On September 27, 1925, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a medical professional formed by the flexibility motion, collected a little group of boys, the majority of them teens, at his home in Nagpur, and made an easy statement: “We are inaugurating Sangh today”
The starts were simple however not a surprise to young fans of “doctorji”as Hedgewar was fondly called by his good friends. He had actually been dealing with this concept to arrange the Hindu society for nation-building through character structure of individuals.
About 2 and a half years before that, Hedgewar had actually begun a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Mandal in Wardha as part of his experiments to exercise a design that might assist “transform society”
The Sangh that he introduced on the day Vijayadashmi began with month-to-month baithaks (event of boys) at his home.
“Four or five times the karyakartas attended the baithak on their own and later on they had to be intimated. Then a situation developed, in which they failed to attend the baithak even after getting the intimation.
“Tips were made that rather of regular monthly baithaks, weekly baithaks must be held so that participating in the baithaks would end up being a practice,” RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recalls in ‘Future Bharat’, a compilation of the lectures he delivered in 2018 in Delhi.
“The baithak was made daily. The day-to-day baithaks and conversations utilized to be kept in a space,” Bhagwat said, adding that Hedgewar wanted regular meetings.
A full-fledged outdoor shakha later started in an open ground in the next few months, with the young boys in Hedgewar’s flock of swayamsevaks keen on physical activities instead of just sitting together and discussing various topics.
Khaki shorts and white shirt with a lathi became the swayamsevak’s ‘ganvesh’ and physical activities were a regular feature at the shakha. Marthand Jog, a retired military personnel and Hedgewar’s friend, started physical training of the Swayamsevaks along with parade sessions.
But the organisation was yet to get a formal name.
“When those who were going to the shakha began bringing others, the newbies began inquiring about the Sangh’s name. When the karyakartas put this concern to doctorji, he stated: ‘it has actually not yet been chosen. You sit together and choose’,” Bhagwat recalled.
Accordingly, about 16 swayamsevaks sat together in the presence of Hedgewar, and the organisation got its name as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on April 17 with the approval of the meeting, as a majority voted in its favour out of the four names proposed by the participants.
“Dr R Hedgewar was constantly in the practice of taking collection choices which ended up being the routine in the Sangh,” Bagwat was quoted as saying in the book.
While the Sangh got its name six months after its formation, the posts of Sarsanghchalak, Sarkaryavah and Sarsenapati (chief trainer) were created four years later.
“The production of the position of the Sarsanghchalak remained in itself an affair extraordinaire. After conversation and argument on the altering political scenarios in the nation, a two-day conference of all popular swayam sevaks was kept in Nagpur on 9 and 10 November 1929,” former BJP MP Rakesh Sinha says in his book ‘The Builders of Modern India- DR Keshav Baliram Hedgewar’.
The meeting decided to keep the base of the organisation as one adhering to a unitary leadership structure (Ekchalakanuvartitwa).
“On the last day of the satisfy, at a larger event of swayamsevaks, Appaji Joshi passed an order before revealing the choices of the Sangh conference: “Sarsanghchalakpranam (greetings) one, two, three”
“All swayam sevaks then greeted Dr Hedgewar as the Sarsanghchalak”Sinha composes.
“He was quite taken aback. After the programme was over, he gave vent to his refusal to Appaji Joshi: ‘I don’t like receiving the salutations of such venerable individuals who are dedicated to sacrifice’.
“Upon this, Appaji notified him that this was the cumulative choice of the Sangh and ‘in the interests of the organisation, you need to accept this choice although it disappoints you’,” Sinha adds.
From a modest start with baithaks of a handful of swayamsevaks in a small town in Nagpur, the RSS, which completes 100 years of its foundation on Thursday, has come a long way to become the world’s biggest voluntary organisation with a pan-India presence, shaping the country’s political and social discourse.
Over the years, a large number of RSS-inspired organisations have been formed by the swayamsevaks. Of them, 32 are prominent, including Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
After Independence, the RSS faced three bans by the then governments, with the first being imposed after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948. The RSS’ second Sarsanghchalak, MS Golwalker, was arrested on February 1, 1948, as the then government blamed the Sangh for the assassination. The year also saw thousands of swayamsevaks being arrested.
The RSS was banned for the second time on July 4, 1975, and Balasaheb Deoras, the then RSS chief, was arrested after the Indira Gandhi government imposed the Emergency on June 25.
The state of Emergency, which lasted 21 months, saw thousands of RSS workers being arrested and some even tortured to death, several RSS leaders recall. A large number of Sangh leaders and workers, however, continued their agitation against the imposition of the Emergency while remaining underground.
The RSS was banned for the third time after the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
The RSS is running about more than one lakh daily, weekly and monthly ‘shakhas’ across the country.
As part of its centenary plans, it is set to carry out a pan-India door-to-door public outreach campaign and organise over one lakh Hindu sammelans, starting with Mohan Bhagwat’s annual Vijayadashmi address at its Nagpur headquarters on Thursday.
“At the start of the Sangh, there was one word that represented its ideology ‘country’. The organisation too had simply one classification of subscription– the ‘swayam sevak’. As the Sangh broadened, its organisational building started to take shape,” former BJP MP Rakesh Sinha notes in his book.
“The shakha is not a physical training centre, however an ideological centre for an intellectual motion. The strategy of a ‘SanghShikshaVarg’ (Sangh instructional class) for training swayamsevaks and enhancing their dedication was likewise carried out later on,” he says.
With the BJP at the helm in several states and at the Centre under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a former RSS pracharak, the Sangh is looking forward to continuing its mission with much vigour and motivation.
“In the last couple of years, the photo of the nation altered and the federal governments too, with the success of our work,” RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said at an event where Prime Minister Modi launched a commemorative postage stamp and a coin to mark the Hindutva organisation’s centenary.
“… A brand-new course has actually emerged. We have to reinforce Bharat’s vimarsh (story) within the nation and throughout the worldwide phase. Throughout the world, Bharat’s narrative about Bharat need to be favorable, based upon fact. This is the Sangh’s concept on this event of its centenary,” he included.
As part of the RSS crucial program of ‘Panch Parivartan’, a five-fold change of society, Hosabale hired individuals to promote and embrace ‘swadeshi’ items and make India self-reliant.