The RSS planned to kill Indian democracy even before Independence

On 9 September 1945, just after the run up for India’s independence began, top functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sat down at their Nagpur headquarters and discussed a plan to kill the impending democracy. A police report that documented details of this meeting, which I accessed recently, adds further weight to the considerable existing evidence about the Sangh’s ruthless political motives.

The deliberations at the meeting were written by hand in a question-answer format in a notebook, which was part of a large number of documents seized from the RSS headquarters in the aftermath of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s assassination on 30 January 1948. The police report on the notebook remained buried in the archives all these years.

The meeting was thought to have been meant to convey the RSS plan from the top leadership to prominent organisers and teachers, who would then—by virtue of being in regular touch with swayamsevaks—carry the message down the line. The details show the Sangh’s secret desire even in 1945 to capture political power, thus subverting the Indian nationalists’ efforts to develop the country on the lines of an electoral democracy.

As per the police report, which quotes the notebook, the meeting was attended by Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, a future sarsanghchalak—supreme leader—of the RSS, as well as prominent organisers and teachers, including “PV Savarkar, Datta Vaidya, Anna Pandharipande, Baburao Savatker, Nandlal Verma, Nana Narale, Kshirsagar, Madhukar Oak and Tatyaji.” The notebook details a discussion, in which Deoras responded to questions about the organisation’s approach to politics.

In the very beginning, the notebook records that Deoras convened the meeting with the apparent purpose to ideologically equip its swayamsevaks with the nuances of the Sangh’s idea of politics in light of upcoming elections. The RSS’s sarsanghchalak at the time was MS Golwalkar, who is revered in the Sangh as Guruji to this day. But Deoras, by virtue of having a longer association with the RSS and personal contacts with its key organisers and teachers, was seen at the time as the chief executioner of the organisation’s political strategies. It is because of this special position in the organisational structure of the RSS that Deoras succeeded Golwalkar as sarsanghchalak after the latter’s death in 1973.

Since its beginnings, the RSS has often pitched itself as a social and cultural organisation. Even in 2020, the present sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, claimed that it has no connection to politics. But the fact that politics has always been at the core of the RSS is hardly a secret. This was indicated in the police report as well.

“It is wrong to say that we have no connections with politics,” Deoras said in response to a question by PV Savarkar. He pointed out that Golwalkar had once said that the RSS has no connection to “present politics,” which Deoras described as the effort of fighting elections.

“Today,” Deoras said, “our plan is to create a powerful body by organising the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh all over India and thereby to effect an all India Unity, and at an opportune moment to seize the power on receipt of an order from our Leader. Obviously, to achieve this power, it is necessary that it should not be utilised in any other sphere and our attention should not be diverted to any other thing.”

To make the political motive palatable to the participants in the meeting, Deoras cited a famed episode from the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharat. Dronacharya, the teacher of the Pandavas and Kauravas, asks his pupils to fix their aim at a wooden bird in a tree and tell him what they see. The various princes describe different elements of the scene, but Arjun says that he can only see the bird’s eye. “Does this mean that Arjun was unaware of the fact that Dronacharya was standing by his side and that the bird was sitting on the tree?” Deoras asked. “But with all this when the vision is directed towards a certain object it is necessary not to divert it towards anything else.”

Perhaps Deoras was aware of some of the questionable aspects of the Sangh’s motives. He, therefore, referred to Shivaji, the Maratha king and the most revered political figure in Maharashtra, to denigrate the “present politics” and to make a case for the Sangh’s plan.

Did Shivaji overthrow the empire of Aurangzeb by utilising the present politics? The present politics has come into existence on account of the novel way of administration of the British. The British followed the Roman method of administration by avoiding its defects. As the sentiments of enslaved people are apt to rise they created an outlet for it and decided to do everything according to law … The present politics is the creation of this system. The fruits achieved out of the present politics are also limited, e.g. an ordinary reduction in taxes or an achievement of some minor rights. … To think that there was any advantage in getting some reforms or some rights is a mistake. Britishers have done this for their own interest.

Responding to a question by Pandharipande, about turning the RSS into a mass movement, Deoras said that the Sangh’s plan was of surprise. “It is not that all the things are done according to the settled plan,” he said. “Even if we think that we will do the work step by step, there is no guarantee that all the factors will remain till the last.”

According to the report, Deoras also talked about the role swayamsevaks may have to play till the RSS was organisationally ready to seize power. “It is possible that we will be required to do anything,” he said, in response to a question by Narale. “It is also possible that the Sangh might tell 5-10 persons to start their own political party. Everything is possible. This is our general plan … We should bear this thing in mind that we would take a particular step suitable to the occasion … It is said about the Imperial Guard of Napoleon that he used to feed it as much as possible till the approach of the suitable moment. At a proper moment it used to take the offensive. At times we become impatient.”

Deoras stated that the RSS did not plan to take part in the coming election but that its cadre should vote. To a question about why swayamsevaks should vote at all, Deoras said, “There are several things of which we are not in favour but still we have to do those things. We are not in favour of slavery but still we are [in] it. The same will be the case with elections.”

This is hardly the only proof of the Sangh’s aversion to democracy. As I wrote in a previous cover story for this publication on the RSS’s links to Nazism, “In the late 1930s and 1940s, many RSS members were enamoured with European fascists. Contemporary accounts suggest that, during this period, Golwalkar sought to turn the RSS into a Nazi-style militia, with the goal of eventually installing himself as führer.”

At the time, however, the RSS could not succeed in executing its plan to seize power. The assassination of Gandhi was followed by a massive government crackdown on the RSS. It was banned for a year and a half, and thousands of its leaders and cadres were arrested. For long after the ban was lifted in July 1949, it remained cautious while working under severe constraints.

Today the RSS is riding high, buoyed by the absolute parliamentary majority of its electoral wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The excessive use of power, arbitrary detentions and punitive measures against minorities and political opponents in BJP-ruled states show not just that the RSS has still not been able to adjust with the democratic set-up but also that it looks at politics differently.