(This article was first published in Organiser)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is more than just an
ideology, it is a methodology,” said RSS Sarsanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat
while addressing a three-day lecture series at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi in
2018. With the BJP emerging as the biggest political party of the country and
resolutely occupying power in states and the Centre, the RSS itself has come
under considerable spotlight. It can be safely said that RSS today is no longer
an alternative discourse, it is, in fact, the main discourse of the country.
With millions of ‘swayamsevaks’ involved in voluntary work across the country
and overseas, it has also become the subject of curiosity, conjecture and myth.
Going back to the early years of RSS, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru
had labelled the RSS as a communal organisation as early as in 1946. Nehru
later ruled the country for 17 years and left behind a legacy of Nehruvian
ideology, which talked about secular nationalism, non-alignment and Socialism.
This Nehruvian ideology brought greater acceptance to the idea that RSS was a
communal organisation. As a result, the RSS came to be seen within an insulated
secular-communal framework and no need was felt to go beyond that
understanding. No critical approach was developed or empirical studies were
conducted on the works of the RSS other than in the pre-fixed context of
secular-communal dualities. Barring the work of rare academics like Walter
Anderson and Pralay Kanungo, no serious attempts were made to develop an
understanding of the work and approach of the RSS based on academic enquiry and
data. The subject was always approached with narrow pre-arrived conclusions on
the ideas of RSS and Hindu Rashtra. The outcome was that RSS was labelled as a
radical ‘Hindu Right-Wing’ organisation with ‘Fascist’ objectives and all views
were restricted to this narrow typecast setting.
Against this backdrop, Malini Bhattacharjee’s book,
‘Disaster Relief and the RSS’, offers a new understanding of the work
undertaken by the RSS over the past 90 years. The author, who holds a PhD from
JNU and is currently an assistant professor at Azim Premji University,
Bengaluru, focuses on the Sewa (service) aspect of the RSS—approaching it both
from an academic standpoint to look at the broader picture and also the point
of view of the organisation itself that considers it a duty to work for the
society. Be it the refugee camps after Partition, or soldiers facing the
ravages of war in 1962, natural calamities like Uttarkashi and Latur, mishaps
like Charkhi Dadri or Sewa Bastis where RSS works for the downtrodden,
marginalised and vulnerable with the philosophy of Antyodaya—away from the
communal agenda so conveniently attributed to it, RSS has relentlessly pursued
its humanitarian work that has gone largely undocumented and certainly
unrecognised.
For the purpose of this book, Bhattacharjee uses Orissa
cyclone and Gujarat earthquake as case studies to understand the Sewa aspect of
the RSS. The first chapter locates disasters as a site where state and
non-state actors come into play and brush shoulders to gain mileage out of
relief work. This chapter provides an interesting history of disaster relief in
India and points out the fast-eroding demarcation between ‘secular’ and
‘religious’ aid providers. While she indicates the essential politics behind
normalising a pervasive secular-religious dichotomy, she also discusses what
makes ‘politico-cultural’ organisations like the RSS unique, “...unlike the
religious organizations, they neither practise any liturgical rituals nor
adhere to any Church-like ecclesiastical order. However, it would also be
erroneous to club them as ‘secular’ voluntary groups, as their modes of
mobilisation are centred on the protection of ‘Hindu dharma’ with frequent
allusions (no matter how superficial) to traditions, customs and rituals of the
Hindu religion.”
The following two chapters analyse the concept of ‘Sewa’ and
its practice in the RSS, respectively. The second chapter, which discusses Sewa
and its multiple dimensions, is a particularly interesting read as it balances
the study by bringing in an intrinsically Indian understanding of the term with
all its complexities as against the idea and concepts around ‘gift making’
which entails necessary reciprocity. This chapter explores various forms of
‘daan’ and the evolution of the concept of Sewa from Bhakti period to Gandhi
and later Hindu nationalism. Continuing this line of thought, the third chapter
explores ‘nation-building’ through Sewa and RSS’s understanding and imagination
of the term. In this context, the word Sewa is seen to acquire a spiritual
dimension. Quoting Shyam Parande, coordinator of Sewa International,
Bhattacharjee says, “He further mentions that Sewa is neither charity nor
service and that ‘it goes way beyond that’. Parande explains that Hindus by
birth incur four ‘runas’ (debts): Matru Runa—debt to one’s mother; Pitru
Runa—debt to one’s father and your ancestors; Rishi Runa—debt to sages; and
Samaj Runa—debt to one’s society. Sewa, he suggests, is the fulfilment of this
last runa.”
This chapter also highlights the non-sectarian quality of
Sewa rendered by the RSS. For it Bhattacharjee cites Golwalkar’s letter to K.
Suryanarayan Rao and an account of Charkhi-Dadri relief work by Dr Zafarul
Islam Khan. These documents bring out the fact that the RSS idea of Sewa stems
from essential service to the nation and makes no religious distinction. The
following two chapters of the book provide a detailed overview of the relief
and rehabilitation activities undertaken by RSS after the Super Cyclone in 1999
and the Bhuj earthquake in 2001.
The book essentially lays out three strands—humanitarianism,
Sewa and political dividends. The segment on humanitarian lays out disaster
sites and relief work as deeply political spaces where ‘sanctification and
secularisation’ are so enmeshed that it is difficult to discern the difference
between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’. The segment on Sewa traces the evolution of
the concept and highlights the consistent strain of selflessness.
It is pertinent to point out here that RSS beliefs have been
rooted in ‘prasiddhi parangmukhta’ or renunciation of fame. It is owing to this
that the organisation has never tried to publicise its relief efforts even when
such an activity could have certainly brought it to fan following and cadre
enhancement. Moreover, Bhattacharjee restricts observations to the context of
disaster relief while RSS’s humanitarian work goes far beyond that and does not
carry any proselytisation baggage. Of course, goodwill towards RSS and
enlisting for its cause are a natural outcome of its humanitarian efforts but
these are not the outcomes that are either expected, expressed or implied by
the organisation.
Nevertheless, Bhattacharjee steps into an entirely untouched
domain with her work. She has undertaken interviews, fieldwork, study for the
purpose of this book and the result is rewarding. She indicates a need to
analyse ‘Hindutva’ in contemporary times by identifying new forms and
structures of society “that are actively assimilating the ‘sacred’ within the
‘secular’”. The book is indeed a new step towards creating a deeper academic
understanding of RSS and the political phenomenon that it has affected in
contemporary India.
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