The Sangh Parivar represents theHindutva ideology and movement in India.[4] Members of the Sangh Parivar or the supporters of its ideology are often referred to as "Sanghis".[5]
These organisations started and supported by the RSS volunteers came to be known collectively as the Sangh Parivar.[8] Next few decades have seen a steady growth in the influence of the Sangh Parivar in the social and political space of India.
Ideology
Fascism
The Sangh Parivar has been described asfascist by several scholars and academics.[9][10][11] According to historianSumit Sarkar,Muslims are portrayed as an inherently unpatriotic minority with undue privilege in thepropaganda disseminated by the Sangh Parivar, similar to the depiction ofJews inNazi propaganda.[12] All dissent, and even the possibility of dissent, is framed as a form of "pseudo-secular" minority appeasement.[13] At the same time, the Sangh Parivar presents itself as uniquely indigenous and authentically Hindu, framingsecular ideals as fundamentally anti-Hindu.[12]
What I am suggesting is that in its staging of spectacles, in its techniques of mobilisations, in the multiplicity of its fronts, in the shadowy traffic between its parliamentary and non-parliamentary organs, in the seamless interplay of form and content in its ideological interpellations, in the connection it asserts between a resurgent national tradition and the regaining of masculinist virility, in its simultaneous claims to legality and extra-legality, in its construction of a mythic history which authorises it to be above history, and in its organisation of adharm sansad that authorises it to be above the civil parliament whenever it so chooses, the Sangh Parivar is a classically fascist force with large Indian twists of course, as every fascism must always take a specifically national form.
Jaffrelot argues that although the RSS, with its paramilitary style of functioning and its emphasis on discipline, has sometimes been seen as "an Indian version offascism",[15] the "RSS's ideology treats society as an organism with a secular spirit, which is implanted not so much in the race as in a socio-cultural system and which will be regenerated over the course of time by patient work at the grassroots".[16] He argues that Golwalkar's ideology shared, withNazism, an emphasis on ethnichomogeneity[17] but that the "ideology of the RSS did not develop a theory of the state and the race, a crucial element in European nationalisms: Nazism and Fascism"[15] and that, according to Jaffrelot, RSS leaders were interested in Hindu cultural homogeneity as opposed to racial sameness.[18]
Economics
While theBJP governments have been progressively seen to be industry friendly,[19] the opinions and the views of the Sangh Parivar constituents like Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) find consonance with the known leftist stands on labour rights.[20] The Sangh Parivar, as a whole, even the BJP in its earlier days, has advocated 'Swadeshi' (Self Reliance). Sangh Parivar leaders have been very vocal in their criticism of globalisation especially its impact on the poor and native people. They have been suspicious of the role of international agencies such as theWorld Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund.[21] Sangh constituents have advocated and promoted decentralised village centric economic growth with emphasis on ecological protection.[22]
Reception
The Sangh Parivar has been described with monikers spanning the spectrum from "patriotic Hindus"[23] and "Hindu nationalist".[4] Some have also labeled them "Hindu chauvinist".[24] While its constituent organisations present themselves as embedded in the traditional ethos of Hinduism, their ideological opponents have characterised them as the representatives of authoritarian,xenophobic and majoritarian religious nationalism in India,[25] These organisations have been accused being involved withSaffron terror.[26][27]
Social impact
The activities of the Sangh Parivar have had considerable social and religious impact.[28] And considerable influence over country's educational, social and defense policies.[29]
Social reform
In 1979, the religious wing of the Sangh Parivar, theVishwa Hindu Parishad got the Hindu saints and religious leaders to reaffirm that untouchability and caste discrimination had no religious sanction in the Hindu scriptures and texts.[30] The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is also spearheading efforts to ordain Dalits as priests in temples across India, positions that were earlier usually occupied only by people of "upper castes".[31] In 1983, RSS founded a Dalit organisation calledSamajik Samrasta Manch.[32]
The VHP founded a number of educational institutes such asBharat Sevashram,Hindu Milan Mandir,Ekal Vidalayas and schools in tribal locations.[32]
Social and political empowerment
The service programs, over the years, have led to the empowerment of the economically and socially underprivileged sections of the society, mostly the tribal, who have long remained politically under-represented.Babulal Marandi belonging to the tribal community, who was the organising secretary ofVishwa Hindu Parishad, became the first Chief Minister of the state ofJharkhand.[33]
The emergence of the Sangh Parivar in Indian politics has also brought many representatives of thebackward classes, who had been victims of social neglect and casteism, to comparatively prominent positions in the government and administration. At the same time, the Sangh has refused to allow said backward classes a share in the national wealth.[34]
In many villages acrossIndia,Dharma Raksha Samitis (Duty/Religion Protection Committees) promote religious discourse and form an arena forbhajan performance. The Sangh sponsors calendars of Hindu deities and provides instruction on sanctioned methods of conductingGanesh Chaturthi andNavaratri.[35]
Politics
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which represents the Sangh Parivar in national politics, has formed three governments in India, most recently being in power from May 2014 under the leadership ofPrime ministerNarendra Modi, re-elected in May2019 and again re-elected in 2024.
Political opponents of the BJP allege that the party's moderate face merely serves to cover the Sangh Parivar's "hidden agenda" of undilutedHindutva, detectable by the BJP's efforts to change the content of history textbooks andsyllabi as well as other aspects of the education system.[36]
Such criticism of the BJP arises from the fact that BJP had only 2 seats in the parliament in 1984 and after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 the party gained national recognition, and rose to power in 1998.[37][38][39][40][full citation needed][41][42]
Babri Mosque demolition
According to the report of theUPA institutedLiberhan Commission the Sangh Parivar organised thedestruction of the Babri Masjid.[43][44] The Commission said— "The blame or the credit for the entire temple construction movement at Ayodhya must necessarily be attributed to the Sangh Parivar".[45]
It also noted that the Sangh Parivar is an "extensive and widespread organic body", which encompasses organisations, which address and bring together just about every type of social, professional and other demographic grouping of individuals.
Each time, a new demographic group has emerged, the Sangh Parivar has hived off some of its RSS inner-core leadership to harness that group and bring it within the fold, enhancing the voter base of the Parivar.[46]
List of Sangh Parivar organisations
Major organisations that make up the Sangh Parivar
The Sangh Parivar includes the following organisations (with membership figures in brackets). They are also categorised.
My Home India,Organisation to promote nationalism and cultural assimilation betweenNortheast India and rest of India. Provide helpline to Northeast India people across the country.
Bharat Vikas Parishad –Organisation for the development and growth of India in all fields of human endeavour (1.8 million as of 2002)[49][62]
Hindu Jagarana Vedike, literally,National Volunteer Association for men to protect the Hindus
Dharm Jagaran SamitiOrganisation for conversion of non-Hindus to Hinduism[68] and their coordinating committee "Dharam Jagaran Samanvay Samiti"[67][69]
^Hansen, Thomas Blom (2014),"Controlled Emancipation: Women and Hindu Nationalism", in Bodil Folke Frederiksen; Fiona Wilson (eds.),Ethnicity, Gender and the Subversion of Nationalism, Routledge, p. 93,ISBN978-1-135-20566-9,archived from the original on 7 February 2023, retrieved26 May 2019: "The RSS usually calls its network of organisation the RSS family (Sangh Parivar), consciously evoking connotations of warmth, security and emotional attachment beyond ideology and reasoning. The family metaphor is central and highly operational as an instrument of recruitment and cohesion for the movement, which offers a sort of surrogate family to the activists. The family metaphor also refers to the authoritarian and paternalist authority structure which operates within the movement."
^Suresh Ramabhai, Vinoba and his mission, Published by Akhil Bharat Sarv Seva Sangh, 1954
^Martha Craven Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future, Published by Harvard University Press, 2007ISBN0-674-02482-6,ISBN978-0-674-02482-3
^Smith, David James, Hinduism and Modernity P189, Blackwell PublishingISBN0-631-20862-3
Andersen, Walter K.; Damle, Shridhar D. (1987) [Originally published by Westview Press],The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism, Delhi: Vistaar Publications
Jelen, Ted Gerard (2002),Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, The Few, and The Many, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,ISBN978-0-521-65031-1
Mishra, Pankaj (2006),Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond, New York City: Macmillan,ISBN978-0-374-17321-0
Saha, Santosh (2004),Religious Fundamentalism in the Contemporary World: Critical Social and Political Issues, Lexington, MA: Lexington Press,ISBN978-0-7391-0760-7
