Bharat appears as mother in the ideational and functional spheres of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Motherhood of Bharat is reflected in Vishnu Purana as it defines the country as situated in the north of ocean and south of Himalayas and identifies Bharatiyas as her children.
Connoting indulgence in wisdom in her name, Bharat has an ancient knowledge convention and tradition that has been evolving with an utmost and ultimate sense of sensitivity, creativity and inquisitiveness of seers, saints and sages, who happen to be worshippers of Nature (and Hindu Gods). Born and reared in her lap (land), they are known as Rishis whose ideas, preaching’s and practices characterize the culture and civilization of Bharat.
Laying the foundations of Bharatiya education and Gyan, the most ancient and grandeur Vedic thoughts propound a holistic and organic view of cosmic reality, having two mutually supporting facets: matter and consciousness. In this Rishi tradition, unraveling synergy between material discovery and spiritual revelation remains a constant endeavour in Bharat. The enlightening content of Bharatiya wisdom is again conveyed in Vishnu Purana as saying Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye: Knowledge is what liberates.
Re-attainment of genuine education replacing bondage of ignorance, deprivation and sufferings with spontaneity of consciousness, accomplishments and bliss are the vision and mission of RSS. Indigenous ingrained knowledge tradition offers self-sufficiency in livelihood. Hence, the recently started Swavlambi Bharat Abhiyan has been the mission of RSS.
Bharat is among a few living civilisations, which have managed and catapulted to survive the cultural onslaughts of medieval-colonial perpetrators. In the prolonged yet ongoing quest for her selfhood, Bharat Mata has given birth a Rishi, who was later known as Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of RSS.
On September 27, 1925 of Vijaya Dashmi Diwas, RSS was founded and formed in Nagpur, vital part of Madhya-Bharat, signifying a turning point in her liberation history, when cultural liberators working in Indian National Congress (INC) had almost taken a back seat.
The reversal of 1905 communal division of Bharat (Banga Bhanga under British rule) under the leadership of Lal, Bal, Pal with Vande Matram of Bankim Chander Chatterjee as the unifying warring slogan of liberation fighters had ushered in and awakened cultural self-respect in the hearts and minds of all Bharatiyas. Indeed, the movement of Hindutva (quality of being Hindu) had since regained prominence in greater Punjab, Maharashtra and Bengal.The literary creations of Tilak and Gandhi in the forms of Geeta Rahasya and Hind Swaraj became the ideational milestones in the Bharatitya path towards cultural emancipation.
The positioning of INC on inter-imperial war between the British and Caliphate abruptly reversed the momentum that the quest for realizing the enlightening of nationhood gathered momentum. For checkmating the sudden cultural recession, RSS of Dr Hedgewar had taken upon itself the commitment and solemn affirmation of sustaining the spirit and response that was spontaneously evoked by Vedic Enlightenment missionaries like Ram Krishna Parama Hansa, Viveka Nanda and Aurobindo.
RSS has derived its consciousness and organizational legacy from thinker activists like Valmiki, Gargi, Vyasa, Shankara, Tulasi, Ravi Das, Guru Nanak, Viveka Nanda, Tilak, Gandhi, Gopa Bandhu, Lohia and Dr Ambedkar. It has taken similar inspiration from glorious fighters of history such as Rama, Krishna, Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Guru Govind Singh, Jai Raj Guru, Virsha Munda, Chakhi Khuntia, Baji Rout, Rani Laxmi Bai, Laxman Nayak, Saheed Bhagat Singh, Khudi Ram, Subhas Bose and innumerable others.
RSS has remained steadfast in its cultural commitment amid freedom struggle by conducting character building exercise among children, youth and later on elderly people in Shakhas (daily congregation of RSS members). RSS members have performed self-sacrificing functions while protecting the Hindus in the blood-letting tragedy of partition. It continued its cultural mission after political independence of Bharat, with timely intervention in externally perpetrated and internally induced crises.
However, RSS has faced existential challenges through government proclamation of ban in the false pretext of its involvement in assassination of Gandhi. RSS has managed to come out of such inflicted crises with a feeling of self-authencity.
In the interest of addressing complex challenges for self-respecting Bharatiyas in multiple fronts and carrying out hassle-free ideational change through original mission of character building, some RSS members have started forming systems-changing front organisations. Consequently, RSS family organizations have come up in various fields, including education, worship, livelihood, trade, polity, economy, industrial work, agriculture, science, public health, social service, so on and so forth. These frontal organizations have registered and attained substantial successes in their related fields with autonomous and coordinated mandates. RSS has extensively engaged in societal training, sensitization and upliftment exercises through its own organizational verticals, schemes and programmes as well as through extending motivation, encouragement and support to organizations working with similar objectives.
RSS has moved ahead a long way in successfully confronting many obfuscating challenges towards its destination of attaining Param Vaibhav of Bharat Mata. With her blessings, RSS has started unleashing fundamental transformations in ideational and functional spheres, reiterating organic unity between Bharatiyas and Bharat Mata.
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