The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right

by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

But more than a year before the large-scale ‘reconversion’ of Muslims (who were ‘originally’ Hindus) had begun, Dr Hedgewar had initiated a campaign to reconvert orphans, who were sheltered in Christian missionary homes, to Hinduism. In time, he refurbished the argument that re-admitting Muslims and Christians into the Hindu order was just another form of asserting their original Hindu identity. In any case, he believed that, by changing religion, they (Hindus who converted to Islam and Christianity) do not change their nationality. On the pedestal of Rashtra Dharma they are bound to stand as one with other communities, though at the level of Vyakti-dharma they are free to adopt any religion….They are as much sons of the Motherland as are other communities or the Hindus are.22 It is precisely this idea, that all Indians irrespective of their religious faith are originally Hindus, which forms the kernel of the controversial ghar wapsi programme run by the affiliates of the RSS. This postulation also underscores the nuanced differences between Hedgewar and Savarkar—the latter’s reluctance in considering non-Hindus as dwellers of the Hindu Rashtra. But more of which later.