RSS Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

RSS has done exemplary social work. It " s now time for it to decolonise the Indian mind-Dr. Rakesh Sinha At the three-day meeting of the All India Pratinidhi Sabha (AIPS), the highest decision-making body of the RSS, that concluded in Coimbatore on March 22, the swayamsevaks felt unburdened. They are no longer in direct confrontation with the state. Those who considered the RSS the enemy of " secularism and nationalism " no longer hold state power. However, they still hold the dominant position in academia. In the past, the annihilation of dominant political regimes, whether in the former Soviet Union, Britain, France or in Latin America, was preceded by the assertion of intellectual hegemony. However, the situation in India is different. While the RSS dominates India " s politics, its domination in the country " s intellectual discourse is awaited. The only change is that forces whose secular discourse required the exclusion of the RSS now realise that the presence of the organisation is necessary. Anti-RSSism is not a monolith. The organisation " s critics can be divided into three broad categories. One, those academics and intellectuals who critique the RSS position on the nation and the state: Their misconception is not far-fetched since they find little substance in popular literature on the RSS to allay their misgivings. But the closer they come to the RSS, the more they will shed their misgivings. There is definitely a paucity of literature that delineates the value-loaded terminologies and narratives of the movement, like Hindu Rashtra and cultural nationalism. This gives rise to misconceptions. For instance, all anti-RSS literature and narratives describe the Hindu rashtra as a theocratic idea. That is absolutely against the RSS " s own understanding. But then, these critics have not felt the need to delve into serious work by RSS " s theoreticians. Dattopant Thengadi " s book Rashtra (nation), for example, is an attempt to delineate RSS " s understanding of the nation and the Hindu Rashtra. No literature of the RSS advocates discrimination against minorities or the formation of a theocratic state. Critics intentionally impose the Hindu Mahasabha " s perspective on the RSS. It is pertinent to quote the second RSS chief, M.S. Golwalkar, here. He said, " Once the Mahasabha passed a resolution that the Congress should not give up its " nationalist " stand by holding talks with the Muslim League but should ask Hindu Mahasabha to do that job. What does it mean? It only means that the hybrid nationalism of Congress was of the pure variety, whereas Hindu Mahasabha represented the Hindu counterpart of the rabidly communal, anti-national Muslim League. " Similarly, the oft-repeated accusation about the RSS " s non-participation in the freedom movement has been falsified in K.B. Hedgewar " s biography by this author that draws on archival records. The fact is that RSS literature has not been included in the curriculum of Indian institutions. University students see the RSS from the prism of Marxists like Sumit Sarkar, Bipan Chandra, Aditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee or liberals like Christophe Jaffrelot or J. A. Curran, who use Western parameters to explain everything.