline and moral values in Hindu youth so as to prepare them for national reconstruction is a core idea Hedgewar internalised during his years in Calcutta and association with the Samiti.

The other important influence on Hedgewar was Swami Vivekananda. Unlike Aurobindo with whom he was di­rect acquainted—RSS records indicate two meetings between them, one in 1909 in Calcutta and another in 1920 in Pondicher­ry when Hedgewar went there g with BS Munje to convince Aurobindo to return to lead the Congress movement, an effort that didn’t succeed—Hedgewar never met Vivekananda as the latter had died in 1902. But Vivekananda’s famous statement that “there are two great obstacles on our path in India, the Scylla of old orthodoxy and the Charybdis of modern European civilization” seems to have greatly influenced his thought process. Scylla was a legendary sea monster in Greek mythology which was originally a beautiful nymph later transformed into a monster. Charybdis was another monster that lived across the strait in the same sea as Scylla and created whirlpools capable of swallowing ships. The phrase “between Scylla and Charybdis” meant being caught between two dangerous choices. The organisation that Hedgewar would mould after 1925 represented the rejection of both the old orthodoxy and modern Western impositions.

Hedgewar returned to Nagpur in 1917 and continued to actively work with leaders like Munje and Loknayak Aney. Ma­harashtra at the time was under the spell of Lokmanya Tilak. Tilak adopted novel methods of skilfully using religious and cultural symbols like Ganesh Utsav and Chhatrapati Shivaji’s coronation festival to awaken and unite nationalist sentiment. He also promoted Swadeshi and joined hands with Annie Besant to spread the Home Rule Movement across the country. Hedgewar was greatly influenced not only by Tilak’s patriotism but also by his deployment of cultural symbols to inspire cultural nation­alism. His colleagues described him as an “unalloyed Tilakite”. Hedgewar’s vision of Hindu unity through RSS was in a way a product of Tilak’s influence.

As Hedgewar became politically active in Nagpur, he was naturally drawn to the Congress movement. He held various posi­tions in the Nagpur Congress and played an important role in the organising committee of the AICC convention in Nagpur in 1920. Hedgewar and his colleagues approached Gandhi, the rising star of the Congress movement, with a draft resolution demanding Poorna Swaraj, or total independence. Gandhi gave a patient hear­ing but insisted that the word ‘Swaraj’ incorporated that meaning and there was thus no need to mention it specifically. It is another matter that nine years later, at its Lahore conference in 1929, the AICC was forced to adopt the resolution of Poorna Swaraj.

Hedgewar was not regarded as an ardent supporter of Gandhi. He was closer to Tilak among the contemporary leaders. At the time of the Nagpur conference, Gandhi and Tilak had a strong dis­agreement over the means to be adopted as part of the non-coop­eration movement. When Gandhi proposed that all government councils should also be boycotted as part of non-cooperation, Tilak objected, saying that they should enter the councils and “wreck them from within”. Gandhi disagreed, stating it would be morally wrong to enter the council on an untruthful pretext and hence against the spirit of Swaraj. To Tilak’s argument that “shatham prathi shathyam (treat a malicious or wicked person with the same deceit or malice)”, Gandhi responded with “shatham prathyeva satyam (treat a malicious or wicked person also with truth)”. Gandhi concluded: “I am conscious that my method is not Mr. Tilak’s method.”

Gandhi had a four-pillar view of Swaraj which he described as a “Vedic word” and articulated that view on several occasions. “Let there be no mistake about my conception of swaraj. It is complete independence of alien control and complete economic independence. So, at one end you have political independence; at the other, economic. It has two other ends. One of them is moral and social; the corresponding end is Dharma, i.e. religion in the highest sense of the term. Let us call this the square of swaraj, which will be out of shape if any of its angles is untrue. We cannot achieve this political and economic freedom with­out Truth and Non-violence in concrete terms, without a living faith in God, and hence moral and social elevation,” he argued.

One Hundred Years of Fortitude
The birth, the bans, the growth…
By Rajeev Deshpande

Hedgewar, although a staunch follower of Tilak, seemed more inclined to the Gandhian view of “means and ends” as the later evolution of RSS proves. In an important address on the occasion of the foundation day of Vijayadashami, Hedgewar explained the Sangh’s mission in the following words: “The Rashtriya Swayam­sevak Sangh was established with a sacred purpose: to unite and strengthen the Hindu nation. Hinduism, the foundation of our culture, is a religion that emphasizes virtuous qualities and teach­es us the principle of ‘Atmavat Sarvabhuteshu’—to treat all beings as ourselves. It is a religion that condemns violence and injustice, yet today, Hindu society finds itself in a state of disorganization and weakness. The Sangh’s mission is to address this plight by uniting Hindus, instilling pride in our identity, and demonstrat­ing to the world that the Hindu community is not a dying race. The Sangh aspires to spread the virtues of righteousness across the world, eradicating the demonic tendencies of mankind and teaching humanity. It is not an organization born out of hatred or destruction but one that seeks to uplift the Hindu nation through unity and strength.”

Hedgewar never regarded his life mission to be anything apart from securing independence for the country. However, like Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Gandhi, he too believed that po­litical independence should not be the end but only a milestone in the journey of building an invincible cultural nationhood in this sacred land. He continued to involve himself in all the major movements for independence that Congress had called for. He went to jail twice—once during the non-cooperation movement and later during the Salt Satyagraha in 1930.

The revolutionary streak that Hedgewar inherited in his years in Bengal persisted until he founded RSS in 1925. He was arrest­ed in May 1921 on charges of sedition for delivering ‘seditional’ speeches at Katol and Bharatwada in Maharashtra. At the trial, he decided to defend himself and delivered a fiery speech. The magistrate observed that his defence was “more seditious than his original speech” and slapped a year-long jail term. Refusing to seek bail, Hedgewar proceeded to Nagpur Jail and spent many months as an inmate.

However, after the birth of RSS, Hedgewar’s approach became more conciliatory and peaceful. “The Sangh was not created to harbour hatred or to destroy anyone. Even those who oppose the Sangh cannot accuse it of such intentions, as evident from the Sangh’s eight-year history. The Sangh has one sacred purpose: to make the Hindu nation united and powerful,” he explained in the Vijayadashami address of 1933.

This wider philosophical and historical record is important to understand the purpose behind the creation of RSS, which is com­pleting 100 years on this Vijayadashami Day. It was a continuation of the vision espoused by the tallest leaders of the independence movement from Maharshi Dayananda to Mahatma Gandhi. It may be pertinent to note that this ideological spectrum, which saw India’s independence as a sacred spiritual mission, had its adversaries during the freedom struggle itself. The socialist and communist elements that penetrated the movement in the 1930s had strong reservations about the Gandhian approach, of invok­ing religious and cultural symbols for mobilising national opin­ion, and called it a “curse”.

Foremost among Indian communist leaders at the time was Manabendra Nath Roy (MN Roy, born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya) who saw Gandhi’s politics as “right wing” and de­terminedly opposed it. Although he maintained some restraint in public, Roy was stingingly critical of Gandhi in a letter he wrote to a comrade, Jay Lovestone, in 1937.

“Our real fight is against the right wing which is still very powerful thanks to the popularity of Gandhi… I am striking at the very root. Gandhist ideology must go before the nationalist movement can develop its enormous revolutionary potentiali­ties,” Roy wrote. In his book, Dalton accuses Roy of “repeatedly expressing in private his determination ‘to destroy the curse of Gandhism’ while professing unqualified admiration of his lead­ership in public”.

THE OTHER LEADER who accused Gandhi of “Hindu­ising” politics was Muhammad Ali Jinnah. “Why does not Gandhi honestly acknowledge that the Congress is a Hindu Congress, that he does not represent anybody except the solid body of Hindu people?” he taunted Gandhi in his address at the Muslim League convention in Lahore in 1940 in which the Pakistan resolution was adopted.

The third opposition to Gandhi’s cultural nationalist politics came from within. Jawaharlal Nehru, whom Gandhi himself called his political heir, publicly dissociated from the Gandhian view of religion and politics. Nehru’s discomfort with Gandhian principles was broad-based. He conveyed the same to Gandhi on several occasions. They had exchanged letters expressing disap­proval of each other’s views. The so-called politi­cal heir of Gandhi had huge disagreements with Gandhian beliefs in Hind Swaraj, Gram Swaraj, and he even detested Gandhian methods like Satyagraha and fasting. Expressing his serious displeasure over Gandhi’s “revivalism”, Nehru noted in his di­ary in 1933: “As I watched the emotional upheaval during the fast, I wondered more and more if this was the right method in politics. It is sheer revivalism, and clear thinking has not a ghost of a chance against it… I am afraid I am drifting further and fur­ther away from him mentally, in spite of my strong emotional attachment to him.”

The same forces—communists, Islamic separatists, and Nehruvian secularists—who saw Gandhi’s cultural national­ist agenda as unacceptable religious revivalism, also found RSS’ ideology problematic for their modernist agenda.

In the end, RSS is the clear winner. As the republic turned 75, the centenarian organisation came to occupy the national cen­trestage, generating hopes of realising the vision of leaders like Swami Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi. It emerged as the real torchbearer of the national revivalism those leaders had dreamt of.

Bal Gangadhar Tilakcultural forcefreedom struggleHindu nationalismideologyIndia’s partitionLK AdvaniMahatma GandhiNarendra ModipoliticsRSS centuryUCC