As the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh gears up to flag-off celebrations to venerate its centenary year, it has indisputably shed its shadowy past. It has also caste aside its sheepish reluctance to speak about itself and project a public profile. In its place there is a new zeal, which also manifests in regard to its majoritarian worldview. For a time, the RSS’s Weltanschauung or world view appeared to its own lot as a clandestine viewpoint; it is now considered to be politically correct. More and more of its volunteers or Swayamsevaks, along with hordes of supporters, are now unapologetic while imagining India as a Hindu Pakistan. The journey on this path had been given a quantum push a shade more than 35 years ago, in 1988-89, when the RSS mobilised support for its commemoration of the birth centenary of its founder, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, with an uproarious slogan – “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain (say with pride that you are a Hindu).”This slogan, along with a cacophony of numerous others which were coined alongside in the course of the RSS-steered agitation for constructing a Ram temple at Ayodhya, aroused smugness among a section of Hindus after the destruction of the Babri Masjid, projected as symbol of hatred towards the Muslims.Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras, a.k.a Balasaheb Deoras. Photo: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 4.0At the end of the RSS’s 67 years of existence in 1992, when the mosque in Ayodhya was razed to the ground in a pre-planned operation, the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation emerged as its most successful campaign. The credit for this would primarily go to Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras, a.k.a Balasaheb Deoras, the third Sarsanghchalak of the RSS. In a tenure spanning a few months more than two decades, starting in June 1973, he not only initiated the social diversification of the RSS, but also oversaw various campaigns through the 1980s and early 1990s to ensure that the RSS, and its political affiliate, the Bharatiya Janata Party, transited from the periphery of Indian polity, to its centre stage. It was his vision – ably executed by trusted aide Moropant Pingle, who micro-managed the Ram temple movement led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad – which ensured not just political acceptability of the Sangh Parivar, but also for securing greater endorsement of its principal social and ideological clarion call, that Hindus must have primacy in India.If Deoras shepherded this ideological fountainhead through the period when it grew exponentially in terms of mass support, then his two predecessors, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar also played their parts to perfection. If they had not laid the foundation of the RSS and erected an edifice which had multiple wings, all of Deoras’ efforts would have come to naught. Mischievously, Hedgewar’s 15-year tenure from 1925 to 1940 was once termed as a period when the Swayamsevaks did ‘nothing’, but had it not been for the basic structure and rituals of the organisation, and the manner in which he insulated the RSS from British wrath, the organisation would not have been able to come this far. Likewise, Golwalkar in the first decade at the helm, stuck to the core principals of the RSS, which included not getting tempted to join the Congress-led national movement’s path of agitations and mass mobilisation. Yet, after he oversaw the most-serious challenge to its existence in the form of people’s anger and State action, including criminal investigation, in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, Golwalkar realised the necessity of having a voice in the political and electoral arena, along with other walks of life. M. S. Golwalkar. Photo: TwitterThat is why the RSS stopped being a lone ranger and instead the Bharatiya Jana Sangh was established and gradually the Parivar took shape, even in sectors few had anticipated as a priority area for it, for instance establishing an affiliated organisation to work among the tribal communities. The years after Deoras handed over charge to Rajendra Singh a.k.a. Rajju Bhaiyya were ideologically trying times as leaders of the Sangh Parivar believed that hard-nosed politics, which had principally razed the Babri Masjid and ignited the country in communal frenzy, had limitations. This was why L.K. Advani made way for Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who secured a 13-day long stint in the Prime Minister’s office. The failure to muster support of any other party further convinced the Sangh Parivar leaders that only a middle path would meet with success. The BJP, with Vajpayee at its helm, eventually lasted six years in office but its defeat in 2004 resulted in a decade spent out of power. That the BJP was eventually able to marshal its capacities and come back to power in 2014 with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister was mainly due to Mohan Bhagwat, who became Sarsanghchalak in 2009. After becoming the chief of the RSS, he virtually forced ageing warhorses like Advani to step aside and make way for a new generation of leaders. Eventually, Modi pipped challengers to the post and was anointed the party’s prime ministerial candidate, albeit reluctantly. After Modi assumed the office, the BJP and government has also consciously propped up the memory and image of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who despite being the one who codified Hindutva had remained the ‘outsider’ and was never formally part of the RSS. Yet, his co-option in the Hindutva pantheon enables the BJP and the RSS too to connect with that persona of Savarkar which bestowed on him the title of ‘Veer’ or brave. By making Savarkar one of its own icons, the BJP and RSS strive to establish that they too are legatees of the national movement.But it is necessary to return to the slogan(s) that were an integral part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. These further enhanced the pre-existing prejudice of the volunteers and affiliates of the RSS against the Muslims and secured greater endorsement of the Hindutva ideology, which implicitly stated that this was a nation ‘of the Hindus’. Thirty five years later, the commencement of the centenary celebrations virtually heralds the old slogan in a 2.0 variant: Garv se kaho hum Sangh ke hain (says with pride that we are all part of the Sangh – or members of the RSS). Kar sevaks at the Babri Masjid. Photo: X/@SanaSaeed.This sense of conceitedness has stemmed from the 11-years-and-running innings of the Narendra Modi government which has provided the RSS with the power of ‘two Ps’: programmes (and ideological objectives) which have been implemented (or pursued) by the government, and placements (and/or positions) that have been secured for people within the RSS ecosystem, across the board, in state institutions and those controlled by the Union government. They do little but ‘benefit’ their own lot and spread the Sangh Parivar’s Gospel.From a time the so-called ‘contentious’ issues that the BJP pursued did not go beyond the Ram temple, the reading down of Article 370 and the rollout of a Uniform Civil Code. But successive ‘Modified’ governments since 2014 have gone way beyond those, granting Indian citizenship on the basis of religious identity (Citizenship Amendment Act) in 2019, adding fuel to the Sangh Parivar propaganda that there exists an cross-border Islamist conspiracy backed by ‘forces of destabilisation’ within India, which is gradually reducing over time the Hindus to a minority. This has led to, naturally, the decision to establish a ‘high-powered’ Demographic Commission.Yet, the cocksureness within the rank and file of the RSS and its principal affiliates that has come in the course of the Modi era, has also led to certain disconcerting developments. But because the RSS has barely started celebrating turning a hundred, its leadership is aware that the ‘party’ cannot be ruined by raking these issues up. A semblance of public show of goodwill has been achieved after considerable bitterness and the leadership on both the ‘verticals’ would not do anything to return to the time when the acrimony was out in the open, even though no names were taken.Yet, anyone part of even the mid-level leadership of the RSS and its two-score-plus affiliated organisations, or those who track political and inter-personal narratives within the Sangh Parivar, is well aware that much turbulence flows beneath this great picture of calmness and bonhomie. Prime Minister Narendra Modi flanked by Maharashtra Governor and NDA’s vice presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan, BJP National President and Union Minister JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and others. Photo: PTI/X/@pmoindia.For instance, the BJP has not held meetings of either its parliamentary party or its parliamentary board, both of which are important intra-party bodies, after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Furthermore, the party is yet to even begin conducting a review to analyse why the BJP tally dropped by more than 20%, to fall below the majority mark in Lok Sabha for the first time since 2014. Or for that matter, the other issue which even diehard critics of the party have stopped flagging: continuance of J.P. Nadda as party president amidst the failure to elect a new party chief. Undeniably, if the BJP and the government did not have the kind of stranglehold on the mainstream media that it has, questions over this failure alone would have soured the RSS centenary party.Quite clearly, the unprecedented gains that the RSS has made since 2014 – mirrored paradoxically in the renovated and sprawling Keshav Kunj campus in New Delhi, named after the austere founder of the organisation – has come at a cost, that of looking the other way even as one of its core principles lies in shambles. Former vice president M. Venkaiah Naidu at the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) office Keshav Kunj, in New Delhi. Photo: @MVenkaiahNaidu on X via PTI Photo.For more than half a century the RSS has officially eschewed the promotion of personality cult. Started by Balasaheb Deoras, the third Sarsanghchalak, shortly after he assumed charge in 1973, he disallowed deification of RSS chiefs barring the two who preceded him – Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar. Deoras even directed that starting with him, no Sarsanghchalak would be cremated at the Hedgewar Smriti Mandir, the final resting place of the founder and Golwalkar, although the latter has a smaller memorial to his name. Deoras was also of the view that no individual could be allowed to become more important than the sangathan or organisation, a diktat that has been trampled upon in the Modi era. Even in the years when he was Gujarat chief minister, Modi functioned unilaterally and did not consult the RSS leadership either on matters of governance or the party unit in the state. The Sangh leadership was aware of this characteristic when Modi was selected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013 after Mohan Bhagwat okayed the choice. The moment this happened, it became obvious that the ‘Big Brother’ headquartered in Nagpur would no longer remain the elder, at best it would have to be content by being a ‘twin.’ Even years after Modi’s brazen promotion of his personality cult, it is debatable if the RSS is even an equal insofar as decision making is concerned. It is true, Modi made an outward show of respecting the Sarsanghchalak when he turned out in Nagpur in March in a public function with Bhagwat and in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, he lavished praise on the RSS besides declaring on several occasions that he owes his rise and growth to the organisation. Yet, it cannot be denied that as far as decision-making is concerned, he is the one who calls all the shots.The question that the RSS leadership undoubtedly faces is if the organisation will be able to put its diminished aura within the saffron fraternity in the past, especially after the end of the Modi era – which certainly does not yet appear imminent. But, on the other hand, almost as if it anticipated the challenges that would come with Modi at the helm, the RSS cadre has also been trained over the past decade in modern and technology-intensive social outreach. While the RSS cadre has always campaigned for BJP candidates, save on occasions like in 1984, 2004 and again in 2024, the divergences were always plastered after the RSS regained momentum – with the Ayodhya agitation in the 1980s and by playing a more decisive role in leadership changes/choices within BJP after the defeat in 2004.In various interactions with the RSS functionaries, the ‘final’ goal of the organisation has often been deliberated upon. On such occasions it has been asserted that eventually the RSS would like the samaj/society/people to ‘become’ the Sangh. To the uninitiated this is an imaginary state in the future, when the support for the socio-political viewpoint of the RSS has become so widespread and self-propelled, that there is no necessity for an organisation, or even a leader, to engage in campaigning for those principles and charismatically draw voters to its fold and an electoral machine, would suffice. In this Jan. 1, 2006 file photo, then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Kesubhai Patel (C) at the concluding session of RSS Viswa Sangh Shibir in Ahmedabad. Photo: PTI/File.It is true that within the majority community, over the past decades, especially after 2014, support for the Hindutva idea has steadily risen. But, this is unlikely to cross the majority mark within the community, at least on a permanent basis. Furthermore, despite their current marginalisation, stemming greatly from the electoral hegemony established by Modi, minority articulation is unlikely to remain muted and would in time find expression in various ways. In 2004, the BJP-led coalition was defeated by yet another coalition. In 2024, the capacity of an opposition, centred around the largest adversary of the BJP, the Congress party, once again posed a serious challenge to the BJP and its almost voiceless allies. The RSS leadership would like to celebrate its centenary with the hope that it would once again emerge as a relevant force within the Sangh Parivar and even secure its past position in the pecking order. Until that happens, it will continue to play second fiddle, fervently hoping that its cadre does not abandon its quest to further ‘awaken’ the Hindu samaj in favour of a more ‘real’ power rooted in electoral politics.Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and author whose books include Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times and The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right.