From Gandhi’s critics to Modi’s allies: How India’s century-old Hindu nationalist force RSS still shapes politics 100 years on

By Administrator

Published on 10/31/2025 08:30

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An RSS member stands next to a portrait of its founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, inside the leader's house in Nagpur on October 1, 2025, on the eve of the Hindu nationalist organisation's centenary celebrations.

NAGPUR (India) — Brandishing bamboo sticks and chanting patriotic hymns, thousands of uniformed men parade in central India, a striking show of strength by the country’s millions-strong Hindu ultranationalist group.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the National Volunteer Organisation, or RSS – marked its 100th anniversary this month with a grand ceremony at its headquarters in Nagpur.

AFP was one of a handful of foreign media outlets granted rare access to the group, which forms the ideological and organisational backbone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power since 2014.

Like the 75-year-old prime minister, critics accuse it of eroding the rights of India’s Muslim minority and undermining the secular constitution.

At the parade, RSS volunteers in white shirts, brown trousers and black hats marched, boxed and stretched in time to shrill whistles and barked orders.

“Forever I bow to thee, loving Motherland! Motherland of us Hindus!” they sang, in a scene that evoked paramilitary drills of the past.

“May my life... be laid down in thy cause!”