Three faces of the RSS: conspiracies it owns

The latest expose has come from Kerala. The Indian Express wrote: ‘In what could be a major embarrassment for the BJP, a Yuva Morcha (youth wing of the RSS) leader apparently condemned a petrol bomb attack on the party’s Thiruvananthapuram office on the social media hours before the actual incident took place, triggering speculation that the attack was planned and executed by the saffron party itself.’

The Yuva Morcha leader Jayadev Hareendran Nair, a RSS functionary in Kerala had put out three Facebook posts on Wednesday (June 7 at 8.01 am, 5.01 pm and 6.31 pm) condemning the attack on the BJP office whereas the actual ‘attack’ took place between 8.30 pm and 9 pm.

There is a long history of the RSS and its offshoots using such tactics. Many of these are documented even in the RSS publications. The Central publication house of the RSS, Suruchi Prakashan, Delhi, published a book in 1997, titled Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par (On the Road to Great Glory) by Sadanand Damodar Sapre, a senior RSS functionary. This book contained details of more than 40 organisations created by the RSS for different tasks but more importantly it described how many of these organisations are run in a clandestine manner in order to execute hidden agendas.

This publication showed that the RSS network ran like a well-organised mafia through its subsidiaries and satellites. There has always been a conscious attempt to create confusion about its different fronts which provide RSS with the opportunity to dissociate with any of these as per its convenience. For instance, it used Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM) for attacking Christians in late 1990s and when public opinion, media, judiciary and Parliament seemed to turn against it, RSS denied any relation with HJM. It created forums like HJM with what intention was made clear in this RSS publication in the following words:

‘From the point of view of Hindu awakening this kind of forums (like Hindu Jagran Manch) at present are active in 17 states with different names like Hindu Manch in Delhi, Hindu Munani in Tamilnadu, Hinduekjut in Maharashtra. These are forums, not associations or organisations, that is why it is not required to have membership, registration and elections.’

It is clear that such organisations with no record of membership, no registration and no internal elections are created by the RSS because such an organisational model provides an opportunity to RSS to disown any individual or organisation.

True to its nature RSS takes recourse to conspiracies often. It can be known by the following disclosure in Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par about a case in Delhi immediately after partition: ‘Swayamsevaks had posed to have adopted Musalman [sic] religion in order to gain the confidence of Delhi Muslim League for knowing their conspiracies.’

What these RSS swayamsevaks, impersonating as Muslims on the eve of Independence, were doing was made clear by none other than Dr. Rajendra Prasad who later became first President of the Indian Republic. In a letter to the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, on March 14, 1948, he wrote:

‘I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly, there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create a conflagration.’

The following passage from the autobiography of the first Home Secretary of UP, Rajeshwar Dayal, ICS, also shows the sinister and criminal designs of the RSS to organise a pogrom of Muslims in Western Uttar Pradesh (the largest province in the Indian Union) and thus break the unity of the country just on the eve of Independence.

‘ I must record an episode of a very grave nature when the procrastination and indecision of the UP Cabinet led to dire consequences. When communal tension was still at fever pitch, the Deputy Inspector General of Police of the Western Range, a very seasoned and capable officer, B. B. L. Jaitley, arrived at my house in great secrecy. He was accompanied by two of his officers who brought with them two large steel trunks securely locked. When the trunks were opened, they revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust throughout the Western districts of the province. The trunks were crammed with blueprints of great accuracy and professionalism of every town and village in that vast area, prominently marking out the Muslim localities and habitations. There were also detailed instructions regarding access to the various locations, and other matters which amply revealed the sinister purport.

Greatly alarmed by those revelations, I immediately took the police party to the Premier’s (chief minister’s) house. There, in a closed room, Jaitley gave a full report of his discovery, backed by all the evidence contained in the steel trunks. Timely raids conducted on the premises of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) had brought the massive conspiracy to light. The whole plot had been concerted under the direction and supervision of the Supremo of the organization himself. Both Jaitley and I pressed for the immediate arrest of the prime accused, Shri Golwalkar, who was still in the area.

Pantji [G. B. Pant] could not but accept the evidence of his eyes and ears and expressed deep concern. But instead of agreeing to the immediate arrest of the ringleader as we had hoped, and as Kidwai would have done, he asked for the matter to be placed for consideration by the Cabinet at its next meeting. It was no doubt a matter of political delicacy as the roots of the RSS had gone deep into the body politic. There were also other political compulsions, as RSS sympathisers, both covert and overt, were to be found in the Congress Party itself and even in the Cabinet. It was no secret that the presiding officer of the Upper House, Atma Govind Kher, was himself an adherent and his sons were openly members of the RSS.

At the Cabinet meeting, there was the usual procrastination and much irrelevant talk. The fact that the police had unearthed a conspiracy which would have set the whole province in flames and that the officers concerned deserved warm commendation hardly seemed to figure in the discussion.

What ultimately emerged was that a letter should be issued to Shri Golwalkar pointing out the contents and nature of the evidence which had been gathered and demanding an explanation thereof. At my insistence, such a letter if it were to be sent, should be issued by the Premier himself to carry greater weight. Panditji asked me to prepare a draft, which I did in imitation of his own characteristic style. The letter was to be delivered forthwith and two police officers were assigned for the purpose.

Golwalkar, however, had been tipped off and he was nowhere to be found in the area. He was tracked down southwards but he managed to elude the couriers in pursuit. This infructuous chase continued from place to place and weeks passed.

Came January 30, 1948 when the Mahatma, that supreme apostle of peace, fell to a bullet fired by an RSS fanatic. The tragic episode left me sick at heart.’

(The author is a Professor who retired from Delhi University)