The year 2025 is a very important milestone for RSS and also for the other two all-India socio-political movements in India i.e. Congress and Communist Party. While Congress is completing its 140 years this year, the other two of them are also completing one hundred years of their existence in the year 2025. It becomes interesting to review their position as on date from a historic perspective. It would be advisable to take up the RSS first in order to make the comparison easy and understandable keeping in view the current status of all the three socio-political movements.
Dr KB Hedgewar, a doctor, founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on 27 September 1925, the day of Vijayadashami, at Reshambagh in Nagpur (Maharashtra). He was born in the same city in 1889. Hedgewar, a strong patriot from his childhood, during his school and college days, got engaged in many anti-British activities and was also a member of the Anusheelan Samiti, a party of revolutionaries fighting against the British. He, later on, in the capacity of the Congress youth leader and a volunteer, contributed to the organisation of the AICC session in 1920 at Nagpur. Thereafter, he developed serious differences with the Congress over its support to the Khilafat movement. However, in response to the call for ‘complete independence’ by the Congress, Dr. Hedgewar went to jail in 1930.
Hedgewar believed that a handful of British and the earlier Muslim invaders were able to rule over the vast country like India only because the Hindus, the indigenous people of India, were disunited. He organised the Hindu youth under a unique format of “daily-shakhas” and imbibed in them the patriotic fervor based on the ideology of Hindutva. The network of ‘shakhas’ eventually created a huge organisation throughout the length and breadth of the country. It created a gigantic impact in almost all fields of socio-political-cultural life of the nation within a span of five decades spearheaded by the cultural icon and second chief of RSS, Guruji Golwalkar.
RSS was banned by the Congress government thrice, in 1948 (consequent upon the Gandhi murder), in 1975 (due to emergency) and in 1992 (at the time of the Babri demolition). Every time the designated courts and tribunals acquitted RSS of the charges levelled against it. Hindutva ideologue and freedom fighter Veer Savarkar had a profound impact on the RSS ideology. Due to the deep commitment, sacrifices and hard efforts of its volunteers, it emerged as the biggest socio-cultural organization in the world in less than a century with its units in over 50 countries of the world. From politics to trade unionism, education to culture, social service to economic upliftment of the society, RSS made its strong presence felt everywhere. Two Prime Ministers, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi; and several CMs and Ministers belonged/belong to the RSS family.
Congress was initially a brainchild of Britishers and the British government. It was founded by a British ICS officer, AO Hume on December 28, 1885. Its limited purpose was to create a platform for the Indians to petition the British government in India to get their issues, complaints and problems redressed at the governmental level. There was no idea of freedom from the Britishers involved at the time of its inception. Britishers perceived it as a safe valve for Indians to vent their feelings in regard to their so-called socio-political welfare. Later AO Hume came out in support of the idea of limited self-governance by Indians themselves.
The first President of the Congress was an Indian from Bengal named WC Bonnerjee who was a London educated Barrister by profession and was also the first Indian to act as a Standing Council of the then British government. Bonnerjee presided over the first session of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay (now Mumbai). He was re-elected the President of Congress in 1992 at Allahabad (now Prayagraj). He was a close associate of Dadabhai Naroji and Badruddin Tyabji who jointly formed the Indian Parliamentary Committee in England in 1893. He ultimately went to England and settled there.
With the passage of time, the Congress evolved itself as a broader political platform and initiated raising issues pertaining to the political and socio-economic importance from an Indian point of view. The partition of Bengal on the lines of the communal divide by the British government in 1905 was vehemently opposed by the Indians and it sparked a lot of anger against the government. The Congress took a lead and channelized the anger in a coordinated manner. Thereafter, the leadership of the Congress went into the hands of Gopal Krishen Gokhale, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal who raised the pitch of the Congress and converted Congress into a full-fledged political party.
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru took over the reins of the party just before the important Nagpur session of the AICC in 1920. It was only after this session that the Congress transformed itself into a people’s movement and started talking in terms of freedom from the Britishers. The Congress decided to lead from the front and within a span of ten years it had become a big people’s movement aimed at achieving freedom from the Britishers. On the occasion of its AICC session held on the banks of the river Ravi near Lahore in 1930, the Congress declared to achieve ‘complete independence’ from the Britishers.
In 1942, the Congress, in its session at Mumbai, gave a call for ‘Quit India’ to the British government. However, it succumbed to the demand of the Muslim League led by MA Jinnah, who had a tacit understanding with the Britishers, for the partition of the country on communal lines. The nation got freedom from the Britishers at a very high cost in 1947 under the leadership of the Congress and the country got divided into two new Dominions i.e. India & Pakistan.
Taking complete advantage of the freedom movement, Congress and Congressmen ruled India for a period of six decades from 1947 onwards. It was in 1977, that the Congress got uprooted from power at the centre for the first time. However, it regained power intermittently thereafter but kept on losing the ground to the opposition, especially to the BJP. The party that ruled the country for decades is as on date in the opposition at the centre continuously for the third term and barring three states in the country it is out of power in the rest of the states for a long time now. However, it is in coalition in two states as the number two or number three party in the government. From an overwhelming 40 to 50 percent voter base at a national level, its vote percentage has declined to around 20 percent, and besides this it has developed a leadership crisis as well. It has transformed itself into a feudal dynastic party with a gradually decreasing voter base and mass-appeal. After 140 years of its birth, it is now in a struggle of acute existential crisis as a premier political party of the nation.
The Communist Party of India was founded on December 26, 1925 in Kanpur (UP). However, there is a dispute regarding its formation year and the CPI(M) which came into existence in 1964 after a split in CPI considers 1920 as the founding year of the communist movement in India. MN Roy, Ambani Mukerjee and Evelyn (Roy’s wife) are recognised as the founders of the communist movement in India.
The communist leaders in India were guided by the ideology of Karl Marx and also overwhelmed by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution of Russia. They involved themselves in resistance against British colonisation in India and also took up issues like land reforms; also fought against caste disparities in the society. They brought in trade union activity in India and also raised issues of peasants and labourers at the national level. In 1934, the Communist Party was banned by the British administration. However, it attracted a large section of the educated youth of India into its fold. The CPI was the main opposition party in India during the 1950s and 1960s. It got divided in 1964 as a fallout of the 1962 Chinese aggression on India.
The Communists took a severe left-liberal and the so-called secular ideological line and kept themselves away from the main socio-cultural legacy and civilisational influences of India. The Naxalite movement also has its roots in extreme communist ideology. Then there are also a number of small communist parties in various parts of India which are a part of the Left alliance in the country. Besides the trade union activities, the communists expanded their influence in the socio-political system through their intervention in the media, educational field and the intellectual forums during the Congress rule. However, their main vote-base remained limited to a small number of states, primarily Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Punjab.
In the backdrop of the global gradual meltdown of Communism over the last two to three decades, the Communist movement in India has drastically shrunken and its vote share has also reduced considerably at an all-India level. The century-old Communist movement in India has virtually now become a regional grouping with a very poor representation in the Parliament of India. It has lost its sheen, glory, leadership and even trade union superiority that it once had acquired. It is now fighting a struggle for its own survival at both the national as well as the regional levels.
While all the three above mentioned socio-political movements in India are celebrating their important milestones this year, the RSS remains in the lead with a clear vision, strength and hope for the nation. With its deep moral influences on the current social and political system of the nation, RSS in its 100th year brings upon itself a Himalayan responsibility to lead the nation to peace and prosperity, pride and glory with equal focus on cultural and civilizational democracy that makes it an organisation with a difference.
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