Author: Gurumurthy
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: March 31, 2006
URL: http://www.newindpress.com/Column.asp?ID=IE620060317062547
"He had qualities of ancient India's
Rishis and Munis." This is how The Express captured him in its editorial
(June 7, 1973).
"He achieved unparalleled success in
cultivating, among the youth, reverence for motherland, dedication to her
cause, and discipline and making them work to remove the sufferings of the
poor.
"Next only to Mahatma Gandhi in attracting
and influencing the youth, he was also called as the second Vivekananda. It
is rare to see another leader like him. His demise is a national loss."
This is how the most respected of newspaper
editors in Tamil Nadu, A N Sivaraman, also a freedom fighter, paid homage
to him in his editorial in the Tamil daily 'Dinamani'.
He was never a member of either house of Parliament.
Yet, both houses of Parliament paid tributes to him. Indira Gandhi, the then
Prime Minister and his bitterest critic, said, "He held a respected position
in national life by the force of his personality and the intensity of his
conviction, even though many of us could not agree with him."
Acharya Vinobha Bhave said, "He was a
leader with a broad national outlook who always thought on an all-India basis.
He had great regard for other religious faiths. He did not have a narrow view
of any religion.
"In fact, he had love for Muslims and
only wanted them to join the national mainstream."
He was to Rajaji 'a sanyasi' and to Jayaprakash
Narayan 'a saint'.
This list of many greats who paid homage to
him recognising his saintly qualities is endless. Who was he? Not a politician;
not in power or position otherwise. Nor was he a saint or sanyasi in the formal
or declared sense.
Who then was he, who was a spiritualist, sanyasi,
rishi, muni and saint to many - from neutral media to intellectual giants
like Rajaji, to hardened secularists like Jayaprakash and to great men like
Vinobha Bhave?
He was M S Golwalkar, the successor to the
founder-chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
A faculty of the Benaras Hindu University,
he came under the spell of the RSS founder, Dr K B Hedgewar, and joined the
RSS forthwith. In 1940 the founder passed away anointing Golwalkar as his
successor.
Golwalkar, who was just 34 then, built it
into a mighty, but apolitical, movement in a short span of time. How was it
that an organisation founded by a political activist turned apolitical under
Golwalkar?
This was because Golwalkar was essentially
a spiritualist. Had he not met Dr Hedgewar, Golwalkar would have been a monk
in the Sri Ramakrishna Order. He had got initiation by Swami Akhandananda,
a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
Golwalkar soon realised that the training
technique evolved by Dr Hedgewar actualises Swami Vivekananda's concept of
man-making and nation-building. He therefore decided to devote his whole life
to the RSS.
That is how Golwalkar, a saint-in-the-making,
renounced his sainthood and turned into an architect, a mason, for re-building
the nation. Golwalkar harmonised the spiritual vision to which he was initiated
by the Ramakrishna Order and the practical man-making mission of the founder.
He thus masterfully re-positioned the RSS
as an apolitical force despite the fact that certain aspects of its nation
building agenda had had political implications. Golwalkar worked relentlessly
and restlessly for 33 years, going round the country twice over every year,
addressing complex audiences ranging from students at schools and colleges
to youths, elders, intellectuals and built the mighty RSS parivar with different
initiatives.
He travelled in second-class rail compartments
and buses, taxis and autos, and always stayed in the houses of RSS workers
or its sympathisers. In 1948, Golwalkar faced his greatest challenge when
Pandit Nehru, who was at the peak of his popularity, virtually took upon himself
the task of finishing off the RSS.
He charged the organisation with having conspired
to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi. He banned the organisation and arrested Golwalkar.
But the charge ultimately proved false.
The RSS was exonerated honourably. And Nehru,
who vowed not to give an inch of land to the RSS, was forced to lift the ban!
But this episode made a lasting impact on
the apolitical character of RSS and forced the organisation into a strategic
association with politics through the Jana Sangh founded by Dr Shyama Prasad
Mukherji.
Still, Golwalkar deftly, yet defiantly, kept
the heart and mind of RSS workers largely apolitical. The establishment despised
him totally unjustly when Golwalkar was alive - all for engaging in the thankless
task of character-building work, which even schools and colleges in India
had all but given up.
Yet, he chose not to counter the unjust campaign
against him and the organisation he headed. He took the unjust insults to
him as only a saint like him could. He never relied on publicity.
And he actually shunned it; and also psychologically
trained his followers too to shun it. But the virtue of avoiding publicity
had its flipside too. The RSS was perceived as a secret, not an open, organisation!
But, in the choice between silent work, which
is sometimes mistaken as secret work and publicity, which made the work itself
cheap, Golwalkar opted for silent work, not publicity, to preserve the sanctity
of his work.
Thus, after doing silent and strenuous work
of man making for 33 years - and suffering false and motivated campaigns just
for holding a view that was not comfortable to the establishment thinking
- Golwalkar passed away on June 5, 1973 at the age of 67.
It is ironic that this great man, who was
derided, even demonised when alive, was sainted after he was no more, even
by those critical of him, even hostile to him. The year 2006 is his birth
centenary year.
On this occasion, will those who unjustly
demeaned Golwalkar's work and their successors have the large-heartedness
to discuss dispassionately his thoughts, which constitute truthfully an alternative
approach to national issues?
Is it asking for too much?
