CASTE MOULDS THE RSS COLOSSUS

AS the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh turns 100 this year, it is learning to adjust to the realities of realpolitik and listen to the demands of the Naya Bharat it helped birth.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

Pushed by the current sociological, political, economic and cultural narratives, the RSS is learning to tweak its identity and ideology.

Over these 100 years, it succeeded in turning the invocation of secularism into an act of social apartheid. But never before did it encounter such a bellicose opposition targeting it for communal polarisation and caste discrimination. In the past, the RSS ignored what it believed were motivated accusations. But of late, it has chosen to take its ideological foes head on to save its credibility, acceptability and efficacy as a unifying force of Hinduism.

Pushed by the current sociological, political, economic and cultural churning, the RSS is learning the ropes to handle both unsavoury and scrumptious perceptions about its genuine identity and ideology. It believes it's more misunderstood than understood by motivated illiberals.

Nowhere is this sentiment more obvious than in the top leadership's recent somersaults over caste convulsions. Last week, the leadership made it unambiguously clear that it was not against both a caste survey and reservation in government jobs. After a meeting of over 300 senior functionaries in Kerala, including the chiefs of its frontal organisations, its publicity chief Sunil Ambekar said: "In our Hindu society, we have the sensitive issue of our caste and caste relations. Of course, it is an important issue of our national unity and integrity.