100 Years of RSS and Northeast India

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded on 27 September 1925 in Nagpur, Maharashtra, led by Dr Keshav Bilaram Hedgewar, who also became the first Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the organisation. This year’s foundation day marks the hundred years of its service. The RSS, with its political offshoot, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is disseminating policies in the BJP-ruled states of the country in line with its Hindutva ideology. This Hindu ethno-nationalist political ideology has taken centre stage in India’s contemporary politics.

    The RSS has eleven Kshetras (regions) where all its administrative works are divided. Their ever-expanding affiliated organisations, generally referred to as the Sangh Parivar, working in different fields like trade, education, religion, student welfare, and health services, amongst others, are evolving in line with changing contours of the modern society to achieve organisational accommodation. It has entered territories where its ideologues are perceived as ‘alien’, particularly India’s Northeast region, troubled by armed movements demanding ‘autonomy’ and ‘secessionism’, and has captured the region’s political discourses.

 

China and Christian missionaries

In this region, the RSS’s organisational activities intensified following the Indo-China war of 1962, in which India lost its territories. The two-month-long war was fought in the Northeast Frontier Agency (present-day Arunachal Pradesh) and Aksai Chin (disputed territory between India and China). The following years also witnessed the emergence of various armed groups inspired by Maoist ideology for an armed revolutionary struggle to achieve ‘independence’ from the Indian union, with the intensification of the Christian missionary activities.

    In other words, the organisation entering the region was to confront the increasing ideological influence of China and Christian missionaries. For instance, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the religious offshoot of the RSS, was founded in 1964, primarily to counter the spread of Christianity, a ‘foreign’ religion to the RSS in the Northeast, including in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and Punjab in the north. The VHP, along with the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VHP), another affiliated organisation of the RSS working for tribal welfare, which was formed in 1952, staunchly opposed the creation of the Christian Nagaland state on 1 December 1963, when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister.

Portrait of Bharat Mata and Rani Gaidinliu, a leader of Heraka movement. Source: The India Forum, 2022.

    The VHP and VKA opposed this due to the creation of a state based on religion and even proposed the creation of another state as a non-Christian front. The RSS has positioned itself as a force to tame the ‘Christianity-inflicted’ insurgency movement of the Nagas. This was seen a year after Narendra Modi took oath as the BJP’s Prime Minister with the signing of the Naga Peace Accord on 3 August 2015 between the Government of India and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the oldest insurgent group in the region. However, after a decade of signing the accord, the Naga insurgency remains unresolved.

 

Beyond Insurgency

The RSS’s activities have expanded beyond dealing with insurgencies in recent years. It has delved into the region’s ethnic intricacies, history, culture, and religiosity. Their organisational activities often attempt to retell the region’s historical legacies to project an inclusive reading of India’s struggle against British colonialism. At the same time, Hindu epics like the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Puranas (sacred Hindu texts) are often emphasised to project the civilisation, culture, and religious links with the ‘mainland’ India.

    It has also figured out the political struggles experienced by the people, particularly over the issue of ‘borders and immigration’, but this is often seen by the critics as manufactured. This issue, however, has created a fertile political environment for the organisation to anchor its position and strengthen organisational activities. This signifies the adaptability and the organic struggles the RSS overcame despite the challenging issues it faced in the uncharted territories where Hindu culture and Indic traditions are seen as ‘external.’ It has gripped the political narrative of the region, with the BJP-ruled state like Assam becoming the epicentre of Hindutva politics.

Portrait of Bharat Mata between the portraits of Bir Tikendrajit and Thangal General, during Manipur's Patriots Day. Source: The Indian Express, 2019.

    

The expansion of Hindutva is often associated with riots and violence over the issue of threat perception from outsiders, the assertion of indigenousness, belongingness, and demographic imbalance caused by ‘immigrants.’ It was most visible in Assam during the Citizenship Amendment Act protest in 2019, followed by the release of the final list of the National Register of Citizens the same year, leaving millions of people stateless, with most belonging to the Muslim community. Likewise, the ongoing violence in Manipur can also be linked to issues of immigrants, belongingness, and demographic imbalance. Moreover, such has been a boiling political issue in Meghalaya and Tripura, two states sharing borders with Bangladesh.

 

Hindutva Alliances

The Northeast region has become a space for experimentation with Hindutva, where the RSS’s territorial and power-building politics are taking place. Its penetration has amplified the project of Akhand Bharat (undivided Indian subcontinent), given the taming of secessionist groups operating in and beyond the region. It has assimilated its cultural nationalism within the political psyche of the ethnic majorities who are predominantly Hindus, particularly in the states of Assam, Manipur, and Tripura, aiming to make India a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) while engaging and assimilating with ‘indigenous’ peoples and their culture. However, it still faces the challenges of building a Sanskriti (culture) that is common to the rest of the country.

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat holding a flag of Seng Khasi at U Lum Sohpetbneng, Meghalaya. Source: Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Bharat, 2022.                        

    To achieve this, the RSS has focused on the preservation of indigenous culture and the revival of faiths like Donyi Polo and Rangfrah in Arunachal Pradesh, Bathou in Assam, Sanamahi and Heraka in Manipur, and Seng Khasi in Meghalaya, while countering the influence of Christianity. Their presence in the Northeast has widened significantly in recent years, with increased Sakha (local unit) networks, providing seva (services) during natural calamities, traditional medical aids, and education facilities. Over the past hundred years, RSS has developed its organisational capability to influence and capture the Northeast’s political landscape. The BJP is forming Hindutva alliances with regional parties, with the RSS laying the groundwork to win elections in constituencies it has never won before, while defeating the once formidable Indian National Congress and its alliances.