By Ram Puniyani
As a century year of RSS is beginning on 2nd October 2025, it has planned many programs to celebrate. One of this is a series of three lectures, to begin with in Vigyan Bhavan Delhi on 26, 27 and 28 August. This will be followed by similar series in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat has earlier delivered three lectures in Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi in 2018.
The difference this time is that the lectures are being held in four major cities of India. In the third lecture, there will be a question and answer session, and many people not belonging to RSS Combine are being invited. There are twelve categories of invitees. These include the foreign embassy staff, intellectuals and political leaders belonging to other parties.
In foreign embassy staff, the one’s from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Türkiye will be excluded. As far as political parties are concerned, those from non-BJP parties who are making some noise, akin to what the Modi Government is saying, will be particularly invited. This is one of the major initial programs that is being organized. Other programs include Conferences of Hindus etc.
We recall that a lot of importance was given to Bhagwat’s Vigyan Bhavan lectures 2018, after which some political commentators naively felt that ‘RSS is changing’. An insider of RSS commented that RSS is undergoing a process of Glasnost. What happened in due course was the repetition of the same divisive actions that are the core of the RSS agenda.
Bhagwat stated very strongly on Hindu Muslim relations and said that “A person is not a Hindu if he says Muslims should not live in India. Those involved in mob lynching are against Hindutva.” Did the acts of lynching Muslims stop after this? No way! It continued as seen in the incidents of Shahrukh Saifi in UP and Lukman in Haryana in 2020. Added to this was the use of bulldozers against Muslims.
Most of the anti-Muslim activities continued as the propaganda against them is the major weapon for the RSS combine. As Covid-19 tormented the country, the occasion was used to further demonize Muslims by attributing the whole process to Tablighi Jamaat’s Conference going on in Delhi. The word like Corona Jihad, Corona bomb was floated. Accompanying this was the boycott of Muslim hawkers, discriminated against in Hindu localities.
Bhagwat stated that one is not a Hindu if he says that Muslims should not stay in India. The huge and painful exercise of NPR was undertaken followed by CAA, which opened the backdoor for citizenship in India to all except the Muslims. This also was responded to by courageous Muslim women by staging the Shaheen Baug Movement. Tragically this movement was countered by the likes of Kapil Mishra of BJP, who openly threatened that if police do not evacuate them, Mishra and Company will do it. The Delhi violence which took place after this killed 51 innocent lives, 2/3 of them being Muslims.
In a way RSS Combine under the leadership of Bhagwat is supporting every move which is intensifying the hate against Muslims and also their marginalization. What was the aim of the lectures of 2018? Clearly it was neither glasnost nor the observation that RSS is changing.
RSS is pursuing the path of Hindu Nationalism, plain and simple. It may theoretically disown M.S. Golwalkar’s, “Three internal threats to Hindu Nation-Muslims, Christians and Communists”, in practice it is pursuing precisely the same path. The Muslim community over a period of last many decades is feeling intimidated and marginalized.
Even Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was loudly declaring that RSS is changing, at the same time could see the plight of Muslims, “In the case of communal riots, Muslim property worth ‘thousands of crores of rupees are lost and destroyed’, and yet ‘proper FIRs are not registered’. Furthermore, a ‘majority of perpetrators and perpetrators of violence, looting and rape go scot-free’. In contrast, Muslims ‘exercising their constitutional right to protest are severely penalized, killed in police firing, mass arrests made and personal recoveries fixed for the losses accrued to public property. Where is the fair play?”
As far as Christians are concerned, they are subjected to sub-radar level chronic violence, which is low intensity and scattered all over. This has been rising at a painful speed, over so during the last over a decade. “Every day we have four or five attacks on churches and pastors, and every Sunday it doubles to roughly ten – this we have never seen before,” said a persecuted Christian leader of a major denomination in 2023. As per him, the main source of Christian persecution in India is the Sangh Parivar, an organization of Hindu extremists that includes the influential paramilitary and strategic group known as the RSS (National Volunteer Association), the BJP, the main political party and the Bajrang Dal, a violent youth wing.
As far as communists are concerned, all human rights workers are being labelled as Urban Naxals. Many of them were arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. And now in Maharashtra, a new “People’s Security Bill” is being brought in. This legislation empowers the state to monitor, investigate, and act against individuals or organizations suspected of providing intellectual, logistical, or financial support to banned Maoist outfits.
All these policies and street violence which is the outcome of what RSS propagates in its Shakhas and affiliated organizations. So why such lectures as the ones in 2018 and now in 2025? Surely, the agenda of RSS is crystal clear and has intensified during the last few decades. These lectures provide an opportunity to soften the negative outcome of the RSS agenda.
Since they operate in a democratic setup, though a formal one, it is necessary to show that their concept of the Hindu Nation is compatible with present times. The comparison with the lecture series of 2018 makes it clear that what RSS articulates through its Chief is not meant for implementation but merely to keep its critics in good humour. And who knows, with the dissidents of other parties being invited, it may also be the beginning of ‘operation Kamal’ in some form? RSS may be aiming at winning over those dissident elements from other parties. Let’s wait and watch.
