hindutva didn't appear out of nowhere. and it definitely didn't begin in 2014. the ideology has much deeper roots, drawing on ideas of hindu political unity that have evolved over centuries and been reinterpreted by different movements. the rss didn't invent those ideas,it organized them into one of the most disciplined political projects modern india has ever seen.
beneath the language of "hindu unity" lies a much older struggle over who gets to define hindu society and who gets to rule it. some writers trace that conflict back to the maratha period, pointing to tensions between the maratha monarchy and sections of the brahmin elite.
the obsession with preserving brahmanical social order didn't begin in 1925. you can see versions of it centuries earlier. even shivaji maharaj's coronation became a battlefield over caste legitimacy. despite building an empire through military and political skill, he still had to seek recognition from brahmin priests to be declared a "proper" kshatriya. the message was clear: even the king wasn't above brahmanical authority.
the rss simply inherited that logic and modernized it.
while everyone else treated politics like something that happens every five years, the rss understood that real power is built long before ballots are cast. they built shakhas, schools, student groups, unions, charities, publishing houses, temples, welfare networks, think tanks. they weren't just chasing votes. they were manufacturing common sense.
and none of this happened in a vacuum. every time people try to sanitize the rss as just a "cultural organization," they conveniently forget how often violence has sat alongside its politics.
after gandhi's assassination, the government banned the rss amid concerns about the climate of communal hatred surrounding the killing. after the babri masjid demolition in 1992, it was banned again. over the decades, members or affiliates of the wider sangh parivar have repeatedly been linked to communal mobilization and riots, from anti-minority violence to campaigns built on fear, rumours, and dehumanization.
that's the pattern. first manufacture a siege mentality. then tell people they're the victims. then point them toward an enemy. once the blood is spilled, everyone suddenly acts like it was spontaneous, as if hatred just materialized out of thin air.
whether it's the years leading up to babri, the pogrom in gujarat in 2002, repeated incidents of vigilante lynchings in the name of cow protection, or the countless local flare-ups fueled by rumours and inflammatory rhetoric, the politics is remarkably consistent: polarization creates solidarity, fear creates obedience, and violence redraws the boundaries of who belongs.
the 2000s brought another set of uncomfortable questions. investigations into the samjhauta express bombing, the mecca masjid blast, the ajmer dargah blast, and the 2008 malegaon blast led investigators to individuals associated with radical hindu nationalist networks, including figures linked to organizations within the broader sangh ecosystem. these cases shattered the long-held assumption that terrorism in india could only come from one community and forced the country to confront the reality of violent hindu extremist networks.
even where prosecutions later faltered or courts acquitted some accused, the investigations themselves exposed the existence of organized extremist circles operating under the banner of militant hindu nationalism. that history cannot simply be erased because it is politically inconvenient.
the larger lesson isn't that every volunteer or every organization is responsible for every act of violence. it's that ideas have consequences. when political rhetoric repeatedly paints minorities as civilizational threats, traitors, or invaders, violence becomes easier to justify. movements create climates as much as they create policies, and history shows that communal mobilization has too often been followed by communal bloodshed.
one of the darkest episodes came after hemant karkare began investigating the 2008 malegaon blast. his investigation led to the arrests of sadhvi pragya, lt. col. purohit, and others accused of involvement in a hindu extremist network. instead of allowing the investigation to run its course, karkare himself became the target of relentless political attacks. he was accused of fabricating evidence, defaming hindu organizations, and acting against the nation.
when karkare was killed during the 26/11 mumbai attacks, conspiracy theories quickly emerged from multiple quarters, but none have been substantiated by official investigations. what remains undeniable, however, is that the officer leading one of the country's most politically sensitive terror investigations was vilified long before his death, and the case itself became a political battlefield rather than simply a criminal prosecution.
retired maharashtra ig of police s. m. mushrif's 2009 book Who Killed Karkare? argues that hemant karkare's death was linked to the politically sensitive investigations he was leading into hindu extremist networks rather than solely the official account of the 26/11 attacks. the book became one of the most influential critiques of the official narrative, but its conclusions remain disputed and have not been accepted by the courts or official investigations.
mushrif bases this argument on what he describes as several unresolved issues:
karkare's investigation had led to the arrests of sadhvi pragya singh thakur, lt. col. prasad purohit, and others linked to the malegaon case, making the probe politically explosive.
karkare had reportedly faced sustained public attacks and accusations after pursuing the investigation.
his bulletproof jacket disappeared after his death and was never recovered, raising questions about the loss of potential forensic evidence.
mushrif argues there were inconsistencies in the official timeline and sequence of events surrounding the deaths of karkare, ashok kamte, and vijay salaskar.
he points to alleged failures in police coordination, delayed reinforcement, and conflicting accounts of movements and communications during the operation.
he alleges that elements within the intelligence bureau influenced terror investigations by steering attention away from hindu extremist suspects, though this allegation has never been accepted by any court or official inquiry.
he argues that the malegaon, samjhauta express, mecca masjid, and ajmer dargah investigations revealed a broader pattern that challenged earlier assumptions about the nature of terrorism in india.
these are the central claims made by mushrif. no official investigation or court has concluded that karkare was assassinated as part of a conspiracy, and the official account remains that he was killed by the 26/11 attackers.
mushrif also points to forensic and evidentiary issues that he argues were never satisfactorily resolved. he notes that the prosecution's assertion that ajmal kasab fired at the officers from inside the police vehicle was not accepted by the trial court. he further argues that the bullets recovered from karkare's body could not be conclusively matched to the recovered weapons attributed to the terrorists, meaning the available ballistic evidence did not definitively identify which assailant fired the fatal shots. mushrif presents these issues as reasons to question aspects of the official reconstruction of the encounter, although no court or official inquiry concluded that karkare was killed as part of a conspiracy.
the rss is far stronger than most people give it credit for. people think its biggest achievement was winning elections. it wasn't.
its biggest achievement was capturing culture and embedding itself across the institutions that actually keep the state running.
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