The Caravan April 2019

In 2014, after decades of patient organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mobilised an unprecedented number of its cadre to secure the election of Narendra Modi, a lifelong RSS worker, as prime minister. Seizing political power at the centre allowed the Sangh to proceed with the next phase of its strategy—to expand its reach into every sphere of the country’s social, political and intellectual life, in order to cement its ideology of Hindutva as the centrepiece of India’s ethos. This includes attempts to take over the country’s systems of knowledge production; expand into regions that have been historically apathetic, if not hostile, to the Sangh’s agenda, such as Kerala and the northeast; and infiltrate Hindu monastic orders to complete its project of thoroughly politicising India’s dominant religion for its own ends. While Modi and his political opponents cast the 2019 general election as a referendum on the prime minister’s performance, what is really at stake is the future of India as a secular nation.