Type Caste

The Sangh's century of moulding men

- / SAGAR

“Does the Sangh change its views with time? If yes, what are its unchanging thoughts?” This pre-submitted question was put to Mohan Bhagwat, the sarsanghchalak—supreme leader—of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, at Delhi’s Vig-yan Bhawan in late August. The occasion was a three-day lecture series attended by over fifty politicians, diplomats, former chief justices and former chiefs of the army and air force.

Seven years ago, from the same venue, Bhagwat had declared that the organisation had moved on from the incendiary writings of its second sarsanghchalak, MS Golwalkar, on Indian minorities. He suggested those ideas were products of their time. (The latest edition of Golwalkar’s collection of speeches, Bunch of Thoughts, excised the sections that branded Muslims, Christians and communists as “internal threats.”) Bhagwat defended the shift at the time: “RSS is not a closed organisation. Time changes, so do our thoughts.”