When the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, the faculty of the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) released a long pamphlet condemning it, recalls historian Aditya Mukherjee.
This was not the case of one university department speaking out. It was almost as if India’s official history establishment — professors from the Centre frequently authored official NCERT textbooks — was taking a stand against the Sangh and its affiliates (BJP, Vishva Hindu Parishad, and Bajrang Dal).
This anecdote provides a lens to understanding the Sangh’s relationship with Indian intellectuals as the organisation celebrates its centenary. And there is a history to that relationship. It is as related to the political developments of the late 1960s and early 1970s as it is to the distinctive manner in which the Sangh is organised.
The intellectual ‘other’
After the Congress split in 1969, Indira Gandhi fell short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha by about 45 seats. Given her shift towards the Left at this point — illustrated by the slogan “Garibi Hatao (eradicate poverty)” and policies such as bank nationalisation and abolition of privy purses — she got the support of the CPI and some Independents to form the government.
“The CPI was delighted to join in, seeing Mrs Gandhi’s Left turn as an opportunity for expanding its own influence,” historian Ramachandra Guha writes in India After Gandhi.
At the time, the Left was the pre-eminent intellectual force, and not just in the country. Aligarh-based historian Saiyid Nurul Hasan, who was a Communist, was the Union Minister for Education, Social Welfare and Culture from 1971 to 1977. The Indian Council for Historical Research was set up in 1972 and became a central funding body for research, awarding projects and fellowships, with a distinctive Left orientation. Many NCERT textbooks were authored by scholars with a background in the Left, including R S Sharma, Satish Chandra, and Bipan Chandra.
JNU, set up in 1969, also had a clear Left slant, especially in its early years, primarily through its faculty appointments.
It was in the early 1970s that, after decades in the wilderness following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, the RSS started receiving mainstream legitimacy, which was further consolidated because of its participation in the JP movement against the Emergency.
With the Left dominating quality social science spaces, the number of students with a rightward tilt was always in the minority compared to their counterparts. This in turn meant that few intellectuals ended up in Sangh ranks.
A different culture
While the RSS and its affiliates command the narrative on the ground at present, they don’t think that is still the case in academia.
“The Sangh’s prime focus was to make people come on board. So, it believed that getting into arguments, or vaad vivaad (arguments), impeded reaching out to more people. This made the Sangh fall behind a bit in terms of intellectual arguments, something that needs correction. Thinking is also a part of action. It is not the opposite of action,” said a BJP leader who did not wish to be named.
Starting in the early 1980s, the RSS sought to partially address this through an initiative called the Pragya Pravah that provided it with ideologues and leaders such as S Gurumurthi, K N Govindacharya, Ram Madhav, and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, to name a few.
Sahasradbuddhe, a former Rajya Sabha MP, alleged the Left deliberately marginalised the Sangh in intellectual circles. “In 1977-’78, there was a Maharashtra literature conference in Pune presided over by P B Bhave of the Hindu Mahasabha. The socialists shouted him down. Similarly, Ramesh Patange, a person from the backward class in the Sangh Parivar, was prevented from speaking. The Sangh is a victim of intellectual apartheid,” Sahasrabuddhe, the founder of BJP-linked think-tank Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, told The Indian Express.
A Sangh insider said while the RSS focused on its shakhas (branches) to forge a sense of brotherhood, its workers set up associated organisations to implement its worldview among various social segments. The swayamsevaks, or cadre, brought up in the ways of the Sangh naturally saw the world through the lens of their training and intellectual debate was never really a part of it. However, the lack of a vibrant debate culture makes it easier for the Sangh to reach the masses.
“Intellectuals, particularly from the Left, often discard popular beliefs as myths. The Sangh is far ahead of them today in its mass reach because it celebrates these beliefs,” a BJP leader said, even as he admitted that the RSS had not been able to clinch the intellectual arguments in academic spaces.
This is not to say the Sangh does not invest in education. The Vidya Bharti, a Sangh-related organisation that works in the educational sector, runs 12,363 institutions. The first Saraswati Shishu Mandir was set up in Gorakhpur in 1952 by Nanaji Deshmukh. In the late 1970s, Vidya Bharti was established as an umbrella body coordinating with a network of such schools. Many of these schools across the country are affiliated to the CBSE or state boards, and are cheaper than private schools.
Efforts are currently underway to set up Sangh-linked private universities, with one already up and running in Bengaluru, according to RSS insiders.
The Vidya Bharti Uchch Shiksha Sansthan, the higher education wing of the RSS, is into policy interventions and looks at curriculum and syllabi, said K N Raghunandan, who is associated with the organisation.
Apart from this, there is the ABVP, the largest student organisation in India; the Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal that focuses on ideas and research; the Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mandal that is a teachers’ organisation; the science and technology-related Vijnana Bharati, which boasts of former Council of Scientific and Industrial Research director general R A Mashelkar and former Atomic Energy Commission of India chairman Anil Kakodkar as patrons; and Samskrita Bharati that works to preserve and propagate Sanskrit.
In the past decade and a half, research and advocacy groups closer to the Sangh’s worldview, such as India Foundation and Vivekananda International Foundation, have cropped up. Yet, the Sangh believes it is still some distance away from acquiring intellectual heft and framing its views within academia.