asiatimes | he Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), often termed “the world’s
largest NGO,” is considered the parent organization of the right-wing,
Hindu nationalist political party: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The RSS
sought to dispel British colonial rule in India, but also to combat Muslim separatists,
soon extending their militancy towards Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, and
lower-caste communities. During WWII, the RSS drew inspiration from
fascist movements in Europe – notably admiring Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for their ideologies on strengthening nationalism through racial purity .
In 1939, RSS ideologue MS Golwalkar wrote: “To keep up the purity of
the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the
country of the Semitic Races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has
been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible
it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to
be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan
to learn and profit by.” Golwalkar was not alone.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, another ideologue who helped shape Hindutva
wrote, “If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslim
friends of the League type will have to play the part of German-Jews
instead.”
While references to early far-right European influences are not explicitly found in the RSS’ official “Vision & Mission”
today, the statement repeatedly calls for the protection, preservation,
and dominance of Hindu culture through the “re-organization” of
society. This philosophy, formally known as “Hindutva”, espouses similar
ideas as Italy’s Fascist Party (PNF) and Germany’s Nazi Party of
instituting ultra-nationalism through forging adherence to a single,
pure Hindu society.
An official RSS statement
echoes this. The “Sangh is unique in according primacy to the
inculcation of patriotism in all citizens and in all life’s activities.
[…] Erosion of the nation’s integrity in the name of secularism,
economic and moral bankruptcy, incessant conversions from the Hindu fold
through money-power, ever-increasing trends of secession,
thought-patterns and education dissonant with the native character of
the people, and State-sponsored denigration of anything that goes by the
name of Hindu or Hindutva: these pervasive tendencies provide ample
proof of the soundness of the philosophical foundation of the Sangh as
conceived by Dr Hedgewar and its continued relevance for the survival
and health of the Hindu society and of the nation as a whole.”
Compare this to Adolf Hitler’s visions of the ideal relationship
between the State and race, it’s not hard to see an ideological
likeness .
“Thus the highest purpose of the folkish State is the care for the
preservation of those racial primal elements which, supplying culture,
create the beauty and dignity of a higher humanity. We, as Aryans, are
therefore able to imagine a State only to be the living organism of a
nationality which not only safeguards the preservation of that
nationality but which, by a further training of its spiritual and ideal
abilities, leads it to the highest freedom,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf in 1925.
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