RSS

RSS- Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh!!

if R-Square is the most abused and misused metric of statistics, RSS is the most misused word on the Inidian Socio- Political scenario. If someone wants to increase their secular credentials the best way is to bash RSS. It guarantees two things: 

1. You can pose to the cameras as a Messiah of  secularism with a holy grail called modernity plastered to your hand

2. You will be instantly famous..

Before diving deep into principles of RSS and other stuff, I want to remind that RSS is purely a voluntary organization. The word Swayamsevak means "Volunteer". Now let me mention some of the places and organizations that I volunteered for:

1. I was the placement coordinator for our dept in IITK. Also, during my second year of MTech I was the DPGC. (dont ask me to explain the acronym)

2. I was the coordinator for our dept extra curricular activities organization during my B.Tech Days.. My God brother Ashok named it as  "OrCaD" and I took the baton from him.

3. For a brief period I worked for Ramakrishna Mission. In 2007 I was the quiz master during the celebrations of Youth Day (jan 12) in Kadapa.

4. Presently, I am very active volunteer of the Art of Living Foundation. In fact the weekly follow-up happens in my very own house.

5. Apart from the above I go to orphanages on adhoc basis. Generally every Nov 14th I try to spend in an orphanage.

From my small or big activities as a volunteer, I know what takes to be a volunteer and I can whole heartedly say I have not witnessed volunteers of any other organization as dedicated as the Swayamsevaks.. Having said that I dont mean any disrespect to other volunteers.. The idea to volunteer to some noble cause is itself sacred and I salute it.

I had the luxury of working with the Swayamsevaks at different levels and I have no hesitation to call myself one. My family is associated with RSS for more than 50 years. My cousin's grandfather maintained correspondence with Doctorji Hegdevar in his hey days. Unfortunately we lost all those letters during 2001 floods. Coming to my immediate family my father was a union leader of RSS backed BMS of APSRTC. Till 2002, every Friday two Swayamsevaks used to come to our house for dinner. We were honoured by that.

And obviously the reason for my association with RSS is my father. He didnt cared whether his son gets good marks or not but committed to see his son as a disciplined individual. This idea of imbibing discipline into my life made me to become a Swayamsevak.I think I failed to meet my father's expectations in terms of discipline but I got a very strong ethical base. Though I distance myself from RSS now, I still cant help but thank the organization for building my character. I have not heard any of the pracharaks making cheap remarks about individual/organization and I take them as my icons. Till date, I have never commented about anyone's character. They may have hurt me the most but i still respect his/her character.

For two reasons I liked Sakha very much:

1. I can play a lot.

2. I get to know a lot of stories.

I'm sure not many kids would miss the above two.. Along with my age, involvement in the sakha has increased and I have enlisted myself to go to Ayodhya for building the Rama Janmabhumi temple. I was only 16 when I did that! May be a wild step but I was convinced through my heart and soul that temple should be built. Even today my idea of the temple didnt change but I differ in the modus operandi.

Coming to the principles of RSS, the idea of building a nation with strong individuals is something I like. I think the only idea to develop as a nation is make every citizen take responsibility for himself, his family and his society. Any mechanism to build a great nation is going to fail without strong  and committed individuals. One big misconception about RSS is that they hate Muslims. Well, there may be some people in the RSS who hate Muslims but I have not heard any remark or comments against Muslims from any of the pracharaks that I know. This is a very tricky thing here, if they criticize Auranjeb it never implies they criticized whole of the religion. You accept or not Islam in this country was propagated through sword and they say it was possible because of weak and quarrelsome Hindus. I fail to understand what is against muslims.

Another idea that I like is their importance to Indian values and traditions. Many time this is seen as anti-modern but let me remind you something, poor westerners are thinking of Global village in the last decade or so but this country have seen people thinking about Global Family (vasudhiva kutumbam) some two thousand years ago.

My differences with RSS:

First time I got disappointed with RSS was when announced their support to Telangana state and that too a blind support to KCR. Of all the drunkards I hate KCR is the worst. RSS supporting such a fellow is simply indigestible. I see no reason why RSS should step into these issues and taking sides. Instead I expect RSS to take an active role in bringing a amicable solution to the problem. By supporting KCR, RSS lost my respect. 

Apart from this i got a feeling that we have adopted a wrong path to build the Ram mandir. Hadnt we demolished the masjid we might have won muslim support. Today mandir-masjid became a ego issue between hindus and muslims. By venturing into mandir building with so much of force, I think RSS missed their primary objective of building a strong nation. Today this country is witnessing tremendous increase in drug addicts, the average age of smokers dropped to 19 and let me not talk about the zillions of gallons of alcohol.By not investing its resources into these issues RSS have failed to work on its primary objective. If I were to understand Guruji Madhav Golvalkar's words correctly the need of the hour was to build a nation with strong individuals and RSS have abandoned that path.

I think I have blabbered too much in this post.. :))

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik