Title: Bunch of Thoughts
Author: Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar
Publisher: Jagarana Prakashana, 1980 (First published 1966)
ISBN: 9788186595190 (typical)
Pages: 684
Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906 – 1973) was in the news recently when the government decided to name a new campus of the Rajiv Gandhi Biotechnology Centre after him. Left liberal groups were vociferous in accusing the government of bringing in divisive politics into an institution of higher learning by commemorating the hallowed memory of the second Sarsanghchalak (supreme head) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from 1940 to 1973. Much invective was heaped on Golwalkar, whom the Sangh workers respectfully address as ‘Guruji’. When the tirade exceeded normal limits of decorum, I was naturally curious to know more about him. This book is a collection of his writings, speeches and conversations on varied topics such as national reorganization, spirituality, organizing the youth and politics, among others. This was first published in 1965, at the Sangh’s fortieth anniversary and also to mark Guruji’s twenty five years at the helm. This book was not written by Golwalkar himself, but compiled and translated from Hindi to English.
Golwalkar defines the mission of the Sangh as a nation-builder which tries to reorganize the national life. This goal is conducive to and the inevitable precondition to realise the dream of world unity and human welfare. We have to stand before the world as a self-confident, resurgent and mighty nation. Forging the scattered elements of Hindu society into an organized and invincible force both on the plane of the spirit and on the plane of material life is the acclaimed program of the Sangh. Right from childhood, Golwalkar used to wonder how and why invaders from faraway lands and far inferior in numbers could defeat Indians and hoist their alien regimes on this soil. It is the lack of cohesion and the unitary spirit that had done us in. Of course, the book always refers to this country as Bharat!
After settling all doubts on Sangh’s mission, Golwalkar goes on to examine how it could be realised in practice. A Hindu should mould his life with an attitude of discipline and self-restraint, which purify and strengthen him to reach the supreme goal in life. There is a trinity of Hindu nationalism – the feeling of burning devotion to the motherland, the feeling of fellowship born out of the realization that we are the children of that great common mother and intense awareness of a common current of national life. Guruji classifies such people as Hindus who revere the nation, respect the ancestral heroes and who subscribe to the philosophical concept that the inner fire that lights up every living being is the same. Moreover, without a firm base of nationalism, to speak of humanity and internationalism would be losing at both ends. Our national philosophy and heritage have always embraced within its fold the highest good of all humanity. A wrong interpretation of ahimsa has deprived the national mind of the power of discrimination, looking upon strength as violence and to glorify our weakness. A strong, militarily powerful nation is critical to ensure a harmonious life to its people. The full manifestation of dharma in human life helps create the spirit of cooperation. In such a democratic scheme, Golwalkar proposes two types of representatives – territorial and functional, the latter being elected from various professions and avocations.
Guruji is patriotic to a fault. This undercurrent of love for one’s homeland ebbs and flows underneath all the arguments as if a universal rhythm that animates the words. He claims that the average man of this country was at one time incomparably superior to the average man of other lands. India has been under foreign yoke of one or the other persuasion for nearly twelve centuries, yet the culture maintained its unbroken continuity from the present to the hoary past. He suggests a plausible answer to this seemingly paradoxical fact. The basis of our national existence was not political power. Rulers were never taken as props of our national life, but saints and sages were its torch-bearers. This was the secret of its survival. This principle should be carried to the modern age as well. State power should be constrained to the duty of protecting its people against foreign invasions and internal strife. Concentration of all power and authority and undivided control of all spheres of life such as education, medical aid and social reforms is a characteristic of a modern, western-style nation. This should be adapted to Indian conditions.
Caste repression and strife between different castes is not uncommon even now. Golwalkar analyses this issue with special interest. The feeling of inequality, of high and low, which has crept into the varna system is comparatively of recent origin. Earlier, he states, the castes were still there, but they were well harmonized as the various limbs of the corporate social being (virat purusha). Together, and by their mutual interdependence in a spirit of identity, they constituted the social order. But he accepts that in the present day, the caste system had degenerated beyond all recognition. Untouchability is a social evil. Positive and persuasive efforts will yield results to combat this menace. Guruji wonders at the perseverance of the victims of oppression for remaining within the folds of the Hindu faith. In spite of the insults and humiliations they have been suffering at the hands of the rest of society in the name of caste for so long, they stubbornly resisted the temptation to renounce their mother faith and opt for an alien one. However, assigning a separate identity to them is not conducive in the long run. Volunteers of the Sangh should work among the downtrodden and successfully integrate them with the mainstream. If the foreign Christian missionaries, having come from far-off lands and working with ulterior motives of mass conversion, could show love and affection to the suffering people, the Hindu society – with positive love for their own people and their dharma – can certainly do it better.
Golwalkar hits the nail precisely on the head on his justification for why Hindu nationalism is the glue that binds people together with a viable slogan. Talk of economic plans and industrial glory cannot stir the people to suffer and sacrifice. We have parallels from Europe where the people were galvanized to join the cause of nationalism by charismatic leaders. Here, Sangh does not look for personal charisma, but demands the total surrender of self to the national ideal. This book advocates a unitary form of government for India as the federal system generates and feeds separatist feelings due to too much autonomy. A clear mooring of Guruji’s nationalist ideal on the native religion of India is visible. He argues that religious conversion of an individual often does not take place after a serious and comparative study of philosophies. It is always by exploitation of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance or by deceptive tactics such as precondition to marriage. This must be stopped.
The Sangh’s attitude to non-Indian religions such as Christianity and Islam has always been a subject of bitter controversy. This is mainly because the leftist intellectuals do not bother to get familiar with its policy which is plainly stated in this book. This Muslim or Christian has perfect freedom of worship as long as they do not seek to destroy or undermine the faith and symbolism of the national society. They should subordinate their exclusive claims for final or solo revelation vis-à-vis the national society. They could bear witness to their faith in life and speech but they should not indulge in any unfair or unspiritual mode of conversion. Muslims and Christians should give up their present foreign mental complexion and merge in the common sub stream of our national life. In short, they have a national responsibility, duty to society, duty to ancestors and personal faith. In the last one, they can choose any path which satisfies one’s spiritual urge.
There is a clear line of demarcation in the thinking of the two stalwarts of Hindutva – Vinayak Savarkar and Golwalkar. While Savarkar was an atheist, Guruji was a practicing Hindu with full faith in god and temple worship. Thus we see him railing against beauty contests and morally depraved movie stars masquerading as India’s cultural icons. On the other hand, he opposes Prohibition and does not mind people having a genuine source of liquor. He is ideologically against communism and is friendly towards western democracies if it suits India’s interests. Being a compiled form of speeches, many chapters are on a preaching style with lot of parables to keep the listeners’ attention riveted on to it what he has to say. Some of the tales are from the Bible!
A few drawbacks may also be pointed out. Guruji suggests that elections to panchayats shall be unanimous as that will help create a force of greater cooperation. This may be theoretically true but may not be practical. His claim that Indian missionaries had reached America before Columbus can only be taken as a big leap of imagination by a patriotic mind. This book was written almost sixty years ago and the chronological fashion of intellectual discourse has changed much in the intervening period. Golwalkar asks the nation’s youth to shun Cricket and take to Kabaddi instead. While the core principles remain unchanged, it would be better if a Sangh ideologue brings out either a commentary to this book or else a fresh initiative to codify its guiding principles in light of almost fifteen years in power and of the twenty-first century,
The book is highly recommended.
Golwalkar defines the mission of the Sangh as a nation-builder which tries to reorganize the national life. This goal is conducive to and the inevitable precondition to realise the dream of world unity and human welfare. We have to stand before the world as a self-confident, resurgent and mighty nation. Forging the scattered elements of Hindu society into an organized and invincible force both on the plane of the spirit and on the plane of material life is the acclaimed program of the Sangh. Right from childhood, Golwalkar used to wonder how and why invaders from faraway lands and far inferior in numbers could defeat Indians and hoist their alien regimes on this soil. It is the lack of cohesion and the unitary spirit that had done us in. Of course, the book always refers to this country as Bharat!
After settling all doubts on Sangh’s mission, Golwalkar goes on to examine how it could be realised in practice. A Hindu should mould his life with an attitude of discipline and self-restraint, which purify and strengthen him to reach the supreme goal in life. There is a trinity of Hindu nationalism – the feeling of burning devotion to the motherland, the feeling of fellowship born out of the realization that we are the children of that great common mother and intense awareness of a common current of national life. Guruji classifies such people as Hindus who revere the nation, respect the ancestral heroes and who subscribe to the philosophical concept that the inner fire that lights up every living being is the same. Moreover, without a firm base of nationalism, to speak of humanity and internationalism would be losing at both ends. Our national philosophy and heritage have always embraced within its fold the highest good of all humanity. A wrong interpretation of ahimsa has deprived the national mind of the power of discrimination, looking upon strength as violence and to glorify our weakness. A strong, militarily powerful nation is critical to ensure a harmonious life to its people. The full manifestation of dharma in human life helps create the spirit of cooperation. In such a democratic scheme, Golwalkar proposes two types of representatives – territorial and functional, the latter being elected from various professions and avocations.
Guruji is patriotic to a fault. This undercurrent of love for one’s homeland ebbs and flows underneath all the arguments as if a universal rhythm that animates the words. He claims that the average man of this country was at one time incomparably superior to the average man of other lands. India has been under foreign yoke of one or the other persuasion for nearly twelve centuries, yet the culture maintained its unbroken continuity from the present to the hoary past. He suggests a plausible answer to this seemingly paradoxical fact. The basis of our national existence was not political power. Rulers were never taken as props of our national life, but saints and sages were its torch-bearers. This was the secret of its survival. This principle should be carried to the modern age as well. State power should be constrained to the duty of protecting its people against foreign invasions and internal strife. Concentration of all power and authority and undivided control of all spheres of life such as education, medical aid and social reforms is a characteristic of a modern, western-style nation. This should be adapted to Indian conditions.
Caste repression and strife between different castes is not uncommon even now. Golwalkar analyses this issue with special interest. The feeling of inequality, of high and low, which has crept into the varna system is comparatively of recent origin. Earlier, he states, the castes were still there, but they were well harmonized as the various limbs of the corporate social being (virat purusha). Together, and by their mutual interdependence in a spirit of identity, they constituted the social order. But he accepts that in the present day, the caste system had degenerated beyond all recognition. Untouchability is a social evil. Positive and persuasive efforts will yield results to combat this menace. Guruji wonders at the perseverance of the victims of oppression for remaining within the folds of the Hindu faith. In spite of the insults and humiliations they have been suffering at the hands of the rest of society in the name of caste for so long, they stubbornly resisted the temptation to renounce their mother faith and opt for an alien one. However, assigning a separate identity to them is not conducive in the long run. Volunteers of the Sangh should work among the downtrodden and successfully integrate them with the mainstream. If the foreign Christian missionaries, having come from far-off lands and working with ulterior motives of mass conversion, could show love and affection to the suffering people, the Hindu society – with positive love for their own people and their dharma – can certainly do it better.
Golwalkar hits the nail precisely on the head on his justification for why Hindu nationalism is the glue that binds people together with a viable slogan. Talk of economic plans and industrial glory cannot stir the people to suffer and sacrifice. We have parallels from Europe where the people were galvanized to join the cause of nationalism by charismatic leaders. Here, Sangh does not look for personal charisma, but demands the total surrender of self to the national ideal. This book advocates a unitary form of government for India as the federal system generates and feeds separatist feelings due to too much autonomy. A clear mooring of Guruji’s nationalist ideal on the native religion of India is visible. He argues that religious conversion of an individual often does not take place after a serious and comparative study of philosophies. It is always by exploitation of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance or by deceptive tactics such as precondition to marriage. This must be stopped.
The Sangh’s attitude to non-Indian religions such as Christianity and Islam has always been a subject of bitter controversy. This is mainly because the leftist intellectuals do not bother to get familiar with its policy which is plainly stated in this book. This Muslim or Christian has perfect freedom of worship as long as they do not seek to destroy or undermine the faith and symbolism of the national society. They should subordinate their exclusive claims for final or solo revelation vis-à-vis the national society. They could bear witness to their faith in life and speech but they should not indulge in any unfair or unspiritual mode of conversion. Muslims and Christians should give up their present foreign mental complexion and merge in the common sub stream of our national life. In short, they have a national responsibility, duty to society, duty to ancestors and personal faith. In the last one, they can choose any path which satisfies one’s spiritual urge.
There is a clear line of demarcation in the thinking of the two stalwarts of Hindutva – Vinayak Savarkar and Golwalkar. While Savarkar was an atheist, Guruji was a practicing Hindu with full faith in god and temple worship. Thus we see him railing against beauty contests and morally depraved movie stars masquerading as India’s cultural icons. On the other hand, he opposes Prohibition and does not mind people having a genuine source of liquor. He is ideologically against communism and is friendly towards western democracies if it suits India’s interests. Being a compiled form of speeches, many chapters are on a preaching style with lot of parables to keep the listeners’ attention riveted on to it what he has to say. Some of the tales are from the Bible!
A few drawbacks may also be pointed out. Guruji suggests that elections to panchayats shall be unanimous as that will help create a force of greater cooperation. This may be theoretically true but may not be practical. His claim that Indian missionaries had reached America before Columbus can only be taken as a big leap of imagination by a patriotic mind. This book was written almost sixty years ago and the chronological fashion of intellectual discourse has changed much in the intervening period. Golwalkar asks the nation’s youth to shun Cricket and take to Kabaddi instead. While the core principles remain unchanged, it would be better if a Sangh ideologue brings out either a commentary to this book or else a fresh initiative to codify its guiding principles in light of almost fifteen years in power and of the twenty-first century,
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 4 Star
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