Entrenched in Indian Ethos

It was in 1965 that Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya enunciated his political philosophy of "Integral Humanism" in a series of four lectures that he delivered in Mumbai between April 22 and 25

- ANIRBAN GANGULY

We shall briefly interrupt our many-sided exploration of a unique movement of thought, culture and social transformation that the RSS is on the occasion of another momentous historical milestone that we ought to recall and commemorate. One cannot de-link the RSS from this watershed event because, like a number of fields of activities which have been shaped or given direction by the individuals or group of individuals inspired/driven by the RSS, this historic occasion too was the result of the exertions of an RSS pracharak who had taken a lifelong vow to see India recover her deeper cultural and civilisational self.

It was in 1965 that Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya enunciated his political philosophy of "Integral Humanism" in a series of four lectures that he delivered in Mumbai between April 22 and 25. 2025 heralds its 60^th anniversary.

It will be useful to have a look at Deendayal Upadhyaya's organizational association and of his ideological and philosophical orientation and shaping. His first contact with the RSS was made in Kanpur sometime in 1937 when Upadhyaya came for his Bachelors study. We are told that it was in Kanpur that he first met Doctorji. In a sense it was here that his public life began. While studying in Kanpur and Prayag, Upadhyaya joined the Sangh Shiksha Varg of 40 days, during the summer break and completed his first years' training in 1939 and the second in 1942. His initiation thus, into the Sangh, was made in the presence of two of its most defining shapers and icons - Doctorji in 1939 and Sri Guruji Golwalkar in 1942.