From humble beginnings to global influencer, RSS scaled new heights

New Delhi: On September 27, 1925, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a doctor shaped by the freedom movement, gathered a small group of young men, most of them teenagers, at his home in Nagpur, and made a simple announcement: “We are inaugurating Sangh today”.

The beginnings were unassuming but not a surprise to young followers of “doctorji”, as Hedgewar was fondly called by his friends. He had been working on this idea to organise the Hindu society for nation-building through character building of people. About two-and-a-half years before that, Hedgewar had started a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Mandal in Wardha as part of his experiments to work out a model that could help “transform society”.

The Sangh that he launched on the day Vijayadashmi started with monthly baithaks (gathering of young men ) at his home. “Four or five times the karyakartas attended the baithak on their own and later on they had to be intimated. Then a situation developed, in which they failed to attend the baithak even after getting the intimation. Then suggestions were made that instead of monthly baithaks, weekly baithaks should be held so that attending the baithaks would become a habit,” RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recalls in ‘Future Bharat’, a compilation of the lectures he delivered in 2018 in Delhi.

“Then the baithak was made daily. The daily baithaks and discussions used to be held in a room,” Bhagwat said, adding that Hedgewar wanted regular meetings.

A full-fledged outdoor shakha later started in an open ground in the next few months, with the young boys in Hedgewar’s flock of swayamsevaks keen on physical activities instead of just sitting together and discussing various topics.

Khaki shorts and white shirt with a lathi became the swayamsevak’s ‘ganvesh’ and physical activities were a regular feature at the shakha. Marthand Jog, a retired military personnel and Hedgewar’s friend, started physical training of the

Swayamsevaks along with parade sessions.