Friends RSS was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who was a doctor in the city of Nagpur, British India.Hedgewar as a medical student in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) had been a part of the revolutionary activities of the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar striving to free India from British rule. He had been charged with sedition in 1921 by the British Administration and was imprisoned for one year. Hedgewar was educated by his elder brother. He then decided to study medicine in Calcutta, West Bengal. He was sent there by Dr. B. S. Moonje in 1910 to pursue his medical studies. There he lived with Shyam Sundar Chakravarthy and learned the techniques of fighting from secret revolutionary organisations like the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar in Bengal. He is said to have joined Anushilan Samiti and he had contacts with revolutionaries like Ram Prasad Bismil. Previously he was involved in such type of revolutionary activities, this fact has been disclosed by so many writers viz. C.P.Bhishikar,M.S. Golwalkar,K.S.Sudarshan and Rakesh Sinha. After completing his studies and graduating, he returned to Nagpur, inspired by the armed movement. In his memoirs, the third chief of RSS, Balasahab Deoras narrates an incident when Hedgewar saved him and others from following the path of Bhagat Singh and his comrades.Later he left the revolutionary organisations in the year 1925 and formed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A rare group photo of six initial swayamsevaks taken on the occasion of a RSS meeting held in 1939 Since Hedgewar was primarily associated with the Hindustan Republican Association, he adopted the full constitution of erstwhile HRA and implemented it forcibly in his newly established organisation RSS later on. The RSS first met in 1925 just after two months of Kakori train robbery in a small ground of Nagpur with 5-6 persons on Vijaya Dashami. After the formation of the RSS, Hedgewar kept the organisation away from having any direct affiliation to any of the political organisations then fighting British rule.But Hedgewar and his team of volunteers, took part in the Indian National Congress, led movements against the British rule. Hedgewar was arrested in the Jungle Satyagraha agitation in 1931 and served a second term in prison During WWII leaders of the RSS were open admirers of Adolf Hitler.Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who became the supreme leader of the RSS after Hedgewar, drew inspiration from Adolf Hitlers ideology of race purity. RSS leaders were supportive of the Jewish State of Israel, including Savarkar himself, who supported Israel during its formation. While Golwalkar admired Jews for maintaining their religion, culture and language. Atal Bihari Vajpayee first swayamsevak to become Prime Minister of India. Indian independence movement The RSS portrayed itself as a social movement and refused to consider itself a political party, and did not play any role in many of the efforts in Indian independence movement.When the Congress passed the Purna Swaraj resolution in 1930, Dr. Hedgewar asked all the RSS branches to hoist the Indian flag and organize lectures on the need for independence.However, the RSS emphatically rejected Gandhijis willingness to cooperate with Muslims in the Anti-British struggle. In 1934, Congress passed a resolution prohibiting its members from joining RSS, Hindu Mahasabha or Muslim League. Golwalkar did not want to give the British any excuse to ban the RSS.When the British Government banned military drills and use of uniforms in non-official organizations, Golwalkar terminated the RSS military department. Activities during partition The Partition of India affected millions of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims attempting to escape the violence and carnage that followed. Noted Gandhian and recipient of the highest civilian award in India, Bharat Ratna, Bhagwan Das commended the role of the high-spirited and self-sacrificing boys of the RSS in protecting the newly formed Republic of India, from a planned coup to topple the Jawaharlal Nehru Administration in Delhi. Following Mahatma Gandhis assassination in 1948 by a former member of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, many prominent leaders of the RSS were arrested and RSS as an organisation was banned on 4 February 1948. A Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to murder of Gandhi was set and its report was published by Indias Ministry of Home Affairs in the year 1970. Accordingly Justice Kapur Commission noted the following: ...RSS as such were not responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, meaning thereby that one could not name the organisation as such as being responsible for that most diabolical crime, the murder of the apostle of peace. It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members of the RSS... RSS Leaders were acquitted of the conspiracy charge by the Supreme Court of India and following an intervention by the Court, the Indian Government agreed to lift the ban with condition that the RSS adopt a formal constitution. The second Sarsanghachalak, Golwalkar drafted the constitution for the RSS which he sent to the government in March 1949. In July of the same year, after many negotiations over the constitution and its acceptance, the ban on RSS was lifted. On 15 January 2000, a daily, The Statesman, carried a story about the RSS by A G Noorani, which depicted the RSS as the killer of Gandhi.[44] Subsequently the Delhi unit of the RSS filed a criminal case of defamation against author of the article A G Noorani along with the cartoonist and the Managing Director of the publishing house. When two of the accused did not respond to the Court summons, non-bailable warrants were issued in their name by the Court. On 25 February 2002, Noorani wrote an unconditional apology to the court in which he regretted writing the defamatory article against the RSS. On 3 March 2002, The Statesman also published an apology regretting the publication of the said article. Decolonisation of Dadra, Nagar Haveli and Goa After the independence of India, RSS was one of the socio-political organisations who supported and participated in movements to decolonise Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which was at the time ruled by Portuguese colonists. In early 1954, volunteers Raja Wakankar and Nana Kajrekar of the RSS visited the area round about Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman several times to study the topography and also to get acquainted with locals who wanted to switch from being a Portuguese colony to being an Indian union territory. In April 1954, the RSS formed a coalition with the National Movement Liberation Organization (NMLO), and the Azad Gomantak Dal (AGD) for the liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. On the night of 21 July, United front of Goans, a group, working independently of the coalition, captured the Portuguese police station at Dadra and declared Dadra as free. Subsequently on 28 July, volunteer teams of the RSS and AGD captured the territories of Naroli and Phiparia and ultimately the capital of Silvassa. The Portuguese forces which escaped and moved towards Nagar Haveli, were assaulted at Khandvel and were forced to retreat till they surrendered to the Indian border police at Udava on 11 August 1954. A native administration was set up with Appasaheb Karmalkar of NMLO as the Administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli on 11 August 1954. The liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli gave a boost to the movement against the Portuguese colonialism in the Republic of India. In 1955, RSS leaders demanded the end of Portuguese rule in Goa and its integration into India. When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refused to provide an armed intervention, RSS leader Jagannath Rao Joshi led the Satyagraha agitation straight into Goa itself. He was imprisoned with his followers by the Portuguese police. The peaceful protests continued but met with severe repressions. On 15 August 1955, the Portuguese police opened fire on the satyagrahis, killing thirty or so civilians. Role during the 1962 Sino-Indian War and 1965 Indo-pak War The RSS was invited by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to take part in the Republic Day parade of 1963 in recognition of its volunteer work during the Sino-Indian War in 1962. This event helped the RSS improve its popularity and strengthen its nationalist image. During 1965 India-Pakistan war Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri requested RSS cadres to help control traffic in Delhi, so policemen could be freed for defence duties. On the close of the war General Kushwant Singh of Indian Army thanked the RSS for their relief and support work for the army and nation. Later in 1971 Indo-Pak war also, the RSS volunteers offered their services to maintain law and order of the country and were apparently the first to donate blood. Movement against the Emergency In 1975, the Indira Gandhi government proclaimed emergency rule in India, thereby suspending the fundamental rights and curtailing the freedom of the press. This extreme step was taken after the Supreme Court of India, cancelled her election to the Indian Parliament on charges of malpractices in the election. Democratic institutions were suspended and prominent opposition leaders including Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan, were arrested whilst thousands of people were detained without any proper charges taken up against them. RSS, which was seen close to opposition leaders, and with its large organizational base was seen to have potential of organizing protests against the Government, was also banned. Police clamped down on the organization and thousands of its workers were imprisoned. The RSS defied the ban and thousands participated in Satyagraha against the ban and against the violation of human rights regulations. Later, when there was no letup, the volunteers of the RSS formed underground movements for the restoration of democracy. Literature that was censored in the media was clandestinely published and distributed on a large scale and funds were collected for the movement. Networks were established between leaders of different political parties in the jail and outside for the coordination of the movement. It said that the movement was dominated by tens of thousands of RSS cadres, though more and more young recruits are coming. Talking about its objectives it said its platform at the moment has only one plank: to bring democracy back to India. The Emergency was lifted in 1977 and as a consequence the ban on the RSS too was lifted. Participation in land reforms It has been noted that the RSS volunteers participated in the Bhoodan movement organised by Gandhian leader Vinobha Bhave. Bhave had met the RSS leader Golwalkar in Meerut in November 1951. Golwalkar had been inspired by the movement that encouraged land reforms through voluntary means. He pledged the support of the RSS for this movement. Consequently, many RSS volunteers led by Nanaji Deshmukh participated in the movement.But Golwalkar has also been critical of the Bhoodan movement, on other occasions for being reactionary and for working merely with a view to counteracting Communism. He believed that the movement should inculcate a right and positive faith in the masses that can make them rise above the base appeal of Communism. Structure RSS does not have any formal membership. According to the official website, anyone can become member by joining the nearest Shakha, which is the basic unit. Although the RSS claims not to keep membership records, they claim to have between 5–6 million members. David Halloran Lumsdaine estimated in 2009 that there were one million volunteers, who are modeled on the Hitler youth. Now india has a Prime Minister Shri Narendra modi From RSS cadre has He is a swamsevak
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:29:05 +0000
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