About the Book

The most comprehensive documentation on the RSS
With a vision to make India a Hindu nation, Dr Hedgewar founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1925. The idea of Hindutva was fired up by his passion for nationalism. In the last ninety-six years, the RSS has grown into one of world’s largest voluntary cadet organisations in which ideology is paramount, not the leader. Today the Sangh runs 1.7 lac projects and over 60,000 shakhas across the country. But to attempt to understand RSS purely through its shakhas would be similar to gauging just one side of the proverbial elephant as described in the Panchtantra.
The RSS is like the phoenix. Banned thrice by the ruling government—over Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, during the Emergency and after the Babri Masjid demolition—it not only resurrected itself, but also widened its sphere of influence each time and impacted not just politics but the country’s socio-cultural landscape as well. Sangh is not only the life force behind the current ruling government, it is the authority that defines nationalism in India today. This colossus is about to finish 100 years of its existence soon, and the question that seasoned journalist Vijai Trivedi poses to us is how much and