Why is the Opposition so unnerved by the RSS and relentlessly attacking it?

Why is the Opposition so unnerved about the RSS?

There have been persistent attacks on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by senior Opposition leaders. Why is the Opposition so unnerved about the RSS? It is because of two reasons-one, the ideology of the RSS and second, its expanse which has been growing consistently.

Ideology of the RSS

The RSS ideology is most clearly defined by a line in its prayer that swayamsevaks (volunteers) recite at the RSS shakhas. This particular line reads, "Param Vaibhavan Nye tume tat Swarashtram," which means that the aim and objective of working for the RSS is to take "the nation to the utmost glory." The RSS firmly believes that this cannot be achieved through political power. Instead, it can only happen when Bharatiya society transforms itself, which can be accomplished by serving the community without any expectation of return.

When we say ‘transforming the society’, the critics of the RSS project that the RSS vision of ‘glorious Bharat’ doesn’t include Muslims or Christians. This is absolutely false. For the RSS, the way of worship is a personal matter and that has nothing to do with a person’s role in the society. All it says is that all Bharatiyas should consider this land to be our motherland or fatherland and work towards bringing it to the utmost glory. 

One of the cornerstones of the RSS ideology is to build a society without any discrimination. And its actions speak louder than words. The structure of the organisation is such that no one even knows what is the caste of other volunteers. The RSS volunteers work together and eat together. Even Mahatma Gandhi and Dr BR Ambedkar
witnessed it first hand during their visit to the RSS training camps and praised it.

Now this particular stand of the RSS where it is taking together all the castes and religions without creating any caste or religious divide is a threat to all those political parties and politicians who have built their political fortune either through caste-based or religion-based politics. The more rapidly RSS expands, the higher would be the threat for these political parties.  Hence this growing aggression against the RSS is visible in the political space in India.

It must be mentioned here that the political parties targeting the RSS are less concerned about the victory of the BJP, which they perceive is aided by the RSS, and more concerned about the existential threat to their caste and religion-based politics.

And the realisation of this threat in Indian political space is not new, especially amongst Congress, the second largest political party of India after the BJP. It had realised long back that if RSS is able to create awareness and motivate people for selfless nation building and a cohesive society with equal opportunities for all, its divisive politics and the party’s political fortunes would collapse. So, it banned RSS thrice on flimsy pretexts in 1948, 1975 and 1992 to stop it, curb it and crush it. But these bans had to be lifted as the RSS was falsely implicated every time and the organisation continued to expand.

Impact of RSS worries politicians

The growing impact of the RSS is also a cause of concern for these political parties for whom India is still a nation in the making and hence they use caste and religion as a political tool to create fault lines within the society and then get political benefit out of it.

Today when RSS is about to enter its 100^th year, its influence is reflected by some staggering numbers. It has around 72,000 shakhas. There are 36 RSS-inspired organisations. From education to consumer rights they have become the largest organisations in their respective fields creating an impact and influence which no one can ignore. Let us take a few examples. Vidya Bharati runs around 13000 formal schools with an enrolment of more than 3.5 million children every year. It includes Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and students from all castes. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) is the largest labour organisation in India. It has 5000 affiliate trade unions and its membership is around 10 million.  Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram has become the largest tribal welfare organisation in the country. It runs more than 20,000 projects for tribals. Its volunteers have reached more than 50,000 tribal villages across the country, most of them are remote. It has more than 1300 full-time workers out of which more than three fourth are tribals. There is not even a single major tribe with whom this organisation doesn’t work. Sewa Bharati, the biggest social service non-governmental organisation of India runs more than 35000 programmes with more than one lakh projects in the field of education, health and self-reliance.

Conclusion

The RSS stays away from politics and works as a socio-cultural organisation. There is no confusion in the organisation about it. But certain political parties and politicians are unnerved by its high level of commitment for a cohesive society.  Hence, the RSS is perceived as a threat or danger by all those politicians and political parties who are committed to the policy of ‘divide and rule’.