Golwalkar, the man behind ‘Hindu Rashtra’

RSS volunteers at a rally in Chennai.
| Photo Credit: Praveen P.K.

Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar led the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from 1940 until his death in 1973. With Golwalkar at the helm, the RSS spread its wings across the country. His book, ‘We or Our Nationhood Defined’, remained at the core of RSS ideology, ensuring that the “credo of Indian Muslims as a ‘foreign race’ wielded the most lasting ideological influence” on the RSS and generations of Hindu supremacist leaders. Continuing his study of the Indian Right, Dhirendra K. Jha puts the spotlight on the RSS ideologue in his new book, Golwalkar: The Myth Behind the Man, The Man Behind the Machine. Edited excerpts from an interview.

Dhirendra Jha
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special arrangement

How much does an author’s ideology interfere with the writing of a subject, especially one as divisive as Golwalkar?

Every author has an ideology, but not all narratives are ideologically driven. I think the problem arises when the author deliberately hides uncomfortable evidence and lets her or his feelings dominate the narrative. The question is not whether the subject is divisive. This problem may mar writings even on non-divisive subjects. As archival records suggest, previous biographers of Golwalkar, instead of basing their narratives on facts, preferred to conceal the truth in order to glorify his personality. The false impressions of Golwalkar that they contrived to create resulted in obscuring his real life story.

Golwalkar 
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special arrangement

You contradict previous biographies written on Golwalkar — for example, on his work credentials. How did you sift through the myths?

It was one of the biggest challenges, but this mythology was not just the handiwork of his biographers. From early on, Golwalkar himself had the penchant for the glorification of his personality. That is why despite having worked as a lab technician at Banaras Hindu University during the early 1930s, he introduced himself as an ex-professor in his 1939 book, We or Our Nationhood Defined. His biographers, writing under his guiding will, carried forward this lie apart from creating a series of new myths about him.

The challenge became more serious because some of the lies manufactured by Golwalkar and his loyalist-biographers were accepted even by some of the objective and non-RSS researchers and writers. For example, Golwalkar lied when he said in 1963 that he was not the author of We… and that it was really an abridged translation of Ganesh Savarkar’s 1934 book, Rashtra Mimansa. Later, pro-RSS writers used this lie to argue that Golwalkar never proposed an anti-Semitic model of Nazis to deal with minorities in India. But historian Ramachandra Guha and political scientist Jyotirmaya Sharma, in their writings on Golwalkar, seem to accept the claim that Golwalkar was not its author. To unravel the truth, one just had to compare the two books. In the case of Golwalkar, this exercise was even more important since We… was not just the clearest expression of his thought but also the only text with an unambiguous ideological blueprint for the RSS.

Students from Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union form a human chain protesting against attack on students by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists, at JNU campus, New Delhi, in 2022.
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PTI

Could India’s history be different had the RSS supported the independence struggle?

Yes. But the question is: could the RSS have done so? Irrespective of what the post-Independence RSS literature may claim about the organisation’s past history, the contemporary archival records show that the very foundational objective of the RSS was to convince Hindus that their interests were more incompatible with a section of fellow Indians — Muslims — than the British colonialists. This objective naturally pitted the RSS against freedom fighters who were trying to unite Hindus and Muslims in the struggle for Independence from British rule. As a result, the RSS as an organisation did not only keep itself away from the freedom struggle (the Civil Disobedience movement as well as the Quit India movement), but its founder-chief, K.B. Hedgewar, publicly declared in 1935 that the British rule was an act of providence. The real question, therefore, is — could the RSS leave its foundational objective? History tells us that it didn’t even try to do so even though it got repeated opportunities to join the freedom struggle.

A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) band performs in front of portraits of its founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar at a rally in New Delhi.
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What is Golwalkar’s place in today’s RSS?

Even though the RSS publicly maintains an ambiguity about its relationship with Golwalkar’s ideological project, he continues to occupy the place of its chief ideologue, and the entire Sangh Parivar, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, seems to be working in unison to achieve his vision of Hindu Rashtra as enshrined in his book. For the first time since Independence, Golwalkar’s promise of denying Muslims citizens’ rights is being lived out, from the legislature to the rhythms of their daily lives. Politically, they have been virtually invisibilised. Efforts of the Sangh Parivar to direct hate towards them as a means to consolidate political power have further ghettoised and marginalised them. Even renting or buying properties in Hindu-majority areas is increasingly becoming difficult for Muslims. All this enjoys such widespread approval in the Sangh Parivar because it corresponds to Golwalkar’s ideas and the historical destiny he set out for the RSS — to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra.

sobhanak.nair@thehindu.co.in