The 2024 General Election featured a variety of techniques to attract voters. This election also features the use of technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI). Many bogus videos were prepared to confuse voters, particularly rural voters. One such phony film of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat was manufactured to instil anxiety in the minds of OBC, SC, ST and NT people that RSS is anti-reservation, and the implicit message was that if the BJP regained power, reservations would be revoked.
Many so-called intellectuals, Communists, urban naxals and political leaders mock Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh when RSS top leaders praise Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and organise many activities across India to pay honour to this magnificent human being. You can certainly mock and condemn the respect and love shown to Dr Ambedkar by top RSS officials in their speeches, but how can you deny the groundwork done for marginalised sections of society by RSS and its affiliated organisations? The effort is visible, and these people have undergone significant change. It is laudable to provide schools, hostels, medical facilities and sports facilities in even the most remote places. Despite the fact that working in these locations is extremely difficult, Swayamsevaks love every pain.
Eradicating Caste Differentiation
Since its establishment, RSS has never distinguished anyone based on caste. Swayamsevaks have always believed in Samta, Mamta and Samrasata, not only materially but also emotionally connected with a sense of belonging. RSS has made significant efforts to eradicate untouchability and caste differentiation in our country by preaching the truth and putting it into practice on ground.
The Third Sarsanghchalak, Balasaheb Deoras’s Statement on Untouchability
If the caste system and untouchability are to be abolished, then change must be brought about among those who believe in it. Instead of attacking or battling such people, there may be another option. I was fortunate to work with Dr Hedgewar, Sangh’s founder. He used to assert, “We don’t have to believe in or follow untouchability.”
On this basis, he also developed Shakhas, a number of courses and programmes. There were also those who held different views back then. However, Doctor ji was sure that they would undoubtedly concur with his ideas tomorrow, if not today. As a result, he didn’t raise a fuss about it, get into a fight with someone or take any negative action against someone for disobedience. Because he had no doubt that the other person had the best of intentions as well. Because of certain habits, he might be hesitant at first, but given enough time, he will undoubtedly learn from his mistakes.
In the early days, in a Sangh camp, some brothers expressed hesitation in eating with SC community brothers. Doctor Ji did not tell them the rules or expel them from the camp. All other volunteers, Doctor Ji and I sat together for the meal. Those who were hesitant, sat separately. But later, during the second meal, the same brothers themselves came and sat with all of us. – Late Bala Saheb Deoras Ji, Pune Vasant Lecture Series (1974)
When Mahatma Gandhi and later Doctor Babasaheb Ambedkar visited Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh camps, they were satisfied that in the RSS, castes or details of social background were neither asked nor given any importance. Many in the RSS make a conscious effort to identify with underprivileged sections. During the birth centenary of Ambedkar some 23 years earlier, many in the RSS ensured that a portrait of Ambedkar adorned their homes. Many, like Girish Prabhune of Pune, have been untiringly working for the upliftment of the Paradhis and similar denotified, nomadic tribal communities.
How Sangh and its Affiliated Organisations Benefit Marginalised Groups?
A few decades back, RSS Sarsanghchalak Pujya Shri Guruji inspired a renowned freedom fighter, Shri Rama Kant (Bala Saheb) Deshpande, to start the Kalyan Ashram for the service and economic development of tribal society. Today, that seed has grown into a mass movement. Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram has built up its presence in almost every nook and corner of tribal India, serving through hospitals, schools, hostels, balwadis, adult education centers and various other humanitarian activities. From Andamans to Leh and from Arunachal to Nilgiri hills, there is a wide network of dedicated workers, men and women alike, who have silently brought about deep changes in the lives of the tribals.
Ironically, while certain colonial scholars and anthropologists continued to label various tribes as ‘criminal tribes’, ‘head hunters’, and so on, aggressive proselytisers contemptuously referred to them as heathens and pagans, posing themselves as the sole emancipators of their ‘sinful’ souls.
However, RSS and other allied organisations demonstrated the true history of tribals and how they supported Prabhu Ram and Krishna. They also elaborated on their war against British rule and injustice. Every year, tribal freedom fighters are recalled and honoured with reverence. Society must clearly perceive that colonials and Communists have always despised and degraded tribals, whereas the Sangh and its affiliates have always treated them as brothers and sisters.
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram promotes the well-being of Janjatis (Vanvasis) through a range of humanitarian activities throughout India. Of the 397 tribal districts, 338 have taken various initiatives to help indigenous people. Work is being done in 52,323 villages to enhance people’s lives, with more villages to be included in the future. Aside from economic activities, local culture is encouraged and promoted. The goal of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is to work for the complete development of each tribal brother and sister. In addition, other sports facilities are being built in various locations.
Developmental Activities till 2022:
• Hostel facility: 191 hostels have been built for boys and 48 hostels for girls
• Education Centres: Till date, 455 formal education centres have been built, and 3,478 non formal education centres are working across the nation. More than 63,000 beneficiaries have benefitted out of these centres
• Agriculture Development Centres: So far, 56 centres have been developed to improve the yield with better practices and lower cost
• Skill Development Centres: Youths need to be trained in different skills to make them self-reliant and to improve their living standards. Till date, 104 skill development centres have been established across the nation
• Self-help Groups: Self helps groups to take care of local needs with mutual cooperation. So far, 3,348 groups have been created
• Medical facilities: Sixteen hospitals were built, and 287 medical camps were organised. Forty-two thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven village health workers working for the well-being of these people
Vidya Bharati
RSS has an educational wing known as Vidya Bharati. They administer more than 20,000 schools across India, offering low-cost education (less than other major brands and private schools) and even free to low-income pupils. Many of them belong to tribal territories. They have a protocol in which each student refers to another as brother/sister (bhaiya/bahen) plus their first name. This removes the caste-based identity. So they are really aiming to assimilate dalits and adivasis on a same platform.
Sewa Bharati
Rashtriya Sewa Bharati, a social service organisation inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, manages over 35,000 projects aimed at improving healthcare, education, and employability for the underprivileged in urban slums, remote areas, and tribal communities. The organisation (Sewa Bharati) was founded in 1989 after Balasaheb Deoras, the third RSS Sarsanghchalak, called a meeting in Delhi in 1979 to establish an organisation that would solely work with the poor and vulnerable in the areas of healthcare and education.
Focusing on Truth
The Rashtriya Sewa Bharati now runs approximately 12,000 programmes in education and health, respectively. It also runs 11,221 social service initiatives and 6,763 skill development programmes to help the impoverished sections of society become self-sufficient. The organisation’s different activities involve more than 2 lakh volunteers. This comprises volunteers from the RSS, Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad. Sewa Bharati and its affiliates also provide help to the needy amid natural calamities.
It operates over 3,000 Kishori Vikas Kendras (Adolescent Girls’ Development Centers), where teenage girls receive advice on education, skill development, self-defence, health, and other topics. The main goal is to help young females become truly empowered, both economically and socially, in accordance with the country’s values and traditions. These institutions provide training classes in sewing, tailoring, and designing, as well as pickle, papad, and masala (spices) preparation.
The RSS has its own way of explaining the relationship of castes and communities with the entire society. The approach is that, like all parts of the body, every section is important, and all of them are interdependent, too. Like the relationship of a body part with the entire body, every section of society relates with the society at large. This relationship is simultaneously related mutually as well as with the entire body. Hence the very question of a superiority-inferiority conflict is resolved with this interdependence, complemented by the spirit of co-working and mutuality.
So the fake narrative being created over the last several years that the Sangh is against the Constitution, reservation, and anti-Dalit is purely a joke that a few people may get misguided by, but in the long run, people come to know the reality. In the last 99 years, we see the exponential rise of the number of Swayamsevaks from these sections of society.
Those who believe in and promote negative and false narratives about RSS should conduct unbiased research on its ideology, functioning, numerous programmes, and activities before presenting analytical facts to the people. Let truth triumph.
What exists now is not (Varna) Vyavastha but only Avyavastha! Hence we should all put our heads together and think out how to guide it—a system which has to die and is already dying a natural death—along the correct path to its termination.
– Balasahebji Deoras, 3rd Sarsanghchalak of RSS, in Vasant Vyakhyanmala at Pune (1974)
“Special efforts should be made to eliminate caste and gender differences in society, and special experiments should be done to create a network of Sajjan shakti”
— Dr Mohan Bhagwat, Sarsanghchalak, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Vadodara, Gujarat on April 7, 2024
Social Equality and RSS
■ The genuinely sensitive training that RSS cadre received in the Shakhas is that when they mingle and play together at the Shakhas or stay together in camps, asking each other’s caste is taboo, as witnessed by both Dr Ambedkar and Gandhiji.
■ Shri Guruji Golwalkar initiated Vishva Hindu Parishad, bringing all Dharmacharyas, including Sankaracharyas, together, where it was unanimously declared through a resolution that there is no sanction for untouchability in the Hindu religion.
■ Shri Guruji deputed Sri Balasaheb Deshpande to work among tribals, which later led to the formation of Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram in 1977, which is now the largest Hindu organisation of tribals in India.
■ Under the initiative of RSS, VHP etc., a conference of Saints proclaimed a slogan popularised nationwide: “Hindavaha Sodaraha Sarvey, Na Hindu Patito Bhavet, Mama Diksha Hindu Raksha, Mama Mantra Samanata” (All Hindus are brothers, no Hindu is inferior, my duty is to protect Hindus, equality is my motto)
■ How former RSS Sarkaryavah H V Sheshadri handled the mass conversion of the backward section in Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, in 1981 was a turning point towards Hindu unity.
■ Sri Deorasji reiterated ‘Roti Beti Vyavahar,’ i.e. dining together and inter-caste marriages. He also informed that RSS workers had the highest number of inter-caste marriages compared to all social organisations.
■ The foundation stone for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya under the leadership of VHP was laid by Shri Kameshwar Choppal, a Dalit.
■ VHP called non-Dalit Hindus to ‘befriend at least one Dalit family’ and dine with Dalit Hindus.
■ Under the silent effort of late Shri P Madhavji, an RSS pracharak in Kerala, Sri Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati of Kamakoti during his Chaturmasya Vrata at Guruvayur, Kerala, gave a certificate of the priesthood to 29 trained non-Brahmins, including Dalits.
■ Under the initiative of RSS activists, the revolutionary “Paliyam Declaration” by a body of orthodox Kerala Brahmins and priests declared that “Brahminhood is not by birth but by cultural purity.”
■ VHP and other organisations performed reconversions (Paravartan or Ghar Wapasi) of different castes lost to other religions for various reasons.
■ RSS resolution in Nagpur Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhisabha on March 15, 2015, talked to have ‘one well, one temple, one crematorium’ in every village throughout the country.
■ RSS platform- “Samajik Samrasata Manch” to achieve social equality has its activities spread to every part of the nation.
■ When the VHP announced the shilanyas of Ram Mandir in 1989, Kameshwar Chaupal from the scheduled caste, laid the first shila (stone) for the construction of Mandir in Ayodhya
■ For the first time under the Government of Bharatiya Janata Party, proposed by Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, November 15 was announced as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas to remember the contribution of Vanvasi freedom fighters. November 15 is also the birthday of the great Vanvasi warrior Birsa Munda.
■ Shabri Kumbh is organised by Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram to promote social integration amongst the Vanvasis and also to develop awareness among them. It works to promote self-respect and confidence among the participants and also paves the way for their all-round development.
Comments