India's rightwing fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Goes for new web editions of its magazines

From : The Wall Street Journal October 13, 2011

RSS Goes for Image Makeover


By Nikita Garia

In a bid to revamp its image and reach out to more people, right-wing Hindu group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers Association), has relaunched the web editions of its magazines; Organiser and Panchjanya.

RSS, which has been criticized for violence against minorities is now trying to reach out to more people.

The websites, owned by Bharat Prakashan (Delhi) Ltd. and run by the RSS, now have less white space, new fonts, easier navigation and social media links. RSS Joint General Secretary Suresh Soni said the makeover would help dispel misconceptions about his organization.

“There is a need to use different media tools to bridge the gap created between the ‘reality’ and the ‘image’ of RSS by a section of the media,” he said.

RSS media relations officer Manmohan Vaidya said Mr. Soni was most likely referring to “misconceptions” that “RSS is anti-minority.”

The Hindu group, which was banned for much of 1948 and 1949 after it emerged that Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin used to be a member, has been tainted by several other incidents over the years, including its alleged involvement in the partial demolition of the Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh in 1992 and anti-Christian riots in the eastern state of Orissa in 2008. The RSS has condemned Gandhi’s assassin, while it has denied being involved in the Babri Masjid and Orissa unrest.

Descriptions of RSS as anti-minority were “propaganda,” Mr. Vaidya told India Real Time, saying that such sentiments could be rooted out if the RSS reached out to more people. He added that “people at large do not get too influenced by such propaganda.”

The RSS, which claims to have over five million members in India, has been in existence since 1925. The group says it provides training to people to inspire them to work for the society. “Whenever there is a natural calamity, RSS workers are the first ones to help others,” said Mr. Vaidya.

“To propagate our views in a better manner we realized that we needed to look to new technology. The importance of web editions has increased and all papers in India are giving importance to the web editions,” said Milind Oak, who looks after the Organiser and Panchjanya websites, adding that they were in need of a “renovation.”

The RSS websites were originally launched in 2004.

The website relaunch was more important for the Hindi weekly Panchjanya, which till now wasn’t accessible to many people since a separate font had to be downloaded in order to view the website and its contents were not searchable on Google, said Ram Bhand, head of projects and operations at News Bharati, the company providing technical support for the new websites. News Bharati also created Facebook and Twitter pages for the magazines, said Mr. Bhand. Soon, it plans to come up with an ePaper for both the magazines.

The move to turn to social media and give importance to websites may seem like a means to attract the younger generation, but Mr. Vaidya is confident that “their views appeal to people of all ages.”

The group has made other attempts to be more transparent about its views and work. Early this year it published a book called “Secrets of RSS”. At the time, the author, an RSS worker, told IRT that he wrote the book after a newspaper article accused the group of being secretive about its operations.