NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) is bracing up to commemorate 100 years of the outfit in 2025. The parent saffron outfit hits a century that year, and deliberations are on at the top level to undertake activities that enhance its reach.
The outfit plans to expand the scale of its activities in rural areas with thrust on social amity and economic self-sufficiency. The focus is also on ‘Kutumb Prabodhan,’ which aims to preserve traditional values.
The RSS top brass is learnt to have chosen delegates consisting of ‘Prant Pracharaks’ (zonal heads) at the recent annual conclave at Bhopal to substantially scale up outreach activities.
While a regional head of the RSS told The Sunday Standard over the phone that “besides expansion of Shakhas, attracting youth and carrying out activities adopted earlier, we were told to brace up for 100 years commemoration of the RSS in 2025”, communication department head Manmohan Vaidya said, “There has been no such discussions yet.”
Another senior RSS functionary, who took part in the Bhopal conclave, said the 100 years celebration is already a top agenda of the outfit. It aims at achieving larger popular acceptance of the core ideology amongst people, he said.
It has been reliably learnt that RSS has taken upon itself the task to connect with intellectuals across the country on a big scale. Sources said that multiple conclaves with intellectuals would be held in various places to challenge the “old established views, which run contrary to traditional outlook of the people, including perspective on Indian history.” Increased outreach to groups and communities outside the influence of the RSS would be taken up in the run up to 100 years commemoration to “Indianise the thought process of the people,” sources added.
Though the annual conclave of the RSS at Hyderabad last year had adopted two resolutions—condemning political violence in Kerala and West Bengal, and economic growth with thrust on traditional strength of the country—the Bhopal jamboree didn’t formally take up any issue for larger deliberations. “This time, the meeting was largely confined to stock-taking with performance review. From June, new year begins for us. So, the Pratinidhi Sabha, which will be held in Nagpur in March next year, will formally adopt future plans,” said Vaidya.
The RSS has expanded its ambitious exercise to remove caste discrimination (Samajik Samanyawata) at village level in various other states, apparently buoyed by similar works done by the outfit’s Telangana unit.