RSS is on a roll: Number of shakhas up 61% in 5 years
Anahita Mukherji, TNN | Aug 16, 2015, 01.56 AM IST
MUMBAI:
A bunch of lively schoolboys form a circle around an authoritative
12-year-old in khaki shorts and a superman T-shirt at a Navi Mumbai
maidan on a weekday night. At first glance, they look merely like
children at play. But as the boy leading the group conducts a series of
activities from games and exercises to prayer recitations and a brief
session of marching involving bringing one's right hand to one's chest,
it gradually becomes evident that this is an RSS shakha in progress, one
of 51,335 shakhas held daily across the country in 2015. Shakhas are
the smallest unit of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
READ ALSO: RSS unit making inroads into state's Muslim-dominated areas
While the organization is called 'extremist' by its critics, its
admirers respond to the taunt by calling it 'Hindu nationalist'. But
even its detractors agree that the RSS organizational network is
virtually unparalleled. While there is no formal membership, an analysis
of data on the number of shakhas conducted each year over the last five
years shows a nearly 29% increase in daily shakhas, 61% increase in
weekly shakhas and 40% growth in monthly shakhas across India from
2010-11 to 2014-15.
The trend is similar in cities like Mumbai,
which have seen a 34% increase in the number of daily shakhas, while
weekly shakhas have grown by over 70%. In the neighbouring township of
Navi Mumbai, daily shakhas have more than doubled in five years.
The largest increase in shakhas across India over the last five years took place between 2013-14 and 2014-15.
It is tempting to attribute the high growth in RSS shakhas since
2013-14 to a change in government; BJP is part of the 38 ideological
affiliates of RSS that form the Sangh Parivar.
READ ALSO: Proposal to hand over more than 3,000 sq meter of land to RSS sister organization
But Pramod Bapat, media coordinator of the RSS Konkan division, insists
RSS growth has nothing to do with a BJP government at the Centre,
adding that the organization has flourished under Congress governments
for decades. He says Kerala, with over 4,500 shakhas, has the highest
number in India despite never having had a BJP government. RSS is also
strong in West Bengal, where too the BJP presence was negligible till a
few years ago.
A law graduate whom TOI met at a shakha
conducted under a flyover says he joined RSS a few months ago via their
website because he supported their views on Article 370 and a Uniform
Civil Code, and not because of the BJP government.
In recent
years, RSS shakha strength has increased as timings are adjusted to suit
various age groups — students, working professionals and retired
people. As part of its outreach, RSS befriends heads of various
communities (for instance, the head of a blacksmith community in a
particular area) and involves them in various social activities,
gradually making inroads into the organization.
READ ALSO: RSS 'capturing' educational institutions, Rahul Gandhi says
While senior RSS leader Narayan Samant, jailed during the Emergency,
says the organization may have grown organically in the past, he
believes it will grow a lot more in every sphere of life over the next
four years as the government of the day belongs to the same ideology.
"We are not against any community. We were not born out of an
opposition to anybody, including the British. We only want Hindus to
unite and become strong. If we become strong, opposition to us will
automatically reduce. When RSS was formed, Hindus stood divided. Now you
will see much greater unity amongst Hindus," says Samant.
Many
RSS members say they began attending shakhas as children in the
villages where they grew up. A coffee shop employee in Mumbai began
attending shakhas in his town in Karnataka, and continued doing so after
moving states. Some say the Sangh network helps them make friends in a
new city. An engineering student joined RSS as a child, when he saw
shakhas being conducted at a maidan in front of his building. The
youngest child that TOI saw at an RSS shakha was in kindergarten.
The organization is successful on social media, with over 15 lakh
'Likes' on its Facebook page and 1.5 lakh followers on Twitter. "Their
Facebook page has some of the best graphic designers," says a youngster
whose grandmother is with RSS. He says the organization has a network of
WhatsApp groups and generates content for WhatsApp.
"The
spread of RSS is being experienced not only in cities but in almost
every tehsil and over 55,000 villages of our Bharat, says Bapat.
source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/RSS-is-on-a-roll-Number-of-shakhas-up-61-in-5-years/articleshow/48498034.cms
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