RSS Revalued - Insider's Critical Assessment (A Must for Those Interested in Political Science, Sociology, History and Media)

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RSS Revalued is perhaps the first book of its type written by an insider with in depth understanding of the RSS-system to critically evaluate it in terms of sociology, history, organizational science, political science, administration and management and so on impartially.

• it works on the premise that Hindu’s do not have institutional mind.
• although the biggest organization in the world, it manages and administers itself without any rules and regulations.
• it is akin to a political organization but is managed like a Hindu sampradaya.
• it is most misunderstood organization because it produces faceless workers.
• it believes in organization for the sake of organization without any specific aim except to build corporate Hindu society.

Prof. R.H. Tupkary a B. Tech. (BHU). 1959 and M. Eng. Sci (1963) and Ph.D.(1996) from University of Melbourne taught at BHU as lecturer and reader. He joined Visvesraya Regional College of Engineering, Nagpur as Professor in 1970 and voluntarily retired as its Head in 1994 to become Managing Director of Marathi daily ‘Tarun Bharat.’ He is best known all over the world as the author of his two famous treatises, one on ‘Modern Steelmaking’ and the other on ‘Modern Ironmaking.’ He has also written several Marathi and English books that includes ‘Organizational Intelligence’ and ‘What They Ought To But Do Not Teach You At The University’ published by Himalayas.

Right from childhood he got associated with the RSS. But he was transformed into its devoted worker at BHU. Varanasi. He was detained in Nagpur Central jail for nearly twenty months under the emergency in 1975-77 where he wrote Modern Steel Making. Almost no one gets degree or diploma in Met. Engg. without reading these two books along with one on Met- Thermydynamics by the author. After his release from jail he became Boudhik Pramukh of Nagpur RSS and therefore of the important Third Year Training Camp held at Nagpur only every year, at a stretch for almost ten years. He was then made the in-charge of RSS pariwar at Nagpur. It continued till 1998 when he severed his relations with RSS.

Many things prompted me to write the present book. I wrote my autobiography in Marathi under the name and title 'To Rajhansa Ek' and released it on my eighty-first birthday on 26th Nov. 2016 CE. It was written essentially for two main reasons; first was to show how I rose from an extremely poor as well as in a family untouched by the university up to the level of a well qualified engineer and a professor of some eminence. Secondly it was to narrate the whole story how I was slighted by the hegemonistic RSS padadhikaris(office bearers), finally culminating in my severing all formal relations with the RSS after fifty years of my active association in various capacities. In a way it gave rise to bottled up rage in me and was trying to find the way out. No doubt, I severed my relations with the day-to-day activities and the padadhikaris of the RSS but not with the Hindu perception of life and the exceptionally great purely nationalistic RSS leaders who led it over several decades through tumultuous times to bring it to the center-stage of national polity. In my autobiography the part related to the RSS was rather brief. Hence I decided to critically evaluate the RSS and bring it before the readers in more details and in proper perspective. In a way the accumulated anger against some of the RSS padadhikaris found this overt expression. The deterioration in organizations with time is in their very nature but it needs to be revealed to put them on their toes.

I realized that if the RSS is to be evaluated then it will have to be in terms of multifarious parameters that went to evolve its vision and mission. Hence it is obvious to evaluate it in terms of its vision of India being Hindu nation since times immemorial. The mission of the RSS can be evaluated in terms of its operational part in the form of its shakha-system, pariwar, and its management and administration. Did it achieve what was aimed at? It aimed at generating patriots that are needed to think of nation first and self interests later. To what extent it has been achieved? It must also be evaluated in terms of the basic premises of Arnold Toynbee's theory of 'Challenge and Response' to maintain its historical continuity in national re-construction. To what extent it has been achieved? It must also be revaluated in its journey over more than ninety years of its existence against all possible odds and efforts at its decimation. Does it reflect that they are responding the challenges before the Hindu society reasonably well? The need to write it also stemmed from the misconceptions, both positive and negative, about the RSS in the minds of average citizens of India.

There are several books written on one or the other aspect of the RSS, its leaders, its philosophy and vision in action since it got stabilized as an attempt (post Gandhi murder era) to rejuvenate Hindu (read national) society not only in India but outside as well. The first ever book about the RSS was published in the form of a brief biography of its founder Dr. KB Hedgewar immediately after his demise in 1940 CE to let the followers know Hedgewar's personality, nationalistic outlook, his sacrifice, his historical perception of nation and modern style in building up the nation again via the RSS. After independence hundreds of books related to varied aspects of the RSS have been published. Almost all of them are written by the workers of the RSS-pariwar of varied statures. In fact all of these are written with the mind-set of being devotees of the RSS. They do not and cannot critically evaluate the RSS because of their ingrained belief in the RSS system as almost the ideal. What has thus been written depicts only the bright side of the RSS, indicating as if it is an ideal organization with its aims and objects as equally ideal, its swayamsevaks and padadhikaris also managing the organization ideally, its perception of RSS-pariwar and their activities as carried out equally ideally. In a way it amounts to believing that it is an ideal system for the rejuvenation of Hindu society and the nation along with. There is never any brain storming in the RSS at the lower levels, assuming that it does take at the higher levels, to critically evaluate it. Due to daily routines the swayamsevaks are brain programmed to believe in this idealism. It gets reflected in their thinking and behavior. It is far more akin to any sampradaya in the Hindu society. I also believed and behaved accordingly for over fifty years when active in the RSS-system. Hardly any SWOT analysis has ever been carried out at lower levels. It might be routinely carried out at the top level and secretively amongst a few below. The padadhikaris consider themselves as all knowledgeable and do not need any knowledge inputs into the RSS-system from outside experts. It is always projected as ideal in every respect.

On the other side something is written about the RSS by those whose aim has been and is to somehow denigrate the RSS in all possible ways as almost an anti-national and anti-social activity. The latest in this series is the outburst of Rahul Gandhi in Germany and England equating it with Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS. They talk of nothing good about the RSS in spite of the fact that the same system has produced a large number of dedicated and nationalistic leaders as is seen in the form of many leaders in BJP and other organizations. No party after independence has been able to produce leaders matching in qualities with Atal BIhari Vajpeyee, LK Advani, Nanaji Deshmukh, Narendra Modi and the like. No worker's movement has been able to produce a leader like DB Thengri. The necessity thus is to critically assess the RSS projecting the good as well as the lacuna in its working style and perception, if any. The universities should have been the right place for its critical analysis but unfortunately there has never been any real critical evaluation of anything done at the Indian universities by the so-called intelligentsia; most of them have been happy toeing the line of the contemporary governmental narratives. It is all the hangover of the slavish era of the past more than a thousand years in general but under British in particular.

Where the left intellectuals dominated, the RSS was projected as untouchable. The domination of Congress for majority years after independence never wanted people to study it and research on it at the university impartially. In fact not many intellectuals in India are really intellectuals in right spirit. They are mostly biased in their views, spending much of their intellect in abusing the RSS for some ulterior interests. Many of them are so partial that they return their awards for only certain coloured events and not all similar ones dispassionately. Their claim to be intellectually liberal is entirely hollow. They have their own ideology, which is invariably anti-RSS in quality, to be imposed on the society and yet they talk of liberalism. It is alright because they want to impose their narratives on the society, at times with ulterior motive. They are far disturbed recently because of coronation of BJP at the center as well as in majority states to govern India. They do not see anything good in the RSS, not even their patriotism. Even that is painted as something anathema to democracy and the welfare of the society. The patriotism of RSS is branded as anathema to modern democracy and in the same breath it is branded as like Muslim Brotherhood. It is contradiction from within.

**Contents and Sample Pages**