In its centenary year, the Hindu supremacist organization stands stronger than ever, not only in India but overseas.
By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
September 27, 2025
It was not an exaggeration when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Independence Day speech on August 15, called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) the “world’s largest NGO.” It was rather an understatement.
The RSS, the ideological-organizational parent of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is not just another “NGO.” It controls a massive network of hundreds of organizations of different scale and size, often working with unsuspecting partners. Frontal organizations with no formal links to the RSS on paper operate on a range of issues in different parts of India and even abroad – with the United States and Europe being two major foreign bases.
Much like an iceberg, only the tip of which is visible, the RSS arguably controls the world’s largest NGO network. Commonly referred to as the Sangh Parivar, these organizations belonging to the RSS family are bound together not by organizational structure or paper work as much as by ideological adhesives. There is no formal membership, and the attendees are called
swayamsevaks or volunteers.
The RSS and Modi: Rising Together
As the RSS celebrates its centenary, it has emerged as an extra-governmental authority within the Modi government and other BJP-led state governments, as key issues like education, culture, and security have been literally handed over to people connected with the RSS.
The RSS played a
key role behind Modi’s ascent to power in 2014 – from
backing the apparently non-partisan
anti-corruption movement against the Congress-led government to creating a
Hindu nationalist wave ahead of the elections. It reaped high benefits. The RSS not only dictates, influences and implements many of India’s internal and external policies, its growth during the decade of Modi rule surpasses the RSS’ achievements over the previous nine decades.
As of March 2014, they
operated 44,982 daily gatherings called
shakhas, 10,146 weekly gatherings called
milans and 7,387 monthly gatherings called
mandaliss. By
March 2025, the numbers had risen to 83,129 shakha, 32,147 milans
, and 12,091 mandalis.
Running the shakha lies at the core of RSS activities. It is through these daily gatherings that they implement the idea of transforming a society through “character-building” activities for individuals – which critics call indoctrination.
The RSS’ growth, however, has not remained limited to the Indian soil. It has emerged as a global NGO spreading Hindu supremacist conservatism to every corner of the world where the Hindu diaspora exists.
According to Vishwa Samvad Kendra, the RSS news agency, there are
1,600 shakhas in 55 countries across five continents. Of them, as of the end of 2024,
233 shakhas were in operation in the United States alone, up from just
146 in 2015. The shakhas abroad, however, operate weekly.
Modi, himself an RSS volunteer since his childhood, called the RSS’ “hundred years of social service” a “golden chapter.” They work with the aim of the welfare of Mother India and the motto of developing individuals to build the nation, he claimed.
While there is truth in Modi’s remarks that the organization is marked by the ideals of “social service, dedication, organization and strict discipline,” their causes have remained contestable.
Sangh Parivar organizations have been accused of trying to
change India’s Constitution and
trample its secular-inclusive values,
vigilantism targeting religious minorities and low caste Hindus,
religious conversion,
manipulation of history with communal and divisive agenda, and
enforcing changes in tribal culture, among other things.
Men on a Mission
The RSS, a men-only organization, was founded on September 25, 1925. However, the centenary celebration will take place on October 2, as the RSS follows the Hindu calendar, not the Gregorian one. The foundation happened on Vijaya Dashami, an auspicious day among the Hindus, which falls on October 2 this year.
For a hundred years, dozens of boys and men from different age groups have been gathering every day at a designated place, mostly on fields or parks. They take part in physical training activities, offer prayers in Sanskrit paying obeisance to
sada vatsale matrubhume, the affectionate motherland, who has brought them up happily “in the land of Hindus” – Bharat, that is India. They affirm their allegiance to the saffron flag of Hinduism.
Usually dressed in the uniform of white shirt, khaki trousers, black caps and black shoes, they chant in chorus, “
Prabho shaktiman Hindurashtrangabhuta/ ime sadaram tvaam namaamo vayam.” (O Lord, the mighty embodiment of the Hindu nation, we all respectfully bow to you.)
It is this fixation with viewing India as a Hindu Rashtra (nation) that kept the organization strictly away from the freedom struggle, as the RSS did not want a secular India where Hindus would have to share power with Muslims.
It entered politics only in 1952 – five years after India’s independence – when it launched its political wing, Bharatiya Jana Sangha (BJS). This BJS transformed into the BJP in 1980.
While the BJP works for the RSS on the political front to capture power through electoral democracy, dozens of other affiliates and associated organizations work round the clock to effect long-term societal changes.
Their activities are broadly divided into physical training, intellectual activities, social work, public relations, publicity, religious awakening, cow protection, village development, family bonding, and social harmony.
Their ideology is Hindutva, which the RSS describes as Hindu cultural nationalism. It means, in their view, India is a culturally Hindu nation. According to RSS followers, Islamic aggression and centuries of Muslim rule weakened India by inflicting damage on Hindu culture. They call for the restoration of the glory days when ancient Hindus, especially the Vedic Brahmins, were “the masters of the world.”
In practice, they are a socially conservative, majoritarian, and supremacist force. They are conservative and traditional in socio-religious practices; believe in ancient Hindu society’s supremacy over all other civilizations and cultures of the world; and aim to turn India’s religious minorities into second-class citizens.
In his 2020 book, “Golwalkar: The Myth Behind the Man, The Man Behind the Machine,” journalist Dhirendra K. Jha showed that Golwalkar, the second and the most-influential
sarsanghchalak or helmsman of the RSS, built the organization for political power without joining politics.
Speaking to The Diplomat, Jha said that the RSS blueprint has been sought to be implemented by the government in the Modi years – from revoking the statehood and special status of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state to the government-backed consecration of the Ram Temple on land once occupied by the Babri Masjid to attempts to introduce a Uniform Civil Code. Hindutva, Jha said, has evidently become the unofficial ideology of the government of India.
According to him, one of the principal aims of the RSS, from the time of its inception, has been to create a political space for treating Muslims as second class citizens. This has finally been achieved with the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, which formally discriminates on citizenship on the basis of religion.
A Maze of Outfits
The RSS has 32 affiliates, called “Sangh-inspired organizations.” Each of them has an RSS
pracharak in the position of organizing secretary. Pracharaks dedicate their lives to the RSS, even maintaining bachelorhood to better serve the organization.
The modes and methods of work of the different affiliated organizations vary, but the aim is singular: to bring their kind of conservative Hinduism – practiced mainly by upper caste groups in northern India – to the center of Indian life.
Sewa or social work, too, is a means to further Hindutva ideologies.
The national presidents and national organizing secretaries of these 32 organisations gather annually at the RSS’ S
amanvay Baithak (Coordination Meeting).
Besides the BJP, the RSS’ political outfit, these organizations include separate bodies for women, students, teachers, trade union, tribal peoples, and farmers.
Their scale of penetration across different sections of the society is reflected in how they have built organizations covering fields like history, science, social work, culture, border security, and sports.
These affiliates have multiple chapters and their own affiliates – creating a web of RSS-linked organizations, most of them registered as independent nonprofits with no formal links to the RSS.
They mostly work in coordination. For example, as many as five Sangh Parivar organizations are involved in conceptualizing and
implementing the new National Education Policy of the Modi government. The organizations include teachers’ wing, Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM); the school network Vidya Bharati (VB); the student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP); the education policy wing, Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal (BSM); and education think-tank Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (SSUN).
There are more organizations outside of these, such as the massive network of
Ekal Abhiyan, an informal schooling campaign for disempowered children that itself is made of eight different entities.
A crucial component of the RSS’ “character-building” exercise is operating schools. Their formal education wing, the VB, runs 12,754 formal schools, where about 3.2 million children study. It is arguably India’s largest private school network.
The “RSS-inspired” program of Ekal Abhiyan has an additional network of
85,551 informal, one-teacher schools called Ekal Vidyalaya, with 1.12 million boys and 1.13 million girls enrolled as students. The students are
trained in Hindutva ideals from a young age as part of education, including grossly distorted versions of
history and
science.
Under Modi-rule, those distorted histories from RSS textbooks have
entered India’s formal educational curriculum.
According to Jha, while the RSS’ influence has been most visible in the sphere of education, much larger damage has been done by “tearing apart the entire secular fabric of the country with government participation.” He stressed that since the constitution, which he describes as “India’s conscience keeper,” itself came under attack, every institution’s visions were bound to get distorted at different levels.
“Muslims have been pushed into de facto second class citizens – from vigilantism, assault and lynching to targetted displacement and harassment – as Hindutva foot soldiers act with complete impunity because of RSS control over the government and the administration,” Jha said.
Pan-Hindutva: The RSS Overseas
In most countries, the RSS operates under the name of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) – its overseas wing – except in Singapore, Malaysia, and Myanmar, where the RSS is registered as Vivekanand Sewa Sangh, Hindu Sewa Sangam, and Sanatan Dharma Swayamsevak Sangh, respectively.
Of its affiliates, the VHP, Sewa Bharati (SB), Ekal Abhiyan, and VB operate internationally, mostly in coordination with the HSS, which has a noteworthy presence in Nepal, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
All HSS chapters have the same motto –
Sanskaar (traditional values),
Sewa (service) and
Sangathan (organization). According to the
HSS Sweden chapter, the primary aims and objectives of the HSS are to promote, preserve, practice and protect Hindu Dharma, Hindu ideas, and the Hindu way of life in the Swedish environment. HSS Sweden says it “has adopted a ‘Shakha’ model of activity and organization unique to RSS in India.”
The RSS prayer recited at shakhas abroad does not mention Hindu Rashtra. However, the inspirational Sanskrit couplets that the HSS teaches, for example in the
U.K. and
New Zealand, include a salutation to Bharata Mata (Mother India), “whose feet are washed by the waves of the ocean, who is crowned by the snowy Himalayas, whose illustrious children have distinguished themselves as brahmarishis and rajarishis.”
Abroad, the RSS prefers to play the victim and fight what it calls “Hinduphobia.” They try to foil the historically oppressed Hindu lower castes’ attempt at highlighting caste-based atrocities in Hindu society and have
tried to block anti-caste discrimination initiatives, including laws, and representation of Hinduism in U.S.
textbooks.
As a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
report noted, the transnational Hindu nationalist networks in the United States invoke the American tradition of religious pluralism to claim space for minority Hindu cultural practices in the U.S., while repudiating the same ideas of religious pluralism and tolerance in how they treat Muslim minorities in India.
