Guruji’s Lie
IT HAS REMAINED a long-standing puzzle whether the controversial book We or Our Nationhood Defined was authored by MS Golwalkar or was just his translation of a Marathi book written by Ganesh Damodar Savarkar, the elder brother of the famous Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. This is no ordinary authorship dispute. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghchalak—chief—of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, who held the post between 1940 and 1973, remains one of the most influential figures in the Sangh’s history. We, published in 1939 under his name, played a key part in making him a prominent figure within the RSS and was considered the first systematic explication of the Sangh’s ideology. Taking inspiration from Adolf Hitler, it asserted that India belongs to Hindus and that the country’s minorities should be treated along the lines of the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. The book inextricably tied the RSS to the fascist ideology of Nazi Germany.
On 15 May 1963, while addressing a crowd during a celebration of VD Savarkar’s eightieth birth anniversary—which the ideologue’s followers in Mumbai commemorated with a “militarisation week” —Golwalkar claimed that the book was in fact an abridged translation of Ganesh Savarkar’s Rashtramimansa va Hindustanchen Rashtraswarup. Ganesh Savarkar, also known as Babarao Savarkar, was one of the five founding members of the RSS. Rashtramimansa, whose title translates to “Theory of Nations and the Transformation of Hindustan,” was published under the pseudonym “Durgatanay” in 1934, five years before the publication of We.
Golwalkar’s disclosure was not considered newsworthy at the time, and this part of his speech did not appear in any newspaper, according to DR Goyal’s history of the Sangh. But after the Bharatiya Janata Party, the RSS’s political outfit, came to national power in the late 1990s, it was dusted off and held up as a shield against uncomfortable questions that began to be raised about the Sangh’s affinity with Nazism. Ever since, the BJP, the RSS and their supporters have tried to use the claim to distance themselves, and Golwalkar, from the ideology.
Golwalkar’s claim has never met any serious scrutiny. The primary reason is that Babarao’s Marathi book went out of circulation soon after its publication, was never reprinted and has long been forgotten. Babarao himself died in 1945, almost two decades before Golwalkar’s claim. As a result, no contemporary researcher or critic has attempted comparing the two texts.
I found a copy of the 1934 text in the Mumbai Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya, one of the oldest libraries in the city, in October last year. On comparing We to Babarao’s work, one thing became amply clear: Golwalkar’s claim in his 1963 speech was a lie. The love for Nazi Germany expressed in We and the book’s recommendation for India to emulate the Nazis are nowhere to be found in Rashtramimansa.
In the late 1930s and 1940s, many RSS members were enamoured with European fascists. Contemporary accounts suggest that, during this period, Golwalkar sought to turn the RSS into a Nazi-style militia, with the goal of eventually installing himself as führer. Golwalkar’s own writings, and biographical accounts dating to before 1963, also disprove the claim that We was merely a translation.
Golwalkar’s plan to be führer backfired after Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a member of the RSS, which led to a government crackdown on the organisation. As the Nazis and the RSS became increasingly reviled, Golwalkar sought an image makeover, and tried to portray himself as a spiritual guru. It was in this context that he tried to distance himself from his creation in 1963. But, as many researchers and journalists have documented, We and its ideas remain an integral part of the RSS’s worldview, and of its hopes for India.
drew inspiration from and used it as one of his main sources—he acknowledges Babarao’s influence in the preface to . “In compiling this work, I have received GD Savarkar. His work in Marathi has been one of my chief sources of inspiration and help. An English translation of this work is due to be shortly out and I take this opportunity of directing the reader to that book for a more exhaustive study of the subject.” Thus, while writing the book, Golwalkar had no confusion regarding its authorship. He knew of Babarao’s book and endorsed it, but made it clear that was his own work, not a translation. Golwalkar never claimed in his book, or in any of his speeches and writings over the next two and a half decades, that his work was a translation of .
