Golwalkar review: Biography decodes the life and ideology that fueled Hindutva’s ascent

A journalist and reporter, Jha has emerged as the foremost chronicler of the lives and actions of individuals who have helped shape the career, as it were, of the narrative of Hindutva, traced its progress toward the end of British rule, and sought to assert the idea of India as a Hindu-supremacist land — with a vice-like grip on government and society — in which the country’s present Constitution would be rendered but a passing interlude, notwithstanding the daily incantation to BR Ambedkar by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an artifice if there was one.

The role of RSS during Partition

Jha’s study of the rise of Hindutva from the time Savarkar gave birth to that notion as an idiom of live politics, and his biography of MK Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse, who by removing the Mahatma from the scene in violent fashion, set the stage for history to take a particular turn (though it failed to do so), serve as prelude for the present examination of the deeds of Golwalkar, far and away the most consequential sarsanghachalak or RSS chief.

Golwalkar first grounded his organisation — and then step by step enhanced its extent by founding and developing a collection of mass organisations such as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJP’s predecessor), the ABVP (the student wing), the BMS (the trade union front), the VHP (the reach into the midst of Hindu religious outfits), and the Shishu Mandir (to spread into schools and the schools’ curriculum). For one life, this is a lot of work, especially for a party not holding governmental office for much of the time in that era. As such, Golwalkar’s weight and influence in the Hindutva system is unlikely to fade or be equalled. And this imparts an immense intellectual value to a critical assessment of his life.

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As the author shows, several Hindu princely States of British India, especially those in the north, permitted the RSS to function and prosper within their territories when military-style drills, arms training and parades by outfits outside the government system came to be proscribed by the authorities in the 1940s on account of the second world war.

Golwalkar nursed his organisation sufficiently well in this phase to help it to be ready to play a deadly communal role as Partition fires burned, and Delhi, the capital city, became a cauldron. It was Gandhi’s genius that saved the day and that did not endear him to Hindutva fanatics.

The disowning of We or Our Nationhood Defined

Like Jha’s earlier studies, this one too rests on firm foundation. Rich archival material and secondary sources in multiple languages are the mainstay of the book. There are also interviews of Golwalkar’s contemporaries. Together, they help stitch together a narrative that holds attention.

Much writing in relation to the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha is in the nature of propaganda accepted as the truth by unsuspecting readers, and practically all biographies are hagiographies. Jha’s writing pierces that façade.

In the case of Golwalkar, large-sized myths have been assiduously constructed with no small contribution from the RSS icon himself. Unfortunately, as the author shows toward the end of this fascinating work, even well-known scholars have fallen prey to the RSS myth-making.

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By not consulting the relevant sources, they have allowed themselves to be bewitched by the falsehood that Golwalkar was not the author of We or Our Nationhood Defined, which is for RSS followers what Mao’s Red Book once was for adherents of Chinese communism — a spiritual guide and ideological fountainhead.

In this vituperative tract, the young Golwalkar endorsed for India’s Muslims Hitler’s prescription for Germany’s Jews. But after Gandhi’s murder, the RSS leader sought to wash his hands of the book for fear of negative consequences. In fact, the disowning of that work is the most consequential lie Golwalkar sought to propagate and to this day the RSS and its kindred organisations seek to perpetuate.

A comprehensive account of Golwalkar’s work

In post-independence India, Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi did not permit the RSS the ideological latitude it may have hoped for. Although not communal in his ideology, Sardar Patel as Nehru’s home minister was more solicitous of Golwalkar although the RSS had been banned under his signature upon Gandhi’s assassination.

At one point, Patel had also proposed the absorption of the RSS into the Congress, perhaps in order to strengthen the traditionalist rightwing within the Congress. The author, citing contemporary sources, speaks of a degree of tension between Patel and both Nehru and Gandhi. Of course, this does not suffice to assess Patel on the communal question as Jha’s study is focused on Golwalkar and the activities of the RSS, and is plainly not an assessment of the broad political history of the time.

On balance, Jha has produced the most comprehensive account available of Golwalkar and his work. He examines all shades of the Hindutva icon’s personality from his earliest days. The book also has the merit of tracing Hindutva’s sharp rise and then plateauing in the hour that India was pulling together her energies to lay the foundations of a modern democracy.