Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New Delhi (Fides Service) - Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh RSS (National Volunteers Corps) is a movement notorious for anti Christian and anti Muslim violence in India. A fundamentalist Hindu organisation which promotes with violence the Hindutva nationalist ideology with the slogan “one nation, one culture, one religion”. Its members accuse Christians of destroying Indian culture and creating economic and social inequality among the poor and use social assistance centres as a mask for proselytising.
Because of its ideology and past and recent history RSS is among 39 ideological danger groups listed by US based Terrorism Research Centre.
Some experts in Indian politics say RSS is hierarchically organised and spread all over India and runs 300.000 schools for ideology and training and controls 10 million members and has about 100 supporters.
Recently the organisation was denounced by the Global Council of Indian Christians for launching campaigns of hatred and religious intolerance. Christians recalled that RSS militants were involved in the brutal murder of Australian Protestant missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999 in Orissa. Recently one of those responsible for the crime Dara Singh saw his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court of India.
RSS was formed in 1925 as a militant vanguard of the Hindu Mahasabha Hindu party started in 1919 by Veer Savarkar. It promoted Hinduism which was nationalist and racist more than religious with an ideology according to which Hindus are of the same blood and therefore the obligation to adhere to the nation’s civilisation and culture. Some historians recall that the hooked cross is a millennial Indian symbol and that Hitler’s SS were similar to India’s RSS.
RSS doctrine says that an Indian Hindu who converts to another faith must be cut off from the body of the nation unless he reconverts. Aggression on Christians and mobilisation for re-conversion are two faces of the ideological campaign launched by RSS repeatedly.
RSS finds fertile ground among the high castes. Its main areas of influence are northern and western India. It recruits mainly young men. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 30/5/2005 righe 30 parole 302)
