Ahmedabad, Jan 2: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh will give thrust to expanding its base in rural India this year. The rural expansion drive, which was decided at a three-day meeting in Agra in the first week of November, is aimed at recruiting cadres for the Sangh and its affiliates at the village level.
After helping the BJP come to power, the RSS feels this is the right time for it to consolidate and build a base in the villages where it is lacking, informed sources said. A cross-section of RSS officials admitted that the Sangh had remained an urban and suburban phenomenon, though its affiliates such as Sewa Bharti had been working extensively in the villages. “Of the 6.5 villages in the country, our vichaar [ideas] reach approximately two lakh villages in some form or the other,” an RSS official said.
While RSS literature and “sewa” (social work) reach the villages, the penetration of shakhas — the primary daily unit of RSS activity — remains low.
RSS official sources in Nagpur, however, underplayed the rural thrust. “After the foundation of the RSS in 1925, our thrust was to reach every State. That was achieved by 1940. The next 25 years were spent taking the RSS to the district level,” Manmohan Vaidya, All India Prachar Pramukh for the RSS, said. Rural expansion of the RSS is part of its natural growth. “We are present in 35,000 places, but we don’t keep a separate account for cities and villages,” he said.
Though the RSS is on a rural expansion drive aimed at recruiting cadres at the village level, Manmohan Vaidya, All India Prachar Pramukh of the organisation, said in Nagpur that the organisation did not talk in terms of figures till it achieved them.
Asked about the RSS’s target for cadre expansion, Mr. Vaidya said: “We don’t talk in terms of figures till we have achieved them.” The RSS runs 43,000 shakhas at present, he added.
An Agra meeting in November led to the RSS Sarkaryavah Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi camp by the end of that month in western Uttar Pradesh and promotion of activities related to penetration at the village level. To begin with, the Sangh is targeting villages connected to the State highways under its Rajmarg Sampark Yojana. “We have held seven-day camps beginning December 25 in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to focus on the villages,” a pracharak in Uttarakhand said. The Sangh aims to cover 10,000 villages by 2015-end in the hill State.
“Guruji [RSS second chief M.S. Golwalkar] said our reach will need to be one per cent in the village and three per cent in the city for the Sangh’s work to be acknowledged by society,” another RSS official said in New Delhi. “We are slowly increasing our rural reach now.”
The RSS remained an upper caste, urban phenomenon for decades. “After its success in mobilising voters in the 2014 Lok Sabha election in 2014, the RSS decided to boost its membership base with a BJP government at the Centre.
It is also using Narendra Modi’s popularity for that,” Nagpur-based RSS observer Dilip Deodhar said.
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