RSS AT 100: CONTINUITY AMID CHANGE

The RSS has transformed to adapt to the changing Indian society. Though some of its earlier ideals are no longer at the fore, the core concepts have remained intact

- Christophe Jaffrelot

IN 1925, K B Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, envisioned that his organisation would ultimately become "the Hindu Rashtra in miniature". One hundred years later, the Sangh has become a massive institution, with 73,117 shakhas (branches whose members meet daily), giving the organisation a presence in 45,600 localities. Besides, RSS front organisations have flourished to form the Sangh parivar, the family of the RSS.

Today, its student union, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, claims to be the largest student organisation with 4.5 million members. Its labour union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, has become the country's leading trade union with 10 million members. Its peasants' union, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, claims one million members. And its Vidya Bharati network runs 14,000 schools that employ 73,000 teachers, teaching 3.2 million students.

Lately, the Sangh parivar has reached out to new social categories. In 1992, it created the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, which has become "the largest organisation of lawyers across India". And in 2001, the RSS, which sees itself as a reserve army, set up an organisation for retired military personnel, the Akhil Bharatiya Poorva Sainik Seva Parishad.

This quite incomplete list testifies to the RSS's effort to cover a large number of sectors of society and influence them from the inside. The Sangh parivar's unity stems mainly from the fact that all its cadres have been trained in the RSS and share the same ideology. But it also stems, at district and state levels, from Samanvaya Samitis (Coordination Committees) which harmonise the positions of all the components of the parivar. At the national level, meetings are held at the annual Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, which, however, has lost some of its effectiveness.

There are three reasons why the achievements mentioned above need to be qualified.