M.S. Golwalkar



Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar was a Hindu nationalist and the second leader of the RSS and an advocate for Hindutva. He devised the concept of creating a "Hindu Rashtra", or in other words, an ethnostate for Hindus and only Hindus. His manifesto, Bunch of Thoughts, is essentially a Hindu Mein Kampf, calling for violence and bigotry against "outsider groups", with three main threats being stated: Muslims, Christians, and communists, in that order.

Golwalkar was an admirer of Adolf Hitler, praising him and the Nazi Party for ensuring the "racial purity" of their nation by purging "the Semitic races" (Jews), but sided with the Allies in World War II and even supported the formation of Israel, sympathizing with the Jews.

Like other Hindutva proponents, Golwalkar was heavily supportive of the Hindu caste system, believing it to be divine law from Manu (the first man according to Hindu texts).

Foundations for a race war
Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers… The Race Spirit has been awakening.

Golwalkar developed his radical vision of Hindu Rashtra whilst India was part of the British Empire, and Indian nationalism was on the rise.

He joined the RSS after being convinced by the organizations' founder, K.B. Hedgewar, after Golwalkar fell into a period of depression following the death of his guru shortly after leaving before his religious ceremony was performed.

After joining the RSS in 1937, Hedgewar groomed Golwalkar to become his successor and was placed in charge of training officers in the organization. During a festival in 1939, Hedgewar declared that Golwalkar would become his successor and stepped down shortly afterwards. His decision was further confirmed when he wrote a message to Golwalkar one day before his death.

After the assassination of Gandhi in 1948, Golwalkar and 200,000 RSS members were arrested. The RSS was banned until 1949, after Golwalkar claimed that he and his party would abide by the laws of the Indian constitution.

Golwalker, praising the Nazi Germany’s racial policies, insisted that… All those not belonging to the national, i.e. Hindu race, Religion, Culture and Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real 'National' life. We repeat: in Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation — satisfying all the five essential requirements of the scientific nation concept of the modern world. Consequently only those movements are truly 'National' as aim at re-building, revitalizing and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation… All others are either traitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots.

The “idiots” can be cured, however… …The foreign races in India must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must loose [sic] their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen's rights. There is, at least, should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races, who have chosen to live in our country.

The techniques of achieving the cure, being… …to keep up the purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of Semitic races – the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.

Legacy
Golwalkar's legacy remains influential in India, with Hindutva parties being dominant in the government (such as the BJP), and Golwalkar is still celebrated by Hindutva proponents (along with Hedgewar).

Current RSS leader, Mohan Bhagwat, has been hard at work to whitewash this side of the RSS to make the party seem more legitimate.