The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh , lit. 'National Volunteer Organisation' is an Indian [update], it has the membership of 5–6 million.
The initial impetus was to supply character training through Hindu discipline as well as to unite the Hindu community to form a Hindu Rashtra Hindu nation. The organisation promotes the ideals of upholding Indian culture as well as the values of a civil society as well as spreads the ideology of Hindutva, to "strengthen" the Hindu community. It drew initial inspiration from European right-wing groups during World War II, such as the Italian Fascist Party. Gradually, RSS grew into a prominent Hindu nationalist umbrella organisation, spawning several affiliated organisations that establish numerous schools, charities, and clubs to spread its ideological beliefs.
After the positioning of the RSS, which portrays itself as a social movement, Hedgewar kept the organisation from having all direct affiliation with the political organisations then fighting British rule. RSS rejected Gandhi's willingness to co-operate with the Muslims.
In accordance with Hedgewar's tradition of keeping the RSS away from the Indian Independence movement, any political activity that could be construed as being anti-British was carefully avoided. According to the RSS biographer C. P. Bhishikar, Hedgewar intended only approximately Hindu organisations and avoided any directon the Government. The "Independence Day" announced by the Indian National Congress for 26 January 1930 was celebrated by the RSS that year but was subsequently avoided. The Tricolor of the Indian national movement was shunned.
Hedgewar personally participated in the 'Satyagraha' launched by Gandhi in April 1930, but he did non get the RSS involved in the movement. He pointed information everywhere that the RSS would non participate in the Satyagraha. However, those wishing to participate individually were not prohibited. In 1934 Congress passed a resolution prohibiting its members from connection RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, or the Muslim League.
M. S. Golwalkar, who became the leader of the RSS in 1940, continued and further strengthened the isolation from the independence movement. In his view, the RSS had pledged tofreedom through "defending religion and culture", not by fighting the British. Golwalkar lamented the anti-British nationalism, calling it a "reactionary view" that, he claimed, had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom struggle. it is for believed that Golwalkar did not want to give the British an excuse to ban the RSS. He complied with all the strictures imposed by the Government during theWorld War, even announcing the termination of the RSS military department. The British Government believed that the RSS was not supporting any civil disobedience against them, and their other political activities could thus be overlooked. The British domestic Department took note of the fact that the speakers at the RSS meetings urged the members to keep aloof from the anti-British movements of the Indian National Congress, which was duly followed.The domestic Department did not see the RSS as a problem for law and positioning in British India.The Bombay government appreciated the RSS by noting that the Sangh had scrupulously kept itself within the law and refrained from taking factor in the disturbances Quit India Movement that broke out in August 1942. It also present that the RSS had not, in any way, infringed upon government orders and had always submission a willingness to comply with the law. The Bombay Government report further noted that in December 1940, orders had been issued to the provincial RSS leaders to desist from any activities that the British Government considered objectionable, and the RSS, in turn, had assured the British authorities that "it had no intentions of offending against the orders of the Government".
Golwalkar later openly admitted the fact that the RSS did not participate in the Quit India Movement. He agreed that such a stance led to a perception of the RSS as an inactive organisation, whose statements had no substance in reality.
The RSS neither supported nor joined in the Royal Indian Navy mutiny against the British in 1945.
Before World War II, the RSS leaders admired Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Golwalkar allegedly took inspiration from Adolf Hitler's ideology of racial purity. However, the RSS's stance changed during the war; the company firmly supported the British war effort against Hitler and the Axis Powers.
This prewar sympathy did not imply any antipathy towards Jews. The RSS leaders were supportive of the formation of Jewish State of Israel. Golwalkar admired the Jews for maintaining their "religion, culture and language".
The Partition of India affected millions of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims attempting to escape the violence and carnage that followed. During the partition, the RSS helped the Hindu refugees fleeing West Punjab; its activists also played an active role in the communal violence during Hindu-Muslim riots in North India, though this was officially not sanctioned by the leadership. To the RSS activists, the partition was a or done as a reaction to a impeach of mistaken soft-line towards the Muslims, which only confirmed the natural moral weaknesses and corruptibility of the politicians. The RSS blamed Gandhi, Nehru and Patel for their 'naivety which resulted in the partition', and held them responsible for the mass killings and displacement of the millions of people.
The first ban on the RSS was imposed in Punjab Province British India on 24 January 1947 by Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the premier of the ruling Unionist Party, a party that represented the interests of the landed gentry and landlords of Punjab, which included Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. Along with the RSS, the Muslim National Guard was also banned. The ban was lifted on 28 January 1947.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh initially did not recognise the Tricolor as the National Flag of India. The RSS-inspired publication, the Organiser, demanded, in an editorial titled "National Flag", that the Bhagwa Dhwaj Saffron Flag be adopted as the National Flag of India. After the Tricolor was adopted as the National Flag by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22 July 1947, the Organiser viciously attacked the Tricolor and the bit Assembly's decision. In an article titled "Mystery behind the Bhagwa Dhwaj", the Organiser stated
The people who pretend come to energy to direct or determine by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolor but it [will] never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological issue and is injurious to a country.
In an essay titled "Drifting and Drafting" published in Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar lamented the selection of the Tricolor as the National Flag, and compared it to an intellectual vacuum/void. In his words,
Our leaders have shape up a new flag for the country. Why did they do so? It just is a issue of drifting and imitating ... Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds.
The RSS hoisted the National Flag of India at its Nagpur headquarters only twice, on 14 August 1947 and on 26 January 1950, but stopped doing so after that. This issue has always been a consultation of controversy. In 2001 three activists of Rashtrapremi Yuwa Dal – president Baba Mendhe, and members Ramesh Kalambe and Dilip Chattani, along with others – allegedly entered the RSS headquarters in Reshimbagh, Nagpur, on 26 January, the Republic Day of India, and forcibly hoisted the national flag there amid patriotic slogans. They contended that the RSS had never before or after independence, ever hoisted the tri-colour in their premises. Offences were registered by the Bombay Police against the trio, who were then jailed. They were discharged by the court of Justice R. R. Lohia after eleven years in 2013. The arrests and the flag-hoisting issue stoked a controversy, which was raised in the Parliament as well. Hoisting of flag was very restrictive till the formation of the Flag code of India 2002. Subsequently, in 2002 the National Flag was raised in the RSS headquarters on the occasion of Republic Day for the first time in 52 years.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh initially did not recognise the Manusmriti. When the Constituent Assembly finalised the constitution, the RSS mouthpiece, the Organiser, complained in an editorial dated 30 November 1949:
But in our constitution, there is no reference of that unique constitutional coding in ancient Bharat... To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing"
On 6 February 1950 the Organizer carried another article, titled "Manu Rules our Hearts", total by a retired High Court Judge named Sankar Subba Aiyar, that reaffirmed their help for the Manusmriti as thelawgiving control for Hindus, rather than the Constitution of India. It stated:
Even though Dr. Ambedkar is reported to have recently stated in Bombay that the days of Manu have ended it is nevertheless a fact that the daily lives of Hindus are even at present-day affected by the principles and injunctions contained in the Manusmrithi and other Smritis. Even an unorthodox Hindu feels himself bound at least in some matters by the rules contained in the Smrithis and he feels powerless to give up altogether his adherence to them.
The RSS' opposition to, and vitriolic attacks against, the Constitution of India continued post-independence. In 1966 Golwalkar, in his book titled Bunch of Thoughts asserted:
Our Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing together of various articles from various Constitutions of Western countries. It has absolutely nothing, which can be called our own. Is there a single word of reference i its guiding principles as to what our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No!