Open Access | The Sangh’s consistently articulated goal is to cleanse, and then become, this organism. This commitment to sangathan, or collective, the RSS’s leaders have long insisted, is understood as a necessary part of overcoming an alleged Hindu emasculation and disunity. For the Sangh, sangathan is both the means and the end: the path to Hindu Rashtra.
This organicism, therefore, is not simply metaphorical. It is an ecological organising principle, part of the Sangh’s stated goal of “Sangh samaj banega”—the Sangh will become society. The RSS understands that having spawning diverse organisations is not incompatible with organisational singularity. This has been repeatedly articulated by RSS leaders, from Hedgewar:
"As time passes, the direction of RSS founder Dr K B Hedgewar that RSS should not be an organisation within the society, but an organisation of the society."
To Golwalkar:
"The Sangh … has never entertained the idea of building an organisation as a distinct and separate unit within society. Right from its inception the Sangh has clearly marked out as its goal the moulding of the whole of society, and not merely any one part of it, into an organised entity."
To the current RSS spokesperson Sunil Ambekar:
"The Sangh is a network of networks. There is no limit on the number of organisations that can be seeded to support the multiple issues in society that necessitate intervention."
What the world’s first network map of the RSS, revealing over twenty-five hundred organisations with concrete, traceable, material ties leading to the organisation, tell us about how the Sangh functions, Felix Pal (
@FelixPal8) explains:
caravanmagazine.in/politics/…
Explore the network map here:
rssproject.caravanmagazine.i…
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