by Eugene Walker
The most recent state elections in India saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi further consolidate his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) hold on power. Having already achieved domination over the formerly ruling Congress Party, the BJP has now defeated regional parties in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Modi, first elected in 2014, and his BJP have been driving to make India a Hindu nationalist state. This did not come out of the blue. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—the far-right Hindu nationalist group, from which Modi emerged—recently celebrated its centenary anniversary.
DRAWING ON EUROPEAN FASCISM
Protest against fascism in India, central London, January 2020. Photo: Steve Eason, CC BY-NC 2.0
In the 1930s and 1940s, it drew inspiration from the nationalist practices of Fascist parties in Europe. While members were persecuted by the Congress Party early on, its goal, which it is moving closer to, is the transformation of India from a secular state into a Hindu-first nation. It intends to far outlast Modi’s time as Prime Minister.
Over the years RSS has concentrated on infiltrating various aspects of Indian society: courts, police, media, academia, etc. Of special import, it offers young men relevance and influence in their communities through Hindu-nationalist activism. That activism includes anti-Muslim marches through select neighborhoods and organized destructive attacks on Christian churches.
RSS members have turned Hindu holidays into public displays of force and domination. India’s secularism is fully under attack. From the 1920s on, RSS has been organized in cells, known as shakhas, a bottom-up form of organizing society. The New York Times reports: “There are now 83,000 shakhas spread across the country, each linked from the neighborhood level to the national through WhatsApp groups. They remain the central pillar of molding the kind of men the RSS wants as the warriors of its vision for India.”
MODI’S ACTIONS GIVE LIE TO INDIA AS A ‘DEMOCRACY’
In the 1990s a dispute over a 16th-century mosque became an important turning point in RSS’s growing popularity. The group claimed the mosque had been built on the site of a Hindu temple. The BJP and groups in RSS organized a huge campaign against the mosque.
In 1992 mobs armed with rods and pickaxes destroyed it. The action further mobilized a nationalist Hindu identity. After Modi’s election he arranged for a lavish Ram temple to be built at the site. He also did away with the longtime semi-autonomy of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir to bring it under New Delhi’s direct control.
As RSS centenary celebrations took place toward the end of 2025, there was full coverage in the media and congratulations from many politicians.
India as a secular state seems a bygone era. The fault is not alone due to RSS’s growing power. The grave contradictions of India’s secular state with its deeply embedded caste system were never seriously tackled by the Gandhi family of the ruling Congress Party from independence forward. Neither a secular capitalist state nor a Hindu national capitalist state could or can develop into a truly human society. A far deeper social uprooting is needed.