Between Words And Deeds

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent American tour sought to project the organisation as a benign cultural movement committed to harmony, unity and the assimilation of India’s religious communities. In New York, Bhagwat even declared that anyone who wanted an India without Muslims could not be a true Hindu. The problem is not the words. It is the credibility of the messenger-and the record behind the message. Founded in 1925, the RSS became the ideological nucleus of the wider Sangh Parivar. The BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal are organisationally distinct, but their historical and ideological relationship with the RSS is undeniable. The VHP was established in 1964 with RSS involvement, while the Bajrang Dal emerged during the Ram Janmabhoomi mobilisation. That history cannot simply be erased by presenting a softer face abroad. The question becomes sharper when examined against the treatment of religious minorities. Human-rights organisations and religious-freedom monitors have documented attacks on pastors, disruption of prayer meetings, church vandalism, intimidation and allegations of “forced conversion” in several Indian states. This is not an accusation against every BJP worker, RSS volunteer or Hindu nationalist. Most importantly, it is not an indictment of Hindus. The issue is whether a political ecosystem has allowed suspicion of minorities to become normalized and whether governments have consistently protected citizens when mobs act. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has gone further, calling for targeted sanctions against RSS members and Indian officials whom it considers implicated in religious-freedom violations. The RSS and the central government reject such criticism as biased. That disagreement should not end the debate; it should intensify scrutiny. The controversy surrounding the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) adds another dimension. The government has a legitimate right to regulate foreign funding and prevent financial abuse. However, the regulation becomes troubling when its application disproportionately constrains legitimate civil-society and religious organisations. Christian institutions have repeatedly faced FCRA scrutiny and cancellations, raising questions about whether administrative power is being exercised neutrally. There is also a deeper historical irony. Christianity is not a foreign intrusion into India. Indian Christian tradition dates the arrival of St Thomas the Apostle to around 52 CE on the Malabar Coast-nearly two millennia of Christian presence. Christians are not aliens in India; they are part of India’s historical fabric. Indeed, Christian missionaries contributed significantly to the institutional foundations of modern India: schools, colleges, printing presses, hospitals, nursing and women’s education. Serampore College, founded in 1818 by William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, became a landmark of modern education. Missionaries also established some of the earliest organised girls’ schools and educational institutions serving marginalised communities. None of this diminishes India’s ancient educational traditions or the contribution of Indian reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy. It simply recognises another important strand in India’s modern development. Institutions such as Scottish Church College, founded through Alexander Duff’s educational initiative, ultimately educated Indians from across ideological and religious backgrounds, including Swami Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose. India’s Constitution provides the answer to the religious question: freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion. If Bhagwat wants the world to see the RSS as an organisation embracing “one humanity,” the test is not an American speech. The test is what happens in India when a pastor is assaulted, a church is attacked or a Christian family is threatened with expulsion under false charges. An organisation claiming to represent a nation of 1.4 billion people, of whom roughly one-fifth are non-Hindu cannot demand that its intentions be judged by words alone.