ON A COOL SUNDAY MORNING IN OCTOBER, about ten young men gathered at a park in the affluent residential area of Vikaspuri, in west Delhi. They were dressed casually, and a few wore khaki shorts. One of them, a thirty-five-year-old mid-level corporate executive, was sent away, and another was appointed to “lead” the group. The men circled up, and began mimicking the leader’s movements—clapping their hands, flexing their limbs—as he switched actions every minute or so. Meanwhile, the young executive returned, and stood watching nearby. He spotted the leader switch to rotating his waist, and pointed him out. The executive joined the group, a lanky software engineer took his place, and a new leader was appointed. When the engineer failed in his first attempt to identify the leader, he was punished with a mild punch on the back.
The men, who asked not to be named, were all young professionals who had recently joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and were part of a new “IT-milan shakha.” Traditional shakhas—the RSS’s basic organisational units, and ideological incubators for new recruits—meet every day, often early in the morning, and gather members from a broad range of ages. IT-milans, introduced in 2001, initially brought together professionals from the information technology sector, but soon welcomed other white-collar professionals too; they meet once a week, on Sundays, to suit the schedules of their members. The game I watched the Vikaspuri group play, officially sanctioned for use at all shakhas, was Neta ki pehchan—loosely, mark of a leader. Such games, and initiatives like the IT-milans, are part of an RSS drive to revise its stait-laced public image, and to boost membership by attracting young people.
As late as last year, RSS leaders routinely lamented declining numbers of shakhas across the country. By the organisation’s own broad estimates—the exact figures it reports have varied—it had over fifty thousand shakhas in the early 2000s, but that number fell into the mid thirty thousands by the end of the decade. But, helped in part by Narendra Modi’s election victory last year—the prime minister was once part of the RSS himself—membership is now growing, and the organisation claims to have over forty thousand shakhas again. An RSS pracharak—a full-time worker—whom I met at the organisation’s Delhi office in December, said that “the numbers are going up since 2012, after the leadership decided to enroll more people.” RSS: Ek Parichaya, an official book introducing the organisation, claims around two thousand new shakhas are opening every year.
Games have long been a part of shakha activities, and the RSS tasks its sharirik vibhag, or physical department, with designing them. At another shakha in south-west Delhi, the group’s sharirik pramukh, who leads exercise and games, told me the “aim is to make the cadre physically fit, but to also make them aware of the developments in the society”—a euphemism for transmitting political ideas. One such game is Kashmir hamara hai—Kashmir is ours—where players inside a circle representing the territory tussle against others trying to displace them. This is designed to reinforce a belief in India’s claim to the disputed area. Another is Main Shivaji, a tag game that celebrates a seventeenth-century Maratha king idolised for fighting against a Muslim sultanate. Neta ki pehchan is part of a drive to find new leaders at the shakha level, and is meant to encourage young volunteers to step forward.
The RSS is also using the internet and social media to reach out to young people. IT-milan shakhas often lead the way: the Vikaspuri group stays in touch via the mobile application WhatsApp, where it continues discussions that would otherwise be limited to shakha meetings. The RSS has a Facebook page with about 1.25 million followers, a Twitter account and a Youtube channel. Its website allows people to join online, and several RSS officials told me online registrations were up to 2,500 per month in 2013. The pracharak told me that online communication has helped the organisation counter an alleged bias against it in among mainstream media. (Perhaps because of such suspicions, many RSS workers I approached refused to speak in an official capacity, and none agreed to be identified. Questions sent to the organisation’s communications department were not answered.) “Social media has helped us to bridge the gap between what RSS stands for and what is the common perception,” he said.
Back in Vikaspuri, the game continued. The young executive, who was one of the shakha’s most active members, told me he was delighted to have joined, and spoke enthusiastically about helping build the nation. “It’s just a beginning,” he said, “let’s see how it will work.”