Introduction
On the morning of 9 November 1989, about 10,000 workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or the Sangh), and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) performed the śilāynās (foundation laying) ceremony of the Ram mandir at the disputed site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.Footnote 1 The VHP, which was leading the Ramjanamabhoomi movement, chose Kameshwar Chaupal, a 34-year-old Dalit kāryakartā (party worker) from rural Bihar, to lay the ceremonial first brick.Footnote 2 In a predominantly Brahmanical and militant movement, the Sangh ‘allowed’ one of its Dalit members to lay the first brick at the site of the temple in an attempt to tap into the language of a different kind of politics than its own—one which has come to be known as the politics of ‘democratic assertion’ and social justice.Footnote 3 Though this crucial development largely escaped the attention of academic writings on the Ramjanambhoomi Movement and the Sangh (perhaps because it did not reap any immediate electoral wins for the BJP in the Dalit constituencies), it was a crucial symbolic act that demonstrated the Sangh Parivar’s attempt to assimilate Dalits into its imagined Hindū Rāșțra (Hindu Nation).
The Sangh’s Brahmanical project of Hindū Rāșțra is often understood as being based upon graded inequality; thus, even though the Muslims are the primary Other to the Hindu nationalist self and rank lowest in the hierarchy, Dalits and Adivasis are also marginalized as the Internal Other to the Brahminical Hindu self. Thus, the Sangh’s success in Dalit constituencies, evident especially in the results of the 2014 and 2019 general elections, is also described as the ushering in of ‘subaltern’ Hindutva by journalists and political commentators, unsettling traditional academic presumptions about the Sangh Parivar’s social reach and ideological programme.Footnote 4 While academics have already noted this shift in the BJP with ‘social engineering’, a process of appealing to disparate caste groups primarily to secure electoral success, pioneered by K. Govindacharya as a unique post-Mandal development,Footnote 5 this article examines the developments within the Sangh that pre-date both ‘social engineering’ and ‘subaltern’ Hindutva. It explores the ideological transformation within the Sangh—especially after the tenure of M. S. Golwalkar—that enabled its workers and leaders alike to present their Hindu Nationalist politics as a compelling social and political vision for Dalits.
This article argues that the Sangh’s third sarsańghacālak (supreme leader), Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras (alias Balasaheb Deoras), provided the Sangh with the language of civic Hindu Nationalism that put the questions of social justice and people’s welfare at the heart of the RSS’s ideological repertoire.Footnote 6 This shift in language, most notable in his 1974 speech, which rejected caste in toto, heralded the Sangh’s march in a new direction. Displaying its ideological flexibility and dynamism, Deoras strategically manoeuvred the Sangh to operate among Dalit constituencies without challenging the Brahmanical nature of Hindu Nationalism. The Hindu Nationalist thrust of such a dismissal of caste lay in the Sangh’s preferred methods of resolution of societal conflicts that prioritized (caste) compromise rather than conflict or emancipation. It also provided the basis for the notion of sāmājik samarastā, which rejected all forms of violent or radical restructuring of the social order. Instead, it claimed to present a non-violent, peaceful, and indigenous model that strived for the harmonious co-existence of conflicting castes and classes. The rhetoric of samarastā, integrated within the ideological framework of Hindu Nationalism, allowed the Sangh to make the question of Dalit integration into the wider Hindu community an essential part of its politics, providing its cadre with a language of social change without challenging the Brahmanical ideas inherent in Hindu Nationalism. The Sangh established the Samajik Samarasta Manch (Platform for Social Harmony) in 1983 to promote the principles of samarastā (harmony) in Dalit neighbourhoods, ensuring their participation in Hindutva politics.Footnote 7
Despite being crucial to understanding the present-day developments of the Sangh, Balasaheb Deoras, his ideas on caste, and sāmājik samarastā have not received adequate scholarly attention. While scholars have noted Deoras’s ‘activist’ orientation, in comparison to Golwalkar, as he believed that the Sangh organizations should be more politically active, his views on caste have still evaded scholarly scrutiny.Footnote 8 Recent exceptions to this, however, are Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay and Abhay Dubey’s insightful comments on Deoras’s speech on caste.Footnote 9 Both highlight the novelty of the speech, calling it a watershed moment and a game-changer in the history of the Sangh.Footnote 10 This article takes their argument a step further to argue that Deoras’s views on caste shaped the Sangh as it is known today. He not only provided a basis for the Sangh to take its ideological programme to Dalits, but also ushered in a new language of conservative caste politics for and from the Sangh.
The relationship between caste and Hindu Nationalism, by contrast, has received considerable scholarly attention. Much of the literature argues that the Sangh Parivar’s engagement (including their welfare activities and the appropriation of cultural heroes)Footnote 11 with Dalits remains a superficial, opportunistic, and cosmetic strategy aimed at either electoral gains or the use of Dalits as ‘foot soldiers of Hindutva’ to do their violent bidding against the Muslims.Footnote 12 Some of the recent scholarship produced in the aftermath of the 2014 and 2019 general elections, however, characterizes the mandate given to the BJP by many Dalit voters as more than just superficial acts of caste assimilation by the Sangh Parivar, and instead as a result of serious interventions by the Sangh in the trajectory of caste politics.Footnote 13 This scholarship offers a nuanced analysis by examining how the Sangh categorizes already marginalized castes into sub-groups to appeal to their sub-marginality.Footnote 14 However, it characterizes these developments as a novel and recent phenomenon. Some have even defined it as a sign of a ‘New’ Hindutva, making the Sangh’s activities amongst Dalit constituencies a feature of its post-2014 avatar.Footnote 15 While capturing political power at the Centre has undoubtedly emboldened the Sangh Parivar with unprecedented resources and virtually unchecked usage of state machinery to fulfil their agenda, the relationship with caste did not form in the wake of this newfound dominance. This article argues that the Sangh’s engagement with Dalits has deeper ideological and organizational roots, dating back to the early 1970s. Far from being solely driven by electoral calculations, the Sangh’s efforts have been consistent and structurally embedded, reflecting a concerted attempt to redefine caste politics within the overarching ideology of Hindu Nationalism. Similarly, while sāmājik samarastā finds acknowledgement in the studies mentioned above, a detailed discussion remains lacking. This article historicizes the concept, traces its evolution through the writings of two important yet under-examined members of the Sangh, and outlines the tactical programme that it entails.
The politics of samarastā has resulted in the approaches of caste neutrality and caste assimilation, both of which are conservative expressions of the Sangh’s engagement with Dalits. In the absence of any structural critique of the caste practices, the Sangh hailed the creation of ‘caste-neutral’ spaces by swayamsevaks as exemplary sites of social harmony and cohesion. On the one hand, the performance of caste neutrality can appear as social equality, but it does not challenge the underlying realities of caste privilege and, in fact, promotes a type of caste blindness that keeps the structure of the caste system intact.
On the other hand, the practice of caste assimilation, as illustrated in the article with the example of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s incorporation into the Sangh pantheon, demonstrates how it has incorporated caste heroes, specific caste histories, and cultures into the larger Hindu identity. Dating back to the 1960s, the Sangh’s attempts to incorporate Ambedkar’s persona and ideas reveal multiple stages of the evolution and flexibility of the samarastā programme. It particularly highlights the dual-movement of the samarastā rhetoric of sometimes accepting the gross history of marginalization and violence, albeit only to blame the failure of other political groups, and other times reducing all caste differences and identities under the banner of Hindu Nationalism.
The first section of this article provides a brief biographical sketch of Deoras, situating his leadership within the socio-political context of the 1960s and 1970s. The second section analyses his 1974 Vasant Vyākhyānmālā speech that marked a departure from Golwalkar’s stance on the caste system and laid the conceptual foundations of sāmājik samarastā. The following sections examine the ideological and organizational implications of the politics of samarastā in relation to the concepts of caste neutrality and caste assimilation.
Given the RSS’s well-known organizational opacity, this article relies on various textual and oral material to map this ideological transition in the Sangh. Along with the Sangh’s English and Hindi mouthpieces, Organiser and Panchjanya, respectively, the article also uses autobiographical accounts by existing and former swayamsevak (volunteers/RSS members), along with semi-structured, long-form interviews with Sangh workers (aged 60 or above). These interviews were conducted over two years (2020–22) in Bulandshahr, a city in Western Uttar Pradesh that has been a crucial site in the Sangh’s success story, particularly given its minority-concentrated population.Footnote 16 The Sangh currently has over 20 active śākhās (branches or chapters) in the town and eight RSS-run schools (out of 51), and was the home of Deoras’s successor, Rajendra Singh (also known as Rajju Bhaiya). While these interviews have been crucial in understanding Sangh’s evolving caste politics and the affective connection between the members and the organization, it is also essential to acknowledge the limitations of a regional focus. It is only through more detailed comparative studies that we can truly gain a comprehensive picture of how ideas such as samarastā have impacted the social and political fabric of society.Footnote 17 But given the constraints of time and space, and in highlighting a hitherto under-explored aspect of the Sangh’s history, this article restricts its focus to the Bulandshahr region for its ethnographic material.
Contextualizing Deoras
On 2 April 1973, M. S. Golwalkar passed on the mantle of the Sangh’s sarsańghacālak to M. D. Deoras, a role he held for the next two decades.Footnote 18 By the time he relinquished his position in 1994, the Sangh had transformed into a formidable ideological and organizational force.
Born in 1915 to a Telugu Brahmin family, Balasaheb Deoras joined the RSS at the age of 11 in 1926.Footnote 19 He was a regular attendee of the evening śākhā, organized especially for young schoolboys. In just ten years, he became the kāryavāha (secretary) of the local district and soon climbed the organizational ladder of the RSS by becoming the secretary of the Nagpur unit. The centre of RSS activities and a training ground for the numerous pracārakas (full-time RSS workers, literally meaning ‘propagators’), the Nagpur unit was run entirely by Deoras and his closest confidants.Footnote 20 Owing to his popularity amongst the swayamsevaks, Itawari, a small town in Nagpur, became the most well-attended śākhā of the RSS under Deoras.Footnote 21 By 1937, Deoras was also among the senior-most teachers of the Officer’s Training Camp (OTC) in Nagpur, responsible for training hundreds of swayamsevaks.Footnote 22 He was a law graduate from the College of Law, Nagpur, but against his father’s wishes, became a dedicated full-time RSS worker and, in 1940, travelled to Bengal as an RSS pracāraka. His time in Bengal was cut short by Hedgewar’s sudden health crisis in 1942. As per RSS chronicles, Deoras returned to Nagpur as one of the top contenders for sarsańghacālak, but to everyone’s surprise, Hedgewar chose Golwalkar instead.Footnote 23 However, the Sangh’s literature states that Hedgewar asked Golwalkar to ensure that Deoras would succeed him in future, a promise that Golwalkar kept by nominating Deoras as his successor.Footnote 24
Referring to his deep embeddedness in the Sangh, Kanungo has called Deoras a ‘child of the organization’.Footnote 25 Having practically grown up in the Sangh’s śākhās and offices, Deoras was amongst the first pracārakas personally trained by Hedgewar, who then travelled across India to establish new śākhās. In 1949, Deoras was among a select group of RSS leaders who drafted the Sangh’s constitution. In 1951, he also became the first RSS leader to address the annual conference of the Jana Sangh.Footnote 26 Deoras’s deep embeddedness in the Sangh gave him a unique position to re-evaluate the Sangh in the changing socio-political landscape of the late 1960s.Footnote 27 With the rise of New Social Movements, new pressure groups played a crucial role in the political discourse, and the Hindu Nationalist movement found it challenging to carve a space for itself.Footnote 28
The Sangh had a comparatively inconsequential presence in this new wave of social and political movements dominated by organizations that pushed for social justice and demanded greater political representation. The RSS condemned the Marxist inspiration of the Dalit Panthers, a Dalit organization established in the Sangh’s home state, Maharashtra and remained distant from the ongoing farmers’ agitations.Footnote 29 Some Sangh members participated in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement (donating land to the landless), but the campaign soon lost momentum.Footnote 30 In this new wave of socio-political upheaval and change, the RSS had little to contribute and was widely criticized by progressive public intellectuals and Dalit activists for its regressive and upper-caste worldview, especially in light of Golwalkar’s public defence of caste hierarchies.Footnote 31
Although Golwalkar condemned untouchability in his infamous interview with the Marathi daily Nawakal, he defended caste as a system of cooperation. He argued that since caste was an essential part of Hinduism and a direct creation of God, it could never die.Footnote 32 Thus, he hailed the cāturvarņāśrama (the four-fold caste system) as the foundation of Indian society.Footnote 33 Even though it was not the first time that the RSS upheld the institution of caste, such unabashed public defence of the caste system was disconcerting in an atmosphere where Dalit voices grew louder and louder. Immediately after its publication, the Sampradiykta Virodhi Committee (Committee Against Communalism), a body of Socialists and Gandhians, published the interview in English and called it a proof of the Sangh’s ‘obscurantist outlook’.Footnote 34 The SVC booklet also reproduced critical commentary on Golwalkar’s interview, which was put forth by many public intellectuals and activists,Footnote 35 and reported the flurry of protests that followed the interview, reprimanding the RSS as an anti-Dalit organization.Footnote 36 The SVC continued to publish literature against the Sangh from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, calling it a Brahmanical, communal, fascist, and casteist organization.Footnote 37 The Sangh Deoras inherited was marred by controversy, especially after Golwalkar’s interview. Its membership was plummeting, as Deoras himself admitted in a press exchange in 1973.Footnote 38 Although it is difficult to draw a correlation between Golwalkar’s interview and the Sangh’s declining membership without access to its membership records, it is sufficient to say that the Sangh’s popularity was challenged amidst the socio-political developments of the early 1970s.
India’s political landscape witnessed the Congress’s re-emergence as the most popular party in 1971. These years marked a renewed interest in the ‘politics of the poor’, a push towards social and economic equality, albeit superficially.Footnote 39 Thus, Deoras’s inclination towards a more politically and socially active Sangh ought to be seen as a result of these social and political changes at the regional and national level. By revising the Sangh’s attitude towards the caste system, he aimed to redefine Hindu Nationalism by imbuing it with civic ideas of social justice and equality and allowing his members to take social and political stances without compromising the goal of Hindū Rāșțra.
Deoras’s early critique of caste at the Vasant Vyākhyānmālā
Since his first address as the RSS chief, Deoras showed a keen awareness of the Sangh’s public image as a socially and culturally conservative organization.Footnote 40 Resultingly, he stated that the Sangh was not an obscurantist, revivalist, or status quoist force and expressed his desire to participate in and push for social and political change in the country.Footnote 41 At the same time, he asserted that the strengthening of Hindu Nationalist ideas was fundamental to any social progress in the country.
The lessons of our past also summon us to the urgent task of re-organising the Hindu society. Since the very beginning Hindu society has remained the backbone of his land. And it is the dissensions, the self-centredness, the narrow-mindedness among the Hindus that had made our country the victim of many a disaster—including foreign aggression and slavery. As such, the mission of eradicating the hundred and one ills such as the untouchability, casteism, sectarianism, dowry and so on eating into the vitals of our social being even now, is pre-eminently a national task.Footnote 42… Hindu consolidation is a must for the welfare of the nation.Footnote 43
It is no wonder, then, that Deoras chose to address the question of caste in Hindu Nationalism in one of his first public addresses. Delivered at the Vasant Vyākhayānmālā, a lecture series initiated by M. G. Ranade in 1875, which was a prominent platform for leading public intellectuals of the time to express their views on matters ranging from culture, law, literature, and science. It was not a closed-off RSS gathering and provided an ideal audience for Deoras to publicly disassociate from the previous stances on caste put forth by his predecessors and an opportunity to launch his own programme as the new chief of the organization.Footnote 44
However, it is crucial to note that Deoras was not the first Hindu Nationalist to see caste as a hindrance in the realization of a horizontal Hindu organization.Footnote 45 Since the late nineteenth century, Hindu organizations, such as the Hindu Sabha and the Arya Samaj, sought the support of lower caste groups to create a broader Hindu constituency, particularly in light of the 1911 Census.Footnote 46 However, there was no cohesive strategy amongst Hindu Nationalists over how to deal with the question of caste; some spoke against the brazen treatment of untouchables and advocated the formation of religious and welfare bodies akin to Christian missionaries.Footnote 47 In contrast, others criticized any attempt by lower castes to organize against their unequal status.Footnote 48 Most believed, as Deoras would also repeat, that a larger Hindu organization was the only viable solution to all the internal divisions. Deoras, in his speech, thus reiterated many of these thoughts that had already been outlined by Hindu leaders before him, including Golwalkar.
Mirroring Golwalkar, Deoras stated early in his address that caste was not a societal evil from its inception, but rather an ancient practice that had been corrupted over time and, thus, lost its relevance.Footnote 49 He explained that the Hindu ‘ancestors’ who ‘devised’ caste did so only for efficiency and progress and not to oppress and discriminate. He argued that these ‘visionary’ Hindu ancestors were aware of the inherent conflicts, i.e., the potential to stop the upward mobility of individuals in the caste system.Footnote 50 As a result, they made provisions for śūdras (the lowest of the four castes) to become Brahmins through righteous conduct. However, Deoras concluded that it was up to the modern Hindus to evaluate the caste system. Like Savarkar, Deoras also stressed how such a rigid system of differentiation had historically hindered the task of Hindu consolidation.Footnote 51 He made his motivations amply evident at the beginning of the address: the triumph of a broad Hindu identity over caste and other sectarian identities. He believed that caste was a weakness, and the Sangh needed to work towards a goal to overcome it.Footnote 52
Later in his speech, Deoras identified and rejected a few common arguments in favour of the caste system. Firstly, he criticized the blind faith in traditional practices and argued against the logic of following caste practices unquestioningly simply because it has been a generational tradition to do so:
My father and grandfather dug this well. The water was salty. But they drank it and lived on. Hence we shall also drink the same water—such bigotism does nobody any good. The saying speaks of such a person not as Satpurusha (good person) but as Kaapurusha (coward). … Discriminate, preserve and take up whatever is worthy and feel not sorry for the dying out of things which are to die. The more our people adopt this rational way of looking at things, sooner will the mission of Hindu Consolidation and removal of illegality be fulfilled.Footnote 53
Deoras, thus, called the proponents of caste cowards and bigots for continuing a tradition only because they feared change. Unlike Golwalkar, who believed that caste was so intrinsic to Hindu society that it could never die, Deoras argued that caste was already dying. It was up to the Hindu Nationalists to continue upholding something archaic simply for the sake of tradition or to make the ‘rational’ choice of moving towards a path of rejection of caste that will, according to him, lead to Hindu consolidation.Footnote 54
He further questioned the validity of Hindu scriptures, most often cited as the divine source of the caste system, by asking for a scientific re-evaluation of their content to suit the modern world better:
There are many stories recounted in the ancient texts and Puranas. But do we accept them all as literally true? For instance, it has been said in the Puranas that the lunar and solar eclipses are a result of Raahu and Ketu [two Hindu Gods] swallowing the Moon and the Sun. But should we, in order to affirm our devotion to our old religious texts, incorporate this story in the school text books to explain to the children why the eclipses take place? We are bound to give in text books only what is scientific and factual.Footnote 55
Lastly, Deoras argued against the most common argument in favour of the caste system. At its root, caste, he argued, was a system of professional differentiation, binding an individual to the profession of their ancestors and restricting social mobility. Deoras argued that following one’s hereditary profession was no longer necessary since modern education allowed people to learn new skills and acquire new professions.Footnote 56 And thus, ‘it is inconsistent with the demands of modern times to insist on the hereditary varna and caste system’, concluded Deoras.Footnote 57 He also condemned untouchability in equally strong words.
Whatever be its origin, all of us consider that untouchability is a terrible folly and it must, of necessity, be thrown out lock, stock and barrel. There are no two opinions about it. Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery in America, said, ‘If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong’. Similarly it is for all of us to declare, if untouchability is not wrong, then nothing in the world is wrong!Footnote 58
Thus, in his address, Deoras argued that caste could no longer be seen as sacrosanct because it was an ancient institution, religiously sanctioned, and perpetuated through family professions. According to Deoras, such arguments for caste classification were redundant and collapsed upon scientific enquiry. In doing so, he presented the rationale of a Hindu Nationalist leader for opposing caste and articulated a criticism hitherto absent from the Sangh’s socio-political discourse. Dubey has argued that Deoras filled the lacuna in Golwalkar’s political thought and rejected Deendayal Upadhyaya’s thesis on Integral Humanism.Footnote 59 In his attempt to argue for the continued existence of the caste system, Upadhyaya argued that caste played an essential role in modern society, as it countered the ill effects of capitalist alienation and provided each individual with a defined role in the social matrix.Footnote 60 Deoras, in contrast, took an entirely different stance on caste, thus rejecting the ideas of his predecessors without directly mentioning them. This speech marked a paradigm shift in the history of the Sangh and provided it with a ‘radical new thought’, Dubey remarks.Footnote 61
Deoras’s speech is also valuable for unearthing the convoluted nature of internal criticism within the Sangh, which usually evades the public eye. Unlike, for instance, socialist political parties that have a celebrated culture of revisionism or public self-criticism (evident in the many splinters and splits in parties), the Sangh cultivates an image of ideological unity. The internal disagreements are rarely made public. Hence, throughout its history, Sangh members have seldom freely rejected any ideological or political ideas put forth by senior or erstwhile Hindu Nationalist ideologues; instead, they frame their ideas as continuations rather than revisions. Similarly, Deoras did not outrightly criticize his predecessors (at least by name) even when formulating a subtly articulated different position on caste.
Deoras’s ideas, however, gave the Sangh a new vocabulary of social activism and pushed a renewed form of Hindu consolidation aimed primarily at the lower castes in an atmosphere where the official apologia for the caste system was rendered archaic. This new vocabulary soon took material form, leading to the foundation of Samajik Samarasta Manch and Seva Bharati, two Sangh subsidiaries formed to launch social welfare and seva projects, including educational institutions, healthcare facilities, skill centres, and cultural associations in the poor, underprivileged, and remote corners of the country.
Though Deoras’s advocacy of caste equality from within Hindu Nationalism was a conservative programme, one that criticized any political action to move beyond the confines of the caste system and Hinduism, it has been his most celebrated legacy within the Sangh.Footnote 62 Upon his death, the Sangh Parivar observed the day of his final rites as the sāmājik samarastā parva (festival), marked by special gatherings in all sevā bastīs, i.e., poor localities with a strong presence of the Sangh. All swayamsevaks pledged to fulfil his dream of a ‘society free from all dissension where everyone’s equality and dignity will be respected’.Footnote 63 While Deoras sowed the seeds of incorporating caste-related questions into the Sangh’s ideological repertoire, the task of further developing these ideas was taken up by two trusted swayamsevaks, Dattopant Thengadi and Ramesh Patange.
Defining Sāmājik Samarastā
Since Deoras’s speech in the early 1970s, it took another decade for the idea of samarastā to materialize in the Sangh’s organizational structure. The formation of the Janata government in 1977 marked the advent of new electoral and caste equations that challenged Congress’s dominance over the votes of the backward and lower castes.Footnote 64 The subsequent decline of Congress and the Janata Party split in 1979 spurred the rise of regional parties that consolidated backward caste alliances, further eroding Congress’s support base.Footnote 65 Meanwhile, the Mandal Commission solidified the importance of the backward caste politics in the coalition era.Footnote 66 Dalit politics also witnessed a significant shift as Kanshi Ram’s activism redefined political mobilization through Bahujanvāda (the ideology of the majority)—uniting Dalits, OBCs, and minorities against upper-caste hegemony.Footnote 67
Amidst this backdrop, the Sangh faced criticism for its perceived alignment with conservative, upper-caste interests, as the Janata Party leaders accused it of being anti-poor and pro-rich.Footnote 68 In a desperate attempt to change public opinion regarding the Sangh’s conservative social policies, Deoras stated in a press conference that he endorsed socialism.Footnote 69 When asked to clarify his stance, he argued that socialism had lost meaning over the years since everyone in India was only pretending to be a socialist. However, if socialism ‘is that in every planning and all economic policies, the lowest of the lowest strata, and the poorest of the poor must get the benefit’, then he, too, was a socialist, Deoras concluded.Footnote 70 With his cautious flirtation with socialist rhetoric, Deoras sought to portray the RSS as pro-poor. Although the RSS never directly referenced Kanshi Ram, its samarastā politics reflected the pressures of an era defined by the assertiveness of Dalits and OBCs. Unlike Bahujanvāda, which challenged caste hierarchies, samarastā sought to maintain them under the guise of unity, positioning the Sangh to address the rising socio-political mobilization of marginalized communities.
In Dattopant Thengadi and Ramesh Patange’s speeches and writings, one comes across a more elaborate yet somewhat ambiguous explanation of samarastā.Footnote 71 Thengadi, a lifelong Sangh pracāraka, was the founder of the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh and, later, the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and authored many texts on the Sangh’s economic and social vision.Footnote 72 Ramesh Patange served as the editor of Sangh’s Marathi magazine, Vivek, and has been a senior officeholder of the SSM since its formation. Patange joined his first śākhā as a seven-year-old schoolboy in 1954 as a śiśu (child) swayamsevak. Patange held a unique position in the Sangh, as he was one of the few Dalit swayamsevaks to have an important post in the Sangh Parivar. In his writings, Patange defended the Sangh’s vision of Hindū Rāșțra as a ‘caste-less’ imagination of Hindu society. He also presented himself—a Dalit in the Sangh—as an excellent example of the Sangh’s samarastā politics.Footnote 73
Both Thengadi and Patange argued that sāmājik samarastā (social harmony) was necessary for achieving sāmājik sāmatā (social equality). For Patange, samarastā was an ethical and behavioural concept rooted in the individual’s sense of brotherhood and coexistence. While social equality, for Patange, was a politico-legal idea, enshrined in the Indian Constitution, samarastā functioned at the personal and moral level, beyond the reach of legal enforcement. Unlike equality, which was legislated, samarastā required an ethical reckoning among people. It was a collective spirit, captured in the Hindu phrase ‘Main Vaisā Tū’ (‘I am the same as you’), through which social harmony could be cultivated as a path towards lasting social equality.Footnote 74
On the question of why the Sangh preferred the politics of, a more accessible word to pronounce and remember, and already used by many political and social activists, Patange cited Thengadi’s explanation.Footnote 75
The movement for equality (samta), is a movement of the leftists. If we started our movement with their shibboleth, people will not realise the uniqueness of our movement. Moreover, the leftists will start claiming that ‘the Sangh is borrowing their words because the Sangh philosophy does not have room for equality’. We must have our own concept of equality, he continued. Of course, we want equality but more than that, we want samarastā which alone can bring equality on a durable footing.Footnote 76
Thengadi’s justification of samarastā displayed the Sangh’s desire not only to differentiate its politics of social justice from those of the progressive and left politics but also to argue for the superiority of their ideas. While he did not deny the importance of equality, he believed samarastā to be a more elaborate and holistic project. The Sangh’s disdain for communists is well-documented in its literature.Footnote 77 Thus, unsurprisingly, Thengadi stressed the importance of samarastā, an idea, according to him, based on Hindu thought and dharma, rather than borrowed from socialist and communist politics.
Patange gave this ideological distinction a literary expression through the writing of his autobiographical account. Published in the early 1990s, his account, Manu, Sangh, and I, argued for the centrality of individual action in shaping personal and collective lives. This approach diverged sharply from Dalit autobiographies that have become an inextricable part of Dalit activism, especially since the late 1960s. Writings such as Athvaninche Pakshi by P. E. Sonkamble, Baluta by Daya Pawar, and Upara by Laxmane Mane narrate their personal experiences as evidence to showcase the horrors of a caste-ridden society while using a liberal-democratic political framework to argue for the pursuit of social justice.Footnote 78 Patange’s model of social justice originated from within Hindu Nationalist politics, and Hindutva served as his refuge from all forms of caste injustice. He did not see Hinduism as the religious and cultural basis for caste, as many Dalit activists before him had. While detailing his life as a young school-going boy in a slum, Patange never blamed his caste or class for the difficult financial and social circumstances he faced. Even as an adult social activist, Patange found his father ‘solely responsible’ for the family’s hardships. He wrote:
Why had I to suffer such frightful poverty, I often ask myself now. The answer is not pleasant. It was my father who was solely responsible for our poverty. … My father’s laziness and lack of initiative had made us poor. My father was responsible for our miseries. There was no point in saying that the caste system was responsible for our backwardness.Footnote 79
In contrast to other Dalit autobiographies, Patange argued that caste had no bearing on his childhood experiences. He believed he would have had a different life if not for his father’s lack of interest in caring for his family. While Patange failed to recall any incident of caste discrimination in his school or neighbourhood, he was critical of the lack of righteous behaviour among his fellow slum dwellers.Footnote 80 He recalled that men around him were alcoholics, women were notorious for promiscuity, everyone used abusive language and was involved in petty theft and criminal activities.Footnote 81 For Patange, it was the moral and ethical misgivings of the slum dwellers that demanded change, not the structures that had placed them in a life of such precarity.
The Sangh’s and, by extension, Patange’s ideas of moral and ethical individuality were undoubtedly Brahmanical. They argued that individuals can only transform their social and economic conditions by accepting Brahmanical ideas of righteous conduct. Such an understanding conveniently absolves Hinduism from providing a socio-religious basis for caste. At the same time, for Patange, the Sangh’s śākhās were crucial in imparting a moral education. He argued that one of the most striking manifestations of the Sangh’s samarastā politics was the absence of observing caste practices in śākhās, even though the swayamsevaks were not ‘legally’ bound to do so. For him, śākhās fostered a sense of brotherhood at the individual level. They cultivated an environment that encouraged swayamsevaks to let go of their caste identities in favour of a collective Hindu identity. By doing so, śākhās, Patange believed, created a unique model of a space that was ‘de-casted’. However, such an attitude towards caste prejudices is best expressed in what this article calls ‘caste-neutrality’.
Thus, samarastā, while looking for solutions to the material problems of caste inequalities, relied on the same model of Brahmanical superiority that sanctioned and perpetuated caste-based discrimination. It encouraged ethical and moral policing of individuals, and at times even blamed the victims of structural oppression and exploitation for their arduous conditions, as exemplified in the demonization of Patange’s father. Posturing as pro-poor and against all forms of prejudice, the Sangh’s samarastā was a form of populist social conservatism. Furthermore, in the absence of any radical content in sāmājik samarastā, the Sangh argued that the presence of caste-neutral spaces within a highly Brahmanical organization was a feature of its ‘anti-caste’ activism. When, in fact, caste neutrality often ended by reifying casteist and Brahmanical ideas.
Caste-neutral spaces
In an editorial for Tarun Bharat, a Marathi daily, titled Untouchability: Dr Hedgewar, Dr Ambedkar, Patange wrote that Ambedkar and Hedgewar both strived for a reformed Hindu society.Footnote 82 Hedgewar established the Sangh in 1925, and just two years later, Ambedkar began his Mahad Satyagraha against untouchability in 1927. The only difference between the two, Patange wrote, was that while Ambedkar chose to protest through organized resistance and movements, Hedgewar chose the path of harmony and changed hearts through the Sangh’s training. Patange, in his retelling of the Sangh’s history, lauded Hedgewar for not adhering to caste practices and prejudices within and outside the Sangh. For instance, he wrote that though Hedgewar respected Bal Gangadhar Tilak deeply as his guru for his contribution to the cause of Hindu consolidation, he rejected Tilak’s views on caste.Footnote 83 Tilak upheld Brahmanical sensibilities and opposed the Shudras’ reading of Sanskrit texts. Patange claimed that Hedgewar, in contrast, did not follow Tilak’s suit and recognized Shudras’ right to read and learn from the Vedas.Footnote 84
Patange stated that Hedgewar created spaces such as śākhās and training camps where swayamsevaks were unaware of each other’s caste and did not uphold caste practices. For Patange, this was a vital way Hedgewar practised samarastā in his behaviour and created an exemplary fraternity of Hindus. He concluded that Hedgewar ‘eradicated caste system from the minds of lakhs of Hindus’ not by force or diktat; in fact, ‘he never criticized caste and avoided any reference to the subject’.Footnote 85 He gave ‘swayamsevaks a Hindu identity’ by creating a ‘bond of Hindu brotherhood among all de-casted Hindus’.Footnote 86 As an example of Hedgewar’s successful ‘de-casting’ exercise, the Sangh’s literature often tells the anecdote of Gandhi’s visit to a Sangh camp at Wardha, Maharashtra, in 1934.
Upon visiting the camp, Gandhi supposedly enquired about the number of Harijans (untouchables) present. Appaji Joshi, the Sangh’s secretary and chief organizer of the camp, replied that he did not know the answer, as Sangh members neither discussed caste nor observed caste practices in the Sangh’s activities. To which Gandhi stepped forward to ask a swayamsevak about his caste. He responded:
There are no differences like Brahmin, Maratha, Asprishyas, etc., in the Sangh. We are, in fact, not even aware of what castes many of our Swayamsevak brethren belong to, nor are we interested in knowing it. It is enough for us that we are all Hindus.Footnote 87
By recounting this episode, Patange sought to extend the history of samarastā back to the formation of the Sangh. In his de-casted re-telling of Sangh’s history, the Sangh never observed or reinforced caste practices and promoted samarastā; even though the latter was first discussed publicly in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Patange insisted that it had always been an intrinsic part of the Sangh’s modus operandi.
However, Patange’s historical claims about Hedgewar’s views on caste are shaky. No historical evidence from Hedgewar’s speeches or his contemporaries’ writings supports Patange’s claims. Most available accounts suggest Hedgewar’s continued belief in caste and his vision of Indian society as primarily upper-caste and Brahmanical.Footnote 88 Nonetheless, many accounts by swayamsevaks, even those who became weary of the organization and left, recount that the śākhās functioned as caste-neutral spaces, allowing boys from different castes to play together. R. L. Dhooria, who was a swayamsevak in the early 1940s, recalled the following:
The question of caste was simply conspicuous by its absence. We all played together, sang together, ate together. There were some, though not many, what are called low-caste boys but nobody ever thought of footling nonsense. We were all Hindus and children of Bharata Mata.Footnote 89
K. D. Jhari, another swayamsevak who joined the Sangh in 1942 and left the Sangh after 15 years of association, authored a critical account of his time in the organization. He also did not mention any caste prejudice in the Sangh.Footnote 90 Bhanwar Meghwanshi, a former Dalit swayamsevak, joined the Sangh in the late 1980s and left because the local Sangh officeholder denied his aspirations to become a full-time pracāraka. He also mentioned that his ‘village was caste-ridden, but the Sangh was not’.Footnote 91
My interviews with the swayamsevaks of the Valmiki caste in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, reinforced the Sangh’s commitment to caste neutrality.Footnote 92 The eldest of them, who has run an automobile repair shop since the early 1990s, told me that he joined the Sangh in 1984 at age 26. He recalled having never experienced any caste prejudice within the Sangh. Even before he was a swayamsevak, the local Sangh pracāraka would come to the house and dine with him. He added, ‘I was the one who used to feel conscious while sitting with an upper caste, but gradually overcame my inferiority complex as I met more of the Sangh members’.Footnote 93
It is also important to note that most śākhās and other Sangh spaces attracted hundreds of young boys and adults into their ambit because they also functioned as ‘third places’. According to Oldenburg, a third place, different from the first (home) and the second (work) place, is essential to building a community life.Footnote 94 Unlike the first two places, people have no financial or other obligations to visit a third place. However, it provides a playful, welcoming, easily accessible, accommodating, and regular place to be called a ‘home away from home’.Footnote 95 These characteristics make a third place inviting, cost-effective and overall, an amiable experience for the participants. The Sangh’s śākhās also provide a similar environment of playfulness and camaraderie, making it a rather memorable experience for the swayamsevaks.
Even the Sangh’s former swayamsevaks fondly remembered their time in the śākhā. For instance, a Dalit swayamsevak, in a personal interview, stated that even though he had been very busy with his work and is not officially participating in the Sangh’s activities, attending and conducting the śākhā had always been a pleasure. He clarified that other Sangh members never forced him to attend; he diligently participated in the evening śākhās for over three decades. Meghwanshi reiterated a similar sentiment in his memoir, writing that the members of the Sangh treated him with the utmost respect. He admitted that he enjoyed every day like a festival (holi-diwali) and looked forward to spending more time in the śākhā.Footnote 96
Patange also wrote that while he blamed his father for their poor living conditions, he was grateful that he took him to his first śākhā and supported his association with the Sangh. He elaborated:
The shakha’s daily class lasts merely an hour. But that Sangh hour becomes the supreme hour of the day, with the other 23 hours subordinate to it. Shishus, Baals, youth form refreshing company. Each becomes a part of the emotional make-up of the entirety. Bonding in brotherhood with those who are not blood or even distant relations is a pleasuresome experience. … All the drawbacks in my household were more than made up during my one hour in the shakha. That one hour gave us a sense of being special.Footnote 97
Thus, by providing a third place for members of different castes, the Sangh offered a common ground for building a consolidated Hindu identity. However, it is also important to note that the Sangh organized śākhās according to the existing housing patterns in any given locality; for instance, one small colony had one śākhā, while another colony probably had a different śākhā. Since caste and class are also spatially divided, with one dominant caste living in one locality and lower castes mostly ghettoized in poor sections of the city or town, in all probability, Patange’s śākhā must have had young boys from his immediate neighbourhood. Such a geographical classification resulted in a seemingly homogenized body of swayamsevaks within a particular śākhā, most of whom would have held a similar caste position by default. Furthermore, despite claiming to create caste-neutral spaces, we know from Meghwanshi’s experience that the Sangh did not stand up for the rights of Dalits to have equal access to opportunities even within the Sangh, especially when it came to promotions and public offices. The fact that the Sangh has never had a Dalit or tribal swayamsevak in its kāryakārīņī (Central Working Committee) highlights the limits of the Sangh’s samarastā politics.
According to Meghwanshi’s memoir, an upper-caste swayamsevak denied him the position of a full-time pracāraka because he believed that the ‘society’ was not ready for a Dalit pracāraka.Footnote 98 Most of the Sangh’s pracārakas leave their ancestral homes to travel around ‘propagating’ the message of Hindutva. While on the road, they dine and sleep in the homes of families sympathetic to the Sangh’s cause. The Sangh denied him this position to save the other upper-caste families from the discomfort of having to host a Dalit pracāraka. Thus, while the Sangh continued to claim that it did not observe caste practices, it also did not significantly challenge the existing caste hierarchies to transform the structural realities of caste. The division of labour within the Sangh further reinforced caste classification, as the upper castes occupied positions of power, while the lower-caste swayamsevaks were delegated to smaller organizations and held more minor positions.Footnote 99 Thus, more often than not, caste neutrality reproduced caste inequalities and discrimination. However, caste neutrality, as a tactic to deal with caste-based discrimination, had its limits outside the boundaries of the Sangh’s secluded spaces. The Sangh needed to engage directly with the question of caste hierarchy and how such a system of stratification has resulted in distinct socio-cultural and material realities for different castes.
Samarastā and caste-differences
Commenting on the Sangh’s approach to caste differences, Natrajan has argued that even though the Sangh recognized the differences of caste experiences, it did so to ‘ethnicize’ Dalits.Footnote 100 This process of ethnicization of Dalits saw caste differences not as a vertical system of exploitation and domination but as a horizontal system of benign cultural difference. In contrast to Natrajan, Samantha Agarwal, in her article on the success of the BJP among Kerala’s Dalits, has argued that instead of repressing caste differences, Hindu Nationalist politics in Kerala have recognized the historical marginalization of the Dalits.Footnote 101 The examples of effective recruitment of Dalits by the Sangh Parivar in Kerala challenge the traditional understanding of how the Sangh has historically treated the problems of caste inequalities. Agarwal argues that by linking caste exploitation to the failures of other political groups and parties, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar created resistance against other political parties and presented themselves as ‘legitimate champions of Dalit welfare’.Footnote 102
It is thus critical to note that the Sangh had been able to simultaneously uphold both of these ways of engagement with the Dalits: on the one hand, suppressing caste identity for a larger Hindu collective and, on the other hand, selectively giving a voice to Dalits’ historical marginalization, not to question the structural systems but to delegitimize its political opponents. These tactics can be employed in various locations, depending on the level of Dalit consciousness and the presence of Dalit political representation in a particular spatial context. At the same time, they also adjusted their tactics over time to address a fixed issue. Thus, the programme of samarastā that had been marked by flexibility and adaptiveness also demonstrated the Sangh’s ability to act as a Hindu cultural organization, whereby it prioritized the collective Brahmanical identity of Hindus over caste hierarchies, as well as a political organization, whereby it used instances of caste differences to attack other political organizations. To demonstrate this flexibility, it is worthwhile to briefly examine the process of the Sangh’s engagement with Ambedkar. By examining the various attempts by the Sangh to appropriate and co-opt Ambedkar and his legacy over four decades (from the 1960s to the 1990s), it becomes clear that the Sangh has seamlessly shifted from one tactic to another. In the 1960s, the Sangh’s brief incorporation of Ambedkar in its propaganda literature was limited to only a few references, particularly to discredit socialism.Footnote 103 From the 1970s till the late 1980s, Patange consciously appropriated Ambedkar as a hero of the downtrodden Hindus.Footnote 104 In the 1990s, however, the Sangh repressed his unique role in the Dalit struggle to paint him as a Nationalist who valued national integrity over other struggles.Footnote 105
The Sangh Parivar is known for its political appropriation of many historical and political figures, notably M. K. Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subash Bose, and many others.Footnote 106 The academic scholarship on the Sangh first noticed the appropriation of Ambedkar amidst such efforts during the early 1990s.Footnote 107 In his criticism of the caste system, Ambedkar rejected Hinduism. He famously converted to Buddhism in the last few years of his life. He shared no affinity with religious and cultural nationalism; his commitment to modern, liberal, democratic, and constitutional politics stood in stark opposition to the Sangh’s general distrust of them.Footnote 108 However, despite such differences, Ambedkar’s appeal among Dalits and the rising tide of Dalit politics in post-independence India compelled different political groups, including the Sangh, to emphasize his legacy. The secondary literature on the Sangh’s appropriation of Ambedkar is limited to the developments in the 1990s and beyond, with the most attention paid to Narendra Modi’s actions around the 2014 general elections.Footnote 109 However, it is critical to analyse how these tactics of appropriation have a more extended history and have developed since the 1960s.
The reasons for the Sangh’s insistence on Ambedkar’s appropriation are two-fold: he represented a political constituency like no other political leader. But more importantly, his distance from and, sometimes, opposition to socialists and communists provided a fertile ground for the Sangh to build on its own anti-communist politics. The Sangh’s unilateral dialogue with Ambedkar’s legacy began in the late 1950s and 1960s, as evident in Thengadi’s speeches and writings. He claimed that Ambedkar appointed him as his ‘election agent’ during the early 1950s, during which he spent considerable time with Ambedkar, listening to and learning about his innermost ideological dilemmas and thoughts.Footnote 110 A few scholars have debunked this claim, while others have argued that no historical evidence suggests that Thengadi spent any time in Ambedkar’s vicinity.Footnote 111 However, unbothered by facts, Thengadi built on his narrative of exclusive access to Ambedkar by presenting a version of the latter’s ideas in a manner that favoured the Sangh’s goals at the time.
During the 1960s, when Golwalkar headed the Sangh and its public stance favoured preserving the caste system, Thengadi attempted to co-opt only two streams within Ambedkar’s wider political programme. First, by fabricating a detailed private conversation with Ambedkar, Thengadi reproduced quotes from Ambedkar’s Who Were the Shudras? (1946).Footnote 112 Thengadi argued that since Ambedkar believed Dalits were formerly part of the Kșatriyas, a warrior upper caste group comprising kings and other nobility, he considered Dalits and all other lower castes an innate part of Hinduism. While Ambedkar rejected previous theories of Aryan invasion to argue against a racial basis for the caste division, Thengadi and others in the Sangh selectively picked up this argument to crudely say that the lower castes were not racially distinct from the rest of the upper caste Hindus—the implication being that Hindus were a homogeneous people.Footnote 113
Second, Thengadi argued that Ambedkar staunchly opposed Marxism and communism and sought all his socio-political and spiritual answers in Buddhism.Footnote 114 He used Ambedkar’s turn to Buddhism to create an arbitrary binary between Buddhism as an indigenous thought and Marxism as a ‘western’ import to explain why Ambedkar preferred the former. Thengadi made no detailed study of Ambedkar’s reading of Marxism and Buddhism; instead, he used Ambedkar’s critique of Marxism as rhetoric to bolster the Hindu Nationalist critique of Marxism. However, as stated above, since Thengadi did this before the Sangh changed its public stance on caste under Deoras, the discussion on Ambedkar in the Sangh’s propaganda is relatively limited in this period. A more concerted effort to acknowledge Ambedkar’s contributions to Dalit politics emerged later, particularly in Patange’s writings.
In his autobiographical account, Patange wrote that Ambedkar’s writings were eye-opening and profoundly impacted him. He first read Ambedkar during his 14 months in prison during the 1975 Internal Emergency.Footnote 115 Ambedkar’s incisive understanding of the caste system and the criticism of those who follow it changed Patange’s views of Indian society, inspiring him to dedicate his life to the work of samarastā. Patange also remarked that an average swayamsevak never read Ambedkar or engaged with the questions of caste discrimination, perhaps unwittingly revealing the lack of even a cursory engagement with Ambedkar and his works in the inner circles of the Sangh.Footnote 116 He even mentioned that there was particular disdain towards Ambedkar in the Sangh; however, instead of criticizing the Sangh for its lack of any serious conversation about the caste system, he blamed the socialists for such disdain. He stated that the socialists and leftists imprisoned Ambedkar (and Jyotiba Phule) in their ‘progressive prison’, making him inaccessible to an average Hindu (and swayamsevak).Footnote 117 He further wrote that progressives only used Ambedkar to attack Brahmins and other Hindutva organizations. Thus, Patange made it his life’s mission to ‘free’ Ambedkar from the socialists and claim him as a hero of Dalits like himself.
By attempting to forge a complementary relationship between Hindu Nationalist and Ambedkarite politics, Patange implied that one need not abandon Hinduism to solve the problems of caste inequalities. As mentioned above, he argued that Ambedkar and Hedgewar strived for the same goal, albeit with different tactics. He wrote that Ambedkar, in fact, helped him better understand the Sangh’s goals and principles of Hindu consolidation as Hedgewar and Ambedkar worked towards making a ‘healthy, flawless, egalitarian and integrated Hindu Society’.Footnote 118 He noted:
The precondition of unification of the Hindu society is to ‘decaste’ the minds of the Hindus, and eliminate caste from their mental makeup. … Dr. Hedgewar opted for the traditional road for the transformation of the society. … His [Ambedkar’s] thoughts are woven round the concept of the free individual, with an autonomous existence and the right to self-development, along with a constitutional guarantee and protection of the individual’s rights. … Dr. Hedgewar “activised” the Hindu, sought to make him action-oriented. Dr. Ambedkar sought to stimulate and expand his critical faculties. He taught him to think and articulate his thoughts ably.Footnote 119
Seeing them as two sides of the same coin, Patange deemed both necessary for the Hindū Rāșțra’s fulfilment. Interestingly, the Sangh founded the Samajik Samarasta Manch on 14 April 1983, Ambedkar’s birthday, and claimed (falsely) that it was also Hedgewar’s birthday. Even though Hedgewar was born on 1 April, Thengadi claimed it was 14 April according to the Hindu calendar.Footnote 120 The symbolism of Ambedkar’s birth date is crucial for any organization claiming to work for the betterment of the lower castes. However, Ambedkar himself did not contribute anything valuable to the Hindu Nationalist cause. The Sangh could only deploy a specifically engineered version of him by merging some of his ideas selectively with its own majoritarian jargon. Thus, while Patange accepted the novelty of Ambedkar’s ideas and the struggle behind his movement against untouchability, he draped these ideas in the colours of the Sangh.
In his writing on Ambedkar, Patange highlighted the great personal struggles Ambedkar faced from childhood due to his Dalit identity, a truism that he refrained from mentioning in his autobiographical account. He also unhesitatingly highlighted that for Ambedkar, the Hindu orthodoxy was the main enemy in realizing a world without caste discrimination.Footnote 121 Patange further explained Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism as a desperate escape from an unequal society purposefully built by Brahmins to enslave millions and safeguard their self-interest; since this class of Brahmins and orthodox Hindus would never give equal rights to Dalits, only an immediate escape to Buddhism made sense to Ambedkar.Footnote 122 He also justified Ambedkar’s burning of Manusmriti and stated that Ambedkar ‘created storms’ to ‘shake the mentality’ of the Hindu society and forced a form of ‘self-introspection’; it was a shock-and-awe tactic, not quite a complete rejection of the text.Footnote 123 Patange called him a great social reformer who fought against orthodox Hindus for the rights and dignity of their fellow Hindus. However, he also remarked that just because Ambedkar opposed the practice of caste, it was unfair to call him anti-Hindu.Footnote 124 He argued that Ambedkar contributed immensely to the cause of Hindu consolidation by empowering a section of the marginalized Hindus. Thus, Patange reduced Ambedkarite politics to an internal dialogue of reform from within the Hindu fold.
As a result of Patange’s continued insistence on seeing Ambedkar as a part of the Sangh’s Hindu Nationalist movement, the Sangh organized a Sandeś Yātrā (Message Procession) in 1988 in Maharashtra.Footnote 125 Organized at the same time as the mobilization for the Ramjanambhoomi movement, the Sangh leaders wanted to stress that the cause of caste harmony was on par with the movement to construct a Ram temple. Patange wrote that the Yātrā successfully brought many Dalit leaders to the Sangh’s platform as they distributed Sangh-produced literature and spoke in favour of the Sangh’s cause.Footnote 126 He also claimed that the Yātrā convinced many swayamsevaks that Ambedkar was a hero of their own, and they accepted him from the ‘depths of their hearts’.Footnote 127 Through such efforts, Patange and other leaders in the Sangh subsumed the struggle against caste inequalities within the larger vision of the Hindū Rāșțra. However, once a cursory assimilation within the Sangh’s pantheon was in place, the tactic of samarastā shifted from recognizing him as the hero of Dalits who was fighting the Hindu upper castes to a Nationalist par excellence whose main enemies were the Muslims and the Congress.
The Sangh’s propaganda literature on Ambedkar, produced post-1990s, took a different turn by misrepresenting and distorting Ambedkar’s writings to argue that his primary political concern was national integrity and the formation of an Indian fraternity by overcoming all caste and class barriers; the struggle for social justice became subservient to this larger goal.Footnote 128 These texts added that Ambedkar was wary of Indian Muslims since he believed that their loyalties lay with Pakistan and other Islamic nations and, hence, he considered them a threat to the Indian nation.Footnote 129 Furthermore, they downplayed Ambedkar’s radical political actions, such as the burning of the Manusmriti and his conversion to Buddhism, by arguing that he had to resort to such actions because of the failure of the Congress, particularly Gandhi, to address Ambedkar’s demands.Footnote 130 These texts also stated that Ambedkar consciously chose Buddhism over any other (foreign) religion because he was a Nationalist who believed in the superiority of religions born on Indian soil.Footnote 131 The appropriation of Ambedkar’s post-1990s image completely glossed over his criticism of the caste system, rendering him a Nationalist hero whose ideas aligned with the Sangh’s majoritarian programme. Thus, within two decades, the Sangh moved away from recognizing Ambedkar’s struggles as a Dalit leader to de-centring his caste politics, favouring a larger Hindu Nationalist politics.
Conclusion
The article argues that sāmājik samarastā, a neologism coined in the 1970s, was a deliberate and well-planned intervention in the politics of social justice by the Sangh to broaden its social base without alienating its core upper-caste support base. Samarastā, an amalgamation of moral posturing and political pragmatism, platformed the politics of the performance of caste neutrality, the rhetorical acceptance of caste hierarchies, the symbolic appropriation of Ambedkar, and a semantic shift from equality and justice to harmony and co-existence that offered the Sangh a language to engage with anti-caste politics without challenging its Hindu Nationalist political goals.
More importantly, samarastā shifted the site of caste reform from the political to the cultural, from collective to individual, and from constitutional to moral, an approach best exemplified in the Sangh’s ambiguous response towards caste-based reservations. While leaders such as Deoras and Thengadi claimed to have supported the reservations, they still framed them not as reparative justice but as acts of benevolence. Thengadi compared reservations to a mother giving more milk to her weaker child (read Dalits) and asking the stronger child (read upper castes) to be understanding and sharing.Footnote 132 Such an equivalence crudely casts Dalits as inherently weak and upper castes as inherently noble while obfuscating the centuries of caste oppression in a moralistic idiom. However, at the same time, many BJP leaders organized and participated in anti-Mandal riots, thus, it upheld upper-caste interests while professing commitment to social harmony.Footnote 133
While, at first glance, the project of sāmājik samarastā might seem no more than creative wordplay, it has nonetheless had a profound impact on the contours of caste politics over the last five decades. The rhetoric of caste criticism from within the Sangh, which began under Deoras, has found echoes in Mohan Bhagwat’s (the current sarsańghacālak) speeches against caste.Footnote 134 He has continued to posture the Sangh as champion of the downtrodden, even when many Dalit and non-Dalit academics have criticized and rejected Ambedkar’s appropriation by the SanghFootnote 135. The Sangh’s success in making inroads in Dalit constituencies shows that samarastā provided a new language of caste activism to its workers and prospective recruits that obfuscates the nature of the caste compromise it promotes. Samarastā also highlights the highly dynamic nature of far-right and socially conservative movements by displaying their ability to incorporate questions of social inequalities and injustice within their highly hierarchical political imagination.
Competing Interests
The author declares none.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Samita Sen, William Gould, Emma Mawdsley, and Saarang Narayan for their feedback on earlier drafts. The author also extends her gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers and the editor. Any remaining mistakes and inaccuracies are mine.
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