Driving India’s sharp right turn from secular to ethno-nationalist state

When Narendra Modi promises cheering crowds that the 21st century will be ‘India’s century’, his vision is unambiguously Hindu. For the last hundred years, the RSS has been promoting just such a vision.

Shankar Nagar is a residential area in Nagpur, a city of just over three million people in the state of Maharashtra in central India. Every morning at around 6am, before the first rays of sunlight raise the temperature, a couple of dozen people gather on the grass in Shivaji Nagar Park. The traffic is still calm and they can hear birds singing in the trees. Teenagers, fathers, grandfathers – all generations, though everyone is male – are gathered for the raising of a saffron banner, the colour favoured by Hindu nationalists. The flag is that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, RSS), a sprawling Hindu nationalist organisation that has been weaving its web across the subcontinent since September 1925. For a century it has been dedicated to a single cause: the promotion of Hindu supremacy in a country where 80% of people belong to the faith.

A command comes: ‘Sangh daksh!’ (attention). Lined up before the flagpole, participants put their right hands to their hearts, palm down, and bow their heads until they hear ‘Aaram!’ (at ease). The hour-long session can now begin: a few minutes’ warm-up, running, stretching, breathing exercises, martial arts, some yoga poses, ten minutes’ doctrinal teaching. The session ends with a prayer. The flag comes down and everyone gets on with their day.

The group in Shankar Nagar is a shakha, a local RSS branch. These exist in every district of Nagpur, and in every city, town and rural area across the country. Due to the RSS’s secrecy, it is impossible to count them: it has no registered statutes and its members pay no fees and have no membership cards. It is said to have between eight and ten million followers, which, if true, would make it the largest non-governmental organisation in the world. That’s a plausible claim in this huge country, which became the planet’s most populous in 2023, with over 1.4 billion inhabitants. Hindu pilgrimages here regularly attract crowds in the (…)

Full article: 3 952 words.

Guillaume Delacroix

Guillaume Delacroix is a journalist and co-author (with Sophie Landrin) of Dans la tête de Narendra Modi (Inside the mind of Narendra Modi), Actes Sud, Arles, 2024.

* The authors are historians working with the Association Connaissance de l’Histoire de l’Afrique Contemporaine (Achac) in conjunction with Emmanuelle Collignon. This year they are organising a programme of events entitled "Colonial memories! Human zoos? Exotic bodies, measured and locked up" starting with an international symposium in Marseilles on 8 and 9 June. Sandrine Lemaire has completed a thesis at the European University Institute in Florence, Nicolas Bancel is a lecturer at University of Paris XI (Orsay), and Pascal Blanchard is a researcher at Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and director of the Paris-based agency, Les Bâtisseurs de Mémoire. This is the last in a series of articles; the first, Human Zoos was published by Le Monde diplomatique English edition in August 2000. The authors have published several books on colonialism in popular culture, including Images et Colonies (1993), L’Autre et nous (1995), Images d’empire (1997), De l’indigène à l’immigré (1998).

(1) See Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard, Le colonialisme, un anneau dans le nez de la République, Hommes et Migrations, Paris, n°1228, November-December 2000.

(2) Jean-Pierre Vittori, On a torturé en Algérie, Editions Ramsay, Paris, 1980.

(3) See Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer, Aux origines de la guerre d’Algérie, La Découverte, Paris, 2001.

(4) A form of social contract rooted in the universal values promoted by the French revolution: equality, fraternity, justice and secularism.

(5) For a summary of events, see Alain-Gérard Slama, La guerre d’Algérie. Histoire d’une déchirure, Gallimard, collection Découvertes, Paris, 1996.

(6) Charles-André Julien and Charles-Robert Ageron, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, PUF, Paris, 1969.

(7) Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard and Stéphane Blanchoin, L’opposition au projet Blum-Viollette, in Plein Sud, Paris, winter 1994.

(8) See Boucif Mekhaled, Chroniques d’un massacre. 8 Mai 1945. Sétif, Guelma, Kherrata, Syros, Paris, 1995; Yves Benot, Massacres coloniaux, La Découverte, Textes à l’appui series, Paris, 1994; and Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer, op. cit.