EXPANSION OF THE RSS IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD
The post-war expansion of the RSS in northern India coincided with deteriorating communal relations between Muslims and Hindus. The Muslim League, campaigning for the creation of a separate Muslim state, declared a Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946. Communal violence erupted in Bengal and north-western India. According to one account of events in Bengal:
Between dawn on the morning of 16 August and dusk three days later, the people of Calcutta hacked, battered, stabbed or shot 6,000 of each other to death, and raped or maimed another 20,000).103 Mary Doreen Wainwright, on the bases of an analysis of the papers of the military commander of eastern Punjab, writes:
From the middle of 1946, ex-INA [Indian National Army] men were busy in Bengal and the Punjab, and in 1947 were helping to train the Congress volunteers, the RSS Sangh, and the Muslim League National Guard, while in August ex-INA Sikhs were active in organizing attacks of their co-religionists on the Muslims in the Punjab.104
She further reports:
Vast quantities of unlicensed arms and ammunition were in the possession of unauthorized persons, and that in Bengal and the Punjab the accumulation was on a scale beyond the power of the executive police forces and the provincial security authorities to check.105
Of the two trouble spots, it was in Punjab that the RSS was able to attract considerable Hindu support. In Bengal, in contrast to Punjab, the RSS neither attracted support from prominent Hindu leaders nor devoted much effort to organizing Hindus. During World War II, Punjab has been governed by a coalition including the Unionists (led by Muslim and Hindu landlords), Sikh Akalis, the Congress and independents. The Unionist chief minister, Sir Khizr Hyat Tiwana, no friend of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (the leader of the Muslim League), was expelled from the Muslim League before the 1946 legislative assembly elections. In those elections, the Unionists could win only 21 of the 175 seats; the Muslim League won 79 of the 86 seats reserved for Muslims, emerging as the largest single party.106 Tiwana assembled a shaky coalition of Unionists, the Congress and Akalis. On 24 January 1947 his government banned the Muslim League’s paramilitary affiliate, the Muslim National Guard. According to one Pakistani writer:
To keep up appearances, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a militant Hindu organization, was also declared unlawful, but no action was taken either against the Congress volunteers, or the Sikhs who, as everyone knew, were busy collecting arms.107
The Muslim League responded to this challenge by calling for a non-violent mass struggle to protest the ‘injustice’ of denying the largest party the ‘right’ to rule. The government rescinded its ban order on 28 January. The lesson was not lost on the other religious communities. The Lahore correspondent for Allahabad’s Leader wrote:
When the League forced the coalition government to withdraw its ban on the Rashtriya Sevik Sangh [sic] and the Muslim National Guard, the Sikhs realized that private armies had come to stay in the province and that it was high time they had one such army of their own.108
Penderel Moon, a British official serving in Bahawalpur state, observed:
The hooligan Muslim elements in the big cities perceived all too clearly the weaknesses of the government; the forces of law and order, not too staunch in any case, became puzzled and doubtful of what was expected of them.109
On 3 March the Tiwana ministry resigned and a Muslim League ministry was formed. Sikh and Hindu politicians refused to support it, and they organized demonstrations to protest a Muslim League ministry. Communal riots soon erupted all over Punjab.
On 3 June 1947 Lord Mountbatten, the British viceroy, announced His Majesty’s government’s decision to partition the subcontinent on a communal basis (including a division of Punjab and Bengal) and to terminate colonial rule on 15 August 1947. To keep law and order during the partition process, the British created a boundary force. Among the British and many Congress leaders, there was the hope that the large minority communities on both sides of the border would continue to live peacefully in the new states.110 However, the administrative personnel of the minority community in the two Punjabs shifted to the other side. Moreover, the border police was terminated in September. Millions of Hindus and Sikhs were stranded, unprotected in West Punjab; and the same was true for the Muslims in East Punjab.111 As early as July, acts of violence drove thousands of frightened people towards the other side. The violence reached a peak in September, and subsided when the minority communities of West Pakistan fled to India. The population transfer on both sides of the border was far from smooth. Describing the transfer in Bahawalpur state, Moon reports:
To kill a Sikh had become almost a duty; to kill a Hindu was hardly a crime. To rob them was innocent pleasure carrying no moral stigma.112
It was in this setting of near anarchy that the RSS earned enormous goodwill for itself by assisting Hindu refugees in their flight to India and by providing aid in their readjustment to life in a new country. Chaman Lal, the RSS office secretary in Lahore at the time of Partition, recalls that government officials in eastern Punjab provided assistance to the RSS (including the issuance of weapons) while they were organizing rescue squads to bring refugees to India.113 Sindhi refugees in Bombay recall that RSS members in Karachi (now in Pakistan) manufactured bombs for the Hindus in Sind. A former RSS member from Punjab, in a series of articles generally critical of the RSS, concedes that many Hindu Congress politicians in his own town approached RSS officials for assistance in defending the Hindu minority. He recalls that swayamsevaks were assigned to guard Hindu homes; they collected weapons to use during the anticipated Muslim attacks; and they manufactured hand grenades. He also admits that the RSS did not itself organize retaliatory activities against the Muslims in his own area, though many swayamsevaks individually engaged in such activities. He recalls that RSS rescue efforts helped to bolster the confidence and pride among the demoralized Hindus of Punjab.114 With the breakdown of law and order in many parts of India and Pakistan, vigilante law prevailed and observers report that few hands were clean in the affected areas. The RSS was only one of many paramilitary groups operating in Punjab during the exchange of population.115
But the RSS was probably the best organized of the paramilitary groups, and it earned the goodwill of the Hindu community of Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere. The rapid proliferation of shakhas in the north-west, according to government reports, aroused a sense of militancy among Hindus.116 Many RSS members were arrested for manufacturing bombs and other weapons, though the RSS itself was careful that none of its office-bearers were linked to such activities. Because the RSS was widely perceived to be the most effective organization working on behalf of the refugees, the Government of East Punjab provided support to it, as did the Congress party in the province.
The growing popularity and activism of the RSS led many to speculate that it was a force to reckon with. In a 16 September 1947 visit to a shakha in Delhi, Mahatma Gandhi pleaded with the swayamsevaks to let the government handle law and order in the increasingly tense capital city. Golwalkar reportedly responded that the RSS was purely defensive, though he could not vouch for the actions of every swayamsevak.117 Hone Minister Vallabhbhai Patel solicited Golwalkar’s help in an effort to convince the Hindu maharaja of Kashmir to merge his princely state with India. Golwalkar met the maharaja in October 1947 and urged him to recruit Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs into his militia.118 After Indian troops were invited into the state, the Indian military provided arms to volunteers of the RSS as well as to members of Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference.119 In September 1947 the Delhi region military commander met Golwalkar at least twice to request his help in maintaining law and order.120
As 1947 came to a close, senior political figures became increasingly outspoken about the danger of the RSS becoming an independent political force. A massive RSS rally in Delhi on 10 December 1947, attended by several Hindu princes, prominent businessmen, and an array of leaders from various Hindu organizations, seemed to underscore the hold of the RS
S on a significant part of the Hindu community. In fact, Golwalkar was adamantly opposed to the RSS getting involved in partisan politics, though many saw him as a potentiallly malevolent actor in the political arena.
As the Hindu refugees from West Pakistan spread out over northern and western India, they took the RSS organization to their new homes, where they formed the membership nucleus for hundreds of new shakhas. Many of the full-time workers of the RSS were recruited from the refugee community. A large number of these refugees were businessmen, and many prospered in India. Because of the widespread sympathy for the RSS among the refugees, even respected non-RSS refugee professionals presided over RSS public functions and contributed funds to both the RSS and to its affiliates.121 Businessmen from Punjab refugee backgrounds were, and still are, a reliable source for funds, and RSS informants admit that they have been generous.
Thousands of swayamsevaks were recruited to organize rescue squads, to provide food and medicine, and to organize temporary residential quarters for the refugees when they arrived in India. The largest single refugee relief operation was in Delhi, where the RSS operated four large camps.122 In the accounts of dozens of swayamsevaks who participated in the rescue and relief operations, one common theme was that the experience generated a loyalty to the RSS that enabled them to withstand the trials they had to face in 1948 and 1949 when the RSS was banned. The rescue operations left them convinced that the RSS has been genuinely concerned about the welfare of the Hindus. There is even a certain romantic nostalgia in their reminiscence. As never before (or after, in most cases), they had a sense of actively participating in a great event in which their services were both demanded and appreciated. Many recall the demands put on their talents and ingenuity, and in their recollection, they found themselves equal to the task.
RSS sources claim that there were about 100,000 swayamsevaks attending shakhas at the start of the war. By the beginning of 1948, between 600,000 and 700,000 were attending some 7,000 shakhas. Much of the growth had occurred in Punjab, Delhi and the United Provinces—provinces receiving most of the Punjabi refugees.123 When the Punjabi refugees began to pour into Delhi, communal rioting erupted in the national capital. Despite the charge that the RSS had precipitated the violence, the organization had built up too large a fund of goodwill for the government to restrict its activities without clear evidence of its direct involvement in the riots. The provincial premiers and home ministers, meeting in Delhi in November 1947, unanimously advised against curbing its activities.124 In a speech at Lucknow on 6 January 1948, Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel advised Congressmen to draw the RSS cadre into the Congress: ‘They are to be won over by Congress with love’.125
Gandhi was horrified at the violence in the capital city of independent India, and took the ultimate step to stop it. On 12 January 1948, he began observing fast, and ended it on 18 January only after leaders of Delhi’s Sikh and Hindu communities (including Hans Raj Gupta, sanghchalak of Delhi) promised to adhere to his six-point formula designed to end the violence. Maulana Azad, a nationalist Muslim spokesman, recalls that the agreement was opposed by many Sikhs and Hindus.126
THE BAN ON THE RSS: 1948–1949
Gandhi was assassinated on Friday evening, 30 January 1948, at 5.30 p.m., by Nathuram Vinayak Godse. Gopal Godse, brother of Nathuram, recalls:
Our motive was not to achieve control of the government; . . . we were simply trying to rid the nation of someone who had done and was doing great harm to it. He had consistently insulted the Hindu nation and had weakened it by his doctrine of ahimsa. On his many fasts, he always attached all sorts of pro-Muslim conditions . . . He never did anything about the Muslim fanatics. We wanted to show the Indians that there were Indians who would not suffer humiliation—that there were still men left among the Hindus.127
Nathuram Godse had previously been a member of the RSS,128 and at the time of the assassination, was an editor of a pro–Hindu Mahasabha newspaper in Pune.129 Because of his background, the government suspected that the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS had both been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi, and to seize control of the government. Leaders of both groups were arrested. On 3 February 1948 Golwalkar was arrested, and the government banned the RSS the next day.
Before his arrest, Golwalkar instructed the RSS leaders temporarily to cease all RSS activities. Despite this instruction and the subsequent ban, a large number of swayamsevaks continued to meet together under the guise of study groups, sports associations, devotional assemblies, etc. They met together at considerable risk, for the government was arresting those suspected of participating in the RSS. RSS officers from all levels of the organization were arrested. RSS records and funds were confiscated, and property and equipment were impounded. With practically the entire leadership imprisoned, the younger RSS members received instant training in leadership, and they constructed and maintained the clandestine apparatus of the RSS. The leadership engaged in ‘seminars’ while in prison to determine the future orientation of the RSS. The various options for the RSS were exhaustively debated, and from these debates emerged the guidelines that the RSS pursued in the post-ban period.
RSS sources estimate that approximately 20,000 swayamsevaks were arrested for varying lengths of time during the first few months of the ban.130 The government was not able to show any RSS involvement in Gandhi’s murder,131 nor its involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. By August 1948 most of the detainees were released, and Golwalkar himself was released on 5 August. Nevertheless, the ban on the RSS was not lifted. Golwalkar was required to remain within the municipal limits of Nagpur, to refrain from addressing any public meeting, and to seek prior approval from the Nagpur district magistrate before submitting any material for publication.132
Following his release, Golwalkar initiated correspondence with the prime minister and the home minister on the question of lifting the ban on the RSS.133 On 24 September 1948 Golwalkar wrote to Nehru that no evidence existed to link the RSS with the murder of Gandhi.134 On the same day, he wrote to Patel:
If you with Government power and we with organized cultural force combined, we can eliminate this menace [communism]. I am intensely worried at the waves of victory of that foreign ‘ism’ which are sweeping our neighboring countries.135
Nehru wrote back that the government had a ‘mass of information’ that the RSS was ‘anti-national’, ‘often subversive’, and ‘violent’.136 In response, Golwalkar refuted these charges, emphasizing the non-political nature of the RSS.137 However, the RSS leadership was, in fact, seriously considering the question of a political role for itself.
Correspondence between Home Minister Patel and Golwalkar was concerned primarily with the political intentions of the RSS. On 11 September Patel wrote of his concern that
Their [RSS] opposition to the Congress, and that too of such virulence, disregarding all considerations of personality, decency or decorum, created a kind of unrest among the people.
In the same letter, he proposed that
RSS men carry on their patriotic endeavor only by joining the Congress and not by keeping separate and by opposing.138
While this exchange of letters was taking place, Patel was canvassing the provincial governments on the ban issue; all the governments responded that the ban should not be lifted. Following this advice, Patel broke off his discussion with Golwalkar.
Golwalkar’s travel restrictions had been temporarily lifted in October so that he could confer with government officials in Delhi. When the discussions were terminated, he was again arrested and returned to Nagpur. Soon after, Golwalkar issued two press statements which were addressed primarily to those who wanted to transform the RSS into a political party. In the second, he wrote, ‘I believe that cultural work should be entirely free from political scramble and should not be tagged on to any political party.’ To those who wanted to transform the RSS into a political party, he warned, ‘This position is unbearable and does no credit to those who may hol
d it.’139 The Delhi provincial organizer of the RSS issued a press statement on 3 December 1948, which rejected Patel’s suggestion that the RSS merge with the Congress. ‘The advice [on the merger] was too queer and unreasonable to be termed a proposal for change.’140 On 13 November 1948, two days before his second arrest, Golwalkar circulated a memorandum to RSS leaders informing them that his 6 February order to comply with the government’s ban order was rescinded, and directed P. B. Dani, the general secretary, to resume RSS activities.141 The decision was not unanimously supported by the RSS karyakari mandal (executive committee). Some of its members felt that the RSS should not oppose the government in such a dramatic fashion when the possibility for renewed negotiations was still an option. The normally cautious Golwalkar lined up with the activists on the issue, and the RSS launched its first civil disobedience campaign against the government.
On 9 December 1948 the civil disobedience campaign (referred to in the RSS as a satyagraha) was launched. RSS informants claim that some 60,000 swayamsevaks took part in the protest, a very significant response considering that the number of protestors represents about one-tenth of the RSS membership before the ban. The protest was suspended on 20 January 1949 when RSS officials were approached by the government to resume negotiations on a written RSS constitution acceptable to the government.142
During the ban, Eknath Ranade, a member of the RSS (central executive responsible for negotiating with the government), and Home Minister Patel conferred secretly several times to discuss the terms for lifting the ban and for releasing Golwalkar. Their first meeting took place at Mussoorie, in the home of G. D. Birla, one of India’s leading industrialists. According to Ranade, the meeting was a disaster, as Patel continued to insist that the RSS was creating a climate of violence in the country.143 Patel did not make clear whether he was referring to actual acts of violence or whether he meant that the opposition to the Congress ‘created a kind of unrest among the people’, as he had earlier written to Golwalkar. Several months after the first meeting, Ranade again met Patel, and according to Ranade, Patel told him that swayamsevaks should join the Congress and help build up the party’s organizational base. RSS leaders close to the negotiations claim that Patel, the organizational leader of the Congress diumvirate, wanted to utilize the RSS cadre to oppose some of Nehru’s policies.144
The Brotherhood in Saffron Page 6
