Next year, the world’s largest NGO or non-governmental organisation marks its centenary. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 at a single shakha (branch) in Nagpur and today, according to its website, has over 57,000 daily shakhas across India. The RSS says it does not keep a record of its members so it does not know how many there are.

Why was it formed? We are told the reason in the six-volume official history of the BJP — published by the party in 2006 — which quotes Hindu Mahasabha leader B.S. Moonje as saying that communal violence frequently happened in Nagpur because though Muslims only numbered 20,000, "we (Hindus) felt insecure because the Muslims were never afraid of 1.3 lakh Hindus".

Moonje felt this was because Hindus were divided into watertight compartments, "each having (such) a special and cultural life of its own that there is hardly any association between them". This was in contrast to Muslims, who "form one organic community, religiously well organised and disciplined". And because of this, "any injury done to any part of the community anywhere is felt as keenly all throughout".

The book says the RSS was formed to address this problem of disunity among Hindus in relation to Muslims. It would work toward the cause of Hindu unity and solidarity and cultural nationalism. Its founder K.B. Hedgewar went about organising Hindu society and addressing its two problems of disunity and the caste system.

He did both........

© National Herald