Breeding little fascists: Indoctrination in the RSS training camps

by Guest Sun May 18, 2014 10:17 pm

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20021108002209000.htm&date=fl1922/&prd=fline&

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:00 am

Kali features in The Men in the Tree, a 98-minute documentary on the RSS by Lalit Vachani. If the title is a little confusing, that is because the film is a sequel to Boy in the Branch, a much shorter film made in 1992. The earlier film documented the activities of an RSS shakha in Nagpur, where the organisation has its headquarters. Vachani wanted to see how the RSS recruits and trains its young activists. The commentary tells us that he went to Nagpur expecting to see images of fascist indoctrination reminiscent of Nazi Germany. What he saw instead was so simple in its ingenuity that it was almost brilliant. Young boys came to the shakha and under the watchful eye of the shakha pramukh (branch leader), they played games. These games were the first step in an elaborate chain of RSS indoctrination. For instance, one game begins with the children shouting `Kashmir belongs to us!' Another, a name game, is interesting in how certain names from Indian history are included (Sardar Patel, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Rana Pratap, Gandhi, and so on), how some are excluded (Ashfaqullah Khan or Akbar), and how some names are juxtaposed with others (thus Gandhi would be followed by, say, Golwalkar). Through these games, the young boys acquire a sense of belonging to the collective of the RSS shakha even as their consciousness is systematically communalised. And it is through these games that the boys also acquire the other RSS traits: a sense of discipline, uncritical obedience and reverence of authority, and hatred of the enemy. The enemy as defined by the RSS, of course — Muslims, Christians, Communists, whatever.

The crucial question obviously is how much of this indoctrination survives in the boys as they grow older. If we were to take Kali as a representative case, very little. Kali thinks that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was wrong, and he has a complete disregard for presumed historical rights and wrongs. Sadly, however, Kali is perhaps not the typical case. When Vachani returned to Nagpur in October 2000 to track down the boys who had formed the central characters of Boy in the Branch, he found that Kali attended the shakha for about two years, and then the shakha itself was wound up and he drifted away from Hindutva into the more benign occupation of running a small shop.

This was not the case with Sandeep, who sells ayurvedic medicines today, after having worked for six years as an RSS pracharak (full-time propagandist). Sandeep is charming, articulate and passionate in a quiet sort of way. His smile lights up his face. He never looks like someone who will go around murdering people and looting, unlike Shripad, who used to be the physical instructor in Kali's shakha. Shripad, a building contractor, looks like a goon, and talks like one. He tells us, eyes gleaming with pride and hatred, that he was among those who stood atop the dome of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 10 years earlier. Sandeep was not among those who razed the mosque to the ground. He was one of those, he tells us with his easy smile, who were manning the `base camp'. Different personalities, different styles; united, however, in a fierce allegiance to a fascist ideology.

Vachani also interviewed two former RSS members. Des Raj Goyal, author of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, talks in the film about his years in the RSS. The other `insider' testimony is provided by Purushottam Agarwal, who teaches at Jawarharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and who was a member of an RSS shakha in Gwalior for a couple of years as a child of 14. On several questions, their testimony is remarkably similar, though they were RSS members in different times and in different cities.

On the question of Gandhi, for instance, whatever it may claim in public, it is clear that the RSS has a seemingly dual, almost contradictory attitude. On the one hand they have a tremendous antipathy to the man. Thus Agarwal tells us that in his shakha they used to be told that if Gandhi is the Father of the Nation, he is the father of Pakistan, not India. On the other hand, though, there is also an attempt by the RSS to `co-opt' Gandhi. Thus, we see images of RSS comic books that show Gandhi saluting the RSS flag!

Yet, the duality of the RSS attitude towards Gandhi is clearly a front. Goyal recalls how in the late 1940s, as a young RSS activist, it was his duty to report Gandhi's speeches to his RSS bosses. But the young Goyal, relentlessly fed with abuse and slander for Gandhi, hated him so much that he listened to the speeches on the radio rather than seeing the man's face. The only day that he planned to go to Gandhi's prayer-meeting was on January 30, 1948, as there was the expectation that something big was going to happen. Just a few days earlier, a bomb had exploded at the venue of Gandhi's prayer meeting. When Goyal reached Birla House, he saw people running out of the gate. Gandhi had already been shot. Goyal was destined never to see the man's face.

This brings up the tricky question of Gandhi's assassination. The RSS was banned for a while after the event, even though the organisation itself claimed, as it does to date, that it had nothing to do with the act. Nathuram Godse was technically not a member of the RSS when he killed Gandhi. But he was a follower of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the ideological guru of the entire Hindutva brigade, including the RSS. In the film, Goyal says that while the RSS did not kill Gandhi, the work of Hindutva organisations created the ideological environment which made a Godse possible. Even so, Goyal considers the killing of Gandhi as the first step towards the creation of the Hindu Rashtra. The statement is significant. He does not single out the demolition of the Babri Masjid as the first step.

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:05 am

The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:09 am

THIS is precisely what makes the film a frightening one. The RSS has a very long memory, and it works with the truly long run in view. And that is the reason why it targets, most of all, the young. The current Sarsanghachalak of the RSS, K.S. Sudarshan, told Vachani in 1992 that the RSS inducted children into the shakha because it was at that impressionable age that one could make a real difference to the child's life and leave him with ideas that he would carry around for the rest of his life. Sandeep is no longer a pracharak, he is a harmless looking seller of ayurvedic medicines; Shripad is no longer a physical instructor in the shakha, he is a not-so-harmless-looking building contractor; both, however, are Hindutva bigots for life. And though the film itself does not say this, it is quite clear that all communalism — Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, whatever — targets the minds of the young. The ingenuity of the RSS is that it does so by involving the child in play and recreation — apart, of course, from running its own schools and educational establishments. And as the film shows, it also produces pop-history through its comic books, which are tremendously fascinating for young minds.

The strength of Vachani's film is that it lets the RSS do the talking and expose itself. Thus, for instance, Sandeep tells us how we have heard so far only the distorted, Marxist notion of history and therefore are not aware that Akbar was actually a lascivious man who did many unmentionable things with Hindu women at the Chandni Chowk in Delhi. Even more priceless is the footage Vachani has of RSS activists going on a house-to-house campaign in New Delhi, explaining what the organisation is all about. As a man opens the door of his house, the RSS activist begins: "We are from the RSS. We do not kill Muslims and Marxists". With footage like this, who needs commentary?

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:10 am

Kinnera wrote:The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

Two thirds of the Indian electorate voted against Modi and his allies. The reason Modi won was because the votes of people voting against him got divided among different parties.

by southindian Mon May 19, 2014 7:23 am

Rashmun wrote:
Kinnera wrote:The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

Two thirds of the Indian electorate voted against Modi and his allies. The reason Modi won was because the votes of people voting against him got divided among different parties.

Rashmun you are so full of BS.

Vote division happens in ALL elections, so this is nothing new.

Stop crying. Stop cribbing. Try to grow up if you can.

by MaxEntropy_Man Mon May 19, 2014 7:26 am

Kinnera wrote:The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

it's one thing to accept the results of an election no matter how distasteful it is. your prescription to us is reasonable on that score. however, nobody should countenance an unelected body (the RSS) exercising control over govt functioning.

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:26 am

Rashmun wrote:
Kinnera wrote:The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

Two thirds of the Indian electorate voted against Modi and his allies. The reason Modi won was because the votes of people voting against him got divided among different parties.

i don't know if that is true. But if that gives you solace, you can stick to that. Congress was almost wiped out in many states. In any case Mr. Rashmun, the way it works in democracy is, it is the number of seats won that matter. The opposition didn't win these many seats even after emergency. So you can understand how frustrated the public was with the congress rule.

Accept defeat gracefully. That shows class, maturity and wisdom.

by Guest Mon May 19, 2014 7:29 am

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Kinnera wrote:The more you guys try to defame RSS, the more the ppl are going to get sympathetic abt it and going to defend and support it. It happened with Modi. The more times 2002 was brought up and the more Modi was made out to be a monster, the more the ppl galvanized to support him and now you see the result.

Take a deep breath. Accept what is. See how Modi performs.

it's one thing to accept the results of an election no matter how distasteful it is. your prescription to us is reasonable on that score. however, nobody should countenance an unelected body (the RSS) exercising control over govt functioning.

Wait and watch, max. The guy hasn't even sworn in yet. There's no need to get paranoid already. It is this paranoia about Modi by some sections that disgusted a large section of ppl and drew them towards Modi.

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