The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (or RSS) is the parent organization of a family of organization called the Sangh Parivar. It’s the mother organization. It is a paramilitary with about 6 million members and multiple subsidiaries which have millions of their own members.
It’s the fountainhead of Hindutva (or Hindu nationalism) — this religious nationalist political ideology which treats non-Hindus in India as foreigners and which seeks to turn India into a theocratic Hindu nation.
It was founded in 1925, around the same time that the European fascist movements in Europe were developing.
And it has direct connections — both ideologically as well as in actual practice at the time — to those European fascist movement led by people like Mussolini and Hitler.
And it has direct connections — both ideologically as well as in actual practice at the time — to those European fascist movement led by people like Mussolini and Hitler.
Its founders at the time (in the 1930s, 1940s, as the Nazis were sweeping across Europe with the assistance of the fascists in Italy), the founders of the RSS pointed to the Nazis — pointed to those fascists in Europe — and identified their ideology as one....
.... that they wanted to mimic and imitate and spread in India.
They also even actually visited Europe and met with Mussolini, toured his fascist groups there, and then returned to India, and pointed to the RSS, and said that they wanted the RSS to be exactly like those fascist groups that they saw under Mussolini in Italy.
Furthermore, they notoriously called out the “purging” of the Jews conducted by Nazi Germany (the Holocaust or the actions leading up to the full Holocaust), they pointed that out as what they saw as a “good lesson” to “learn and profit by” and to imitate.
Now, who did they want to imitate it with?
In the case of the Nazis, the Nazis were targeting primarily Jewish people. In the case of the RSS, they primarily target Muslims and Christians. They view Muslims and Christians as members of “foreign races,” as an “internal threat,” or, in so many words, as “traitors.”
And, over the years since the RSS was founded in 1925, it has carried forth that ideology, put it into practice with over a dozen pogroms against Muslims and Christians, terrorist bombings, lynchings, assassinations, etc.
And, today, where we see the RSS is we see the RSS in power. It is the power behind the throne — the throne being Modi and his BJP regime. The BJP is essentially the political wing of the RSS. It was founded by the RSS.
The vast majority of cabinet ministers in Modi’s cabinet are members of the RSS. Of course, Modi himself (the Prime Minister), the President, the Home Minister of the country, Amit Shah. All of the most powerful people in the country are RSS members, and....
.... the BJP openly and unashamedly — repeatedly throughout the seven years of the Modi regime — holds these summits, these meetings with the RSS to consult on policy, to consult on its agenda going forward, and to essentially, one might argue, take orders from the RSS.
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