I was barely five years old when my mother and I visited my aunt in Maharashtra’s Nagpur, our hometown.
I distinctly remember crossing a coterie of men in khaki shorts, surrounded by police personnel, with several barricades leading towards a residential area called Mahal.
Curious, I asked my mother if something had happened, and she replied nonchalantly, “It’s just the Sangh building.”
This is how I first came to know about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an inescapable part of my family life. The men in khaki shorts were a part of the RSS, headquartered at Mahal, and such groups often randomly gather there.
Cut to 2022, when RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, gave his annual speech on Vijayadashami on 5 October, he said, "Our methodology of Vyakti Nirman is handled separately by the RSS and the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, but in all other aspects of work, both men and women have been working together, and this is a usual practice.”
Is it, though? I asked my aunt, who has served for years as a sevika (worker) at the RSS headquarters, and she said in Marathi, “Aamhi rangoli kaadhto, ground sazavto (We make rangoli, decorate the ground).”
And herein, lies my problem – the constant, blind perpetuation of gendered roles which add no weightage to the person performing it.
Bhagwat’s comment drew flak from the Opposition which called out the RSS for excluding women from its main functionary body.
Rajya Sabha MP and former Union minister Kapil Sibal responded to Bhagwat's speech a day after, saying, "RSS Chief Bhagwat ji talks of “women’s equal participation in the work force…” I agree.. But walk the talk... First allow women in RSS Shakhas.. RSS stands for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.. “Nationalist volunteers” but Rashtriya Sevika Samiti denotes women who “serve,” why?"
Having access to several sevikas within my maternal family, and grown up listening to their stories, I reached out to some of the women to understand what their role in the organisation all these years has been.
‘Kept The Clothes Ready’
My mother, Vandana Pande, is the oldest amongst her siblings. “We all grew up around the RSS building. It was our neighbourhood,” she told me. Back in the ’60s, however, my maternal family’s financial situation was dismal.
“We didn’t have an iron for clothes. So, I used to carefully place my three younger brothers’ school and shakha uniforms under our mattresses before we slept. By the next morning, all the folds and creases would be smoothened out,” she said.
My uncles went to the shakha but my mother, and her sister, never did. “It wasn’t our place,” she added, matter-of-factly.
Many members of my mother’s family are still in Nagpur, and still very much involved with the RSS. My mother, however, drifted away years ago but the ideology has prevailed.
She has been indifferent to my stand, or my opposition to her ideology. It’s been a sore point in our familial relationship. However, it is a relief that my brother and I are on the same team and often find common ground in our grievances with our parents.
To be honest, my surname and privilege sheltered me and kept me away from the realities of caste, gender bias, and inequality for years. Little did I realise as a young adult that what I took as a way of life earlier is actually selective exclusion.
It was only when I left Nagpur to study journalism in Chennai that I realised how unaware I was. The time away from my family opened my eyes to the cruel realities of our society, and the role played by the RSS to divide the country on caste and religious grounds.
.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
‘We Widened Horizons of Other Women in the Village’
While I may differ, being an RSS sevika is a lived reality of many women in my family – one that I cannot ignore or deny.
In 1967-68, my aunt, Kashmira Kotwal, tagged along with her mother, Sarojini Deshpande, in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district, where they educated women under the RSS Samiti’s banner.
“I was a child when I watched my mother working hard for women’s rights and education in our village. She would sit with other women and counsel them. A lot of the women were child brides and thus, uneducated,” shared Kotwal. "Their only roles were to bear children and cook meals. My mother introduced them to ideas of self, dignity, and patriotism,” she added.
It wasn’t easy for my grand-aunt. The men of the family didn’t approve of her working outdoors. “But my father, who was an RSS worker, encouraged her and stood by her side,” my aunt told me.
My grand-aunt, Sarojini Deshpande, in 1984.
Kashmira Kotwal.
’A Shift in my Relationship with my Father’
On 5 August 2020, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Ram Janmabhoomi, a distant cousin visited us at our Pune home.
I heard him say with a smirk, “There are people who have denied giving donations when we went door-to-door for the temple construction… Now we will take care of them.”
Appalled, I implored my father to shut him up. I panicked and wondered what he meant by saying that those who didn’t pay will suffer the consequences?
My reaction to his words was a turning point in my relationship with my father as for the first time, he understood my angst, and why I am against this exact imposition of Hindutva politics and malicious pleasure taken from it.
I witnessed a shift in my father’s demeanour because till that day, in 2020, my father and I had never seen eye to eye when it came to politics.
Samiti Meetings, Sevika, and Sushma Swaraj
The women I spoke to mentioned forming lifelong friendships at the samiti meetings. Following her mother’s footsteps, my aunt, Kashmira Kotwal, said that in the late ’70s, she hoisted the RSS flag and the National flag at the samiti meetings along with her friends.
My aunt added that these meetings “were not frivolous gatherings.”
She said, “Our parents permitted this outing only because they were samiti meetings. We would discuss the political climate, the role of Brahmin women at home, and even spoke about personal matters such as women’s health. We didn’t have anyone to discuss these personal matters with at home, so these meetings became our safe space.”
Apart from this, my aunt told me at the samiti meetings, they performed physical exercises or played games, which was otherwise an embarrassing ordeal.
Sevikas at a physical training event in Nagpur.
Photo accessed by the author.
Around 1977, my aunt told me that their samiti found praise from none other than late BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj. “She was such a brilliant orator. Sushma ji made us all feel important – and seen. Before leaving, she said to us, ‘Chhota nahi, isse aur bada kaam karo (Work towards even bigger things, don't just stop here).’”
‘Moral Classes for Children’
By the time I turned five years old, I was enrolled in ‘sanskar varga,’ which were moral classes for children run by older Brahmin neighbours or family members. This was an essential part of growing up as Brahmin child in Maharashtra. The RSS conducts and promotes some of these classes as well.
Like all the children of my community who attended this, I was made to recite shlokas and sing verses of aartis. But I was always restless during these sessions and don’t remember enjoying them one bit.
Years later, I realised why I didn’t get along with the children there. I was in an English-medium school and my upbringing was different. I did not take easily to the cultural imposition at these ‘sanskar varga’ classes. Even at such a young age, the children perpetuated ideas of caste domination.
Young girls performing various exercises at a samiti meeting in Nagpur.
Accessed by the author.
‘Ideology, a Bone of Contention’
In 2021, Leelavati Kusre, my 80-year-old grand-aunt who lives in Assam and has worked for the RSS across the Northeast, had been felicitated by the organisation for her lifelong contribution to the organisation.
At the time, she wrote, “A lot of hardships came our way when we started work there… But it was all worth it… I hope that the next generation carries forward this work.”
But when I read this, I thought about the unfortunate indoctrination of the RSS in my family.
While the women of my family found some sense of purpose in doing this work, I can never justify furthering the agenda of an organisation which is known to promote extreme Hindu supremacy.
To sugarcoat and distort reality in the guise of empowering women has been a long-running practice in politics world over – and in our homeland.
While I connect with my female relatives over our common love for food, sarees, and music, this bend towards the RSS ideology will always remain a bone of contention.
(This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)