Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar — the RSS founder — was a man of unusual insights and passion.  He was the youngest of a large Deshastha Brahmin family.  Legend has it that he threw the sweets in school since it was in celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday.  He loathed the slavish mentality of the Hindus and sought to activate them.  He was in awe of the revolutionary spirit of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.  However, as he grew up, Dr. Hedgewar saw revolutionary defects in his icons.  He found out that the revolutionaries were high on emotions and totally disorganised.  Besides, they were not able to rouse the common man.

Dr. Hedgewar was not very handsome.  He was freckle faced and dark.  Several doubted his leadership qualities.  But there was some magicial effect or maybe perhaps it was the vision in action that several rallied around him.

To start with, RSS was founded on the day of Vijayadashami.  This is the greatest strength of RSS.

I believe it since I have studied astrology.  Any venture that is started on Vijayadashami Day is bound to triumph.  And so is the RSS going from strength to strength — despite the various weakness it is subject to and powerful enemies who wanted to quell the organisation.

STRENGTH No, 1: SO THIS IS THE STRENGTH NUMBER ONE OF RSS — ITS AUSPICIOUS BEGINNING ON VIJAYADASHAMI DAY.  ALL WEAKENESS — HOWEVER WEAK — AND ALL ENEMIES — HOWEVER POWERFUL — CAN NEVER STOP THE RSS FROM ITS AIM OF A HINDU RASHTRA.

Strength No. 2: The second strength of RSS is its strong ideological mooring. Advaita Vedanta — unqualified non-duality — happens to be the unstated philosophical position of RSS.  The RSS inner circle stands by this position and takes decision in alignment with this ideology.  Most of the senior RSS members believe that the organisation is a direct outcome of Swami Vivekananda’s vision for a strong Hindu society.  Some of the most senior Sanghis that I talked to told me that there is no need for any ideological expositions in RSS for the simple reason that the Swami had already provided one.  One of its first generation leaders — Eknath Ranade — had compiled the message of Swami Vivekananda’s “Hindu Message” in his book — Rousing Call to a Hindu nation.  The simple message of the Swami was that the Kala Chakra had gone to the other round.  Hindu society — that was subject to untold atrocities and barbaric invasions — will now rise.  Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come.  The Swami was right.  The Hindu ideology is now sweeping the world.  Even the eminently Christian Newsweek had proclaimed that the United States of America was now a Hindu nation since 70 percent of its citizens were now stating that Truth is multi-dimensional — something that is a part of the Hindu way of life.

Strength No. 3: Strength Number 3 is no doubt the massive organisational infrastructure that has been built across the past 85 years of its existence.  Today, RSS is the world’s largest voluntary service organisation.  I won’t go into the number part because there are only 3 lies in this world: lies, damned lies and statistics.  Numbers can be fudged any moment and any time.  However, the RSS has a massive organisational structure.  Today, it is perhaps the only organisation in India that can deliver a nation-wide protest anytime.  Its grassroot activists can stop or make during  an emergency — whether it be a protest or relief or even a political rally.  The people’s strength is there.

Strength No. 4:  The remote control is the strength number four of this organisation.  This organisation is famous for that.  They can engineer anything and anytime and everybody will look elsewhere.  Dr. K B Hedgewar had given a famous line: The Sangh won’t do anything.  The Swayamsewak will.  Despite three bans on this organisation, RSS has grown from strength to strength.  That is because the Sangh does not do anything.  It is the swayamsewaks who do it.  Remote control lies elsewhere.  No amount of bans and punitive measure can dislodge the RSS because of its ubiqutous presence.  Despite its international presence, the RSS does not own even a piece of land.  With its past experience during bans, the organisation has learnt how to buck the law without sounding illegal.  That’s a great strength.  Philsoophically, you may call it Wu Wei.  Moving without moving.  The Karate philosophy of open hands is in action.

Postscript: I can go on and on describing the strengths of RSS.  But I don’t want to sound like a hagiographer.  So I will stop with these four strengths.  The next chapter is on the weakness part and there I might ruffle some traditional feathers.

FIND THE SWOT ANALYSIS BELOW:

INTRODUCTION: http://greathindu.com/2010/01/the-swot-analysis-of-rss-today-my-new-book/

STRENGTHS http://greathindu.com/2010/01/swot-analysis-of-rss-strenghts/

WEAKNESS http://greathindu.com/2010/01/swot-analysis-of-rss-weakness/

OPPORTUNITIES http://greathindu.com/2010/01/swot-analysis-of-rss-opportunities/

THREATS http://greathindu.com/2010/01/swot-analysis-of-rss-threats/

CONCLUSION http://greathindu.com/2010/01/swot-analysis-of-rss-conclusions/