RSS Wants to Reach Gen Z. It’s Been Doing This for Decades | LME 154 | Pooja Prasanna

The RSS’s Sarsanghachalak or its chief Mohan Bhagwat just met more than 2,000 Gen Z and Gen Alpha students from across India. The timing was deliberate- coming right on the heels of the protests over the NEET paper leak that forced Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.  Bhagwat played the sympathetic elder- backing the youth, calling protest a legitimate part of democracy, and asserting that questioning power isn’t anti-national. All this while not overtly criticising the government. Many saw it as the RSS reaching out to a new generation.But there's nothing new about it.The RSS has always been about catching them young. That India’s future must be shaped from its classrooms.  In fact, one of their first major initiatives after Independence wasn't political at all. It was educational: opening a primary school in Uttar Pradesh in 1952, as noted by historian Tanika Sarkar.  That’s why schools, colleges, textbooks, teachers, and universities have remained central to the Sangh Parivar’s long-term project. Today, that influence extends far beyond the RSS’s own schools. It reaches curriculum debates, NCERT textbooks, the National Education Policy, Sainik Schools, universities, and even appointments to key educational institutions. So why has education always been such an important battleground? Let me explain. Let's take a quick moment before we go into the episode. Our freedom struggle was also a great example of what strong journalism can do. Some of our freedom fighters were journalists too. Like Gandhi and Ambedkar. But that history brings us to a critical question today: when will our press become independent?  The time is now. It is your turn to fight for your journalists' freedom.  For ₹1947, you get a 6-month subscription to The News Minute and Newslaundry. So get one for yourself or a couple of them to gift to your friends  Avail 1947 offer: https://pages.razorpay.com/tnm-1947Like Pooja's LME? Support the show:https://rzp.io/rzp/support-lmeLike our journalism? Become a subscriber:https://www.thenewsminute.com/subscriptionFollow our WhatsApp channel:https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbDIedz2phHLQZTyNj1W Before we look at what’s happening today, let's take a step back and understand what happened a century ago.  The RSS was founded in 1925 by Keshav Hedgewar.  Unlike its electoral arm, the BJP—the RSS describes itself as a cultural organization devoted to nation-building. Because for them, nation building was not just about winning elections. Governments can come and go, policies can be reversed but lasting political change comes only after cultural and social change. And education and children sit right at the centre of that vision. If you take an RSS shakha- its divided into four age groups The first two are- Shishu swayamsevaks Bal swayamsevaks In her essay Educating the Children of the Hindu Rashtra, historian Tanika Sarkar has argued that education has never been a peripheral activity for the RSS. It has been central to its attempt to shape society across generations. Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot makes a similar point. He says that rather than focusing only on winning elections, the Sangh Parivar has spent decades building institutions that shape everyday life, from labour unions and student organisations to schools and educational bodies. That thinking eventually gave rise to Vidya Bharati, the RSS's education wing. It was set up in 1977 to devise curricula for courses that would teach RSS ideology.  Later, Vidya Bharathi started running formal and informal schools.  It now claims to have more than 12,000 formal schools with millions of students. It also runs informal schools Almost four and a half thousand Saraswati Shiksha kendras and around 700 Sanskar Kendras These include Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, senior secondary schools, tribal schools, hostels, and educational institutions spread across the country. Then, there are around 19,000 Ekal Vidyalayas- single teacher schools in remote locations, run by a non-profit called the Friends of Tribals Society, which is linked to the RSS. It’s been widely documented how these schools help spread the Hindutva ideology The Vidya Bharati is straightforward about its objective. Its own mission statement says it seeks to build “a younger generation committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour.” Walk into a Vidya Bharati school and you’ll find many things that would look familiar in other Indian schools — morning assemblies, yoga, Sanskrit prayers, moral education, cultural activities and a strong emphasis on discipline. By itself, operating faith- or value-aligned schools isn't unique in India Christian mission schools, Islamic madrasas, Sikh, Hindu and Jain trust run institutions have operated for decades.  But the difference, as many scholars have argued, is the scale. Unlike most educational networks, Vidya Bharati is part of a much larger ideological movement. Its influence extends into politics, policy, and even the government. And its ambitions extend well beyond running private schools.Students in many Vidya Bharati institutions study an additional series of books called Sanskriti Bodhmala.These books introduce children to what the organisation describes as India's civilisational heritage.Supporters say they correct a history that ignored India's intellectual achievements and overemphasised colonial narratives.Critics, however, point to passages that describe the philosopher Kanada as the world's first atomic scientist, the sage Bharadwaja as the father of aviation, and the ancient surgeon Sushruta as the inventor of plastic surgery.The RSS believes these books recover knowledge overlooked by colonial and Marxist historians. It’s their effort to decolonise education. Now decolonising education, by itself, does not warrant a disagreement. Across the world, scholars have argued that education systems shaped by colonial rule should make more space for indigenous histories, languages, and knowledge traditions.But the problem is that teaching such claims to children blur the line between mythology, philosophy, civilisational tradition and evidence-based history.The disagreement is also over whose idea of decolonisation becomes the new curriculum. Historians such as Tanika Sarkar, Romila Thapar, Aditya Mukherjee, and many others argue that what is being presented as decolonisation often amounts to replacing one ideological framework with another — one rooted in Hindutva rather than academic consensus. So what should schools actually do?Should they simply teach knowledge that has emerged through academic consensus?Or should they also shape a particular cultural and civilisational identity?For the RSS, the answer has long been clear.Education is not just about producing skilled workers.It is about producing a certain kind of citizens.And the idea has gradually moved from the margins into mainstream policy. A turning point came after 2014, within months of the BJP forming the Union government.  The Indian Express reported that then Union education minister Smriti Irani held a series of meetings with organisations affiliated with the RSS. Like Vidya Bharati, ABVP, Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh, Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana, Sanskrit Bharti, and Vigyan Bharti, and others. Collectively, these organizations have spent decades arguing for changes to school curriculum, textbooks, higher education, and research. Many of these ideas later found expression in the National Education Policy, or NEP, introduced in 2020. The policy places much greater emphasis on Indian Knowledge Systems, Hindi, classical languages, indigenous traditions, and India's intellectual heritage. While some educationists welcomed aspects of this shift, others warned that Indian Knowledge Systems could become a vehicle for presenting ideological claims as settled academic knowledge. That concern has become more pronounced with changes to school textbooks. In recent years, NCERT textbooks have undergone extensive revisions. Chapters have been rewritten, condensed, or removed. Sections on the Mughals, caste movements, secularism, Gandhi’s assassination, and the Gujarat riots have all changed in different ways across classes and editions. Earlier this year, The Telegraph reported that an internal Programme Office helping prepare new NCERT textbooks is headed by Gajanan Londhe, the former executive director of the Samvit Research Foundation, an organisation linked to the RSS.NCERT claimed it had no information about the Programme Office.But EdCIL, a government-owned consultancy, identified consultants working there and described their role in curriculum preparation.According to the Telegraph, the Programme Office reviews drafts, contributes content, and suggests changes before textbooks are finalised. The episode raised serious questions about transparency. Who is writing India’s textbooks? Who is reviewing them? And how much should the public know about that process? It has happened even in states governed by BJP. For example, in Karnataka, when Basavaraj Bommai became the chief Minister in 2022, there were a slew of changes made to textbooks.  The revisions included removing lessons written by several Dalit, progressive and minority writers, along with sections on figures such as Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru in some textbooks. At the same time, new lessons on RSS figures such as Hedgewar and Savarkar were introduced, and some chapters were rewritten to place greater emphasis on themes such as Sanatana Dharma. But what’s important to note is that there was push back. There were widespread protests from opposition parties, writers, historians, teachers, academics and civil society groups, who accused the government of "saffronising" education. Following the backlash, the Karnataka government restored several deleted portions, including references to Ambedkar as the architect of the Constitution.  Changing the syllabus is only half the strategy. The other half is controlling who runs higher education. A series of Vice-Chancellors appointed to institutions have either had explicit ties to Sangh affiliates or faced accusations of prioritizing ideological alignment over academic merit. Like Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, who became the JNU Vice-Chancellor in 2022.Before taking charge, she had publicly praised the RSS and argued that the organisation had been misunderstood in public discourse. In Kerala, three vice chancellors attended an RSS event in June this year which led to much furore In 2023, Karnataka saw protests against the vice chancellor of the Central University of Karnataka for organizing RSS events on university campus.Teachers' associations and student groups have repeatedly alleged growing political influence over appointments and university governance.The Union government rejects those allegations.It maintains that appointments follow the due process.But universities are also only part of the picture. The RSS and its affiliated organisations have also become increasingly involved in shaping conversations around higher education itself. One example is the growing emphasis on Indian Knowledge Systems. Here again, the argument is decolonisation and embracing civilisational achievements. But the idea also raises an important question.Where do we draw the line between recovering neglected knowledge......and promoting claims that are not supported by historical or scientific evidence? Ones that only fit the RSS’s worldview. You've probably heard speeches claiming that ancient India had plastic surgery, stem-cell technology, genetic engineering, aircraft or advanced nuclear science thousands of years ago.Some of these claims have been made by politicians.Some by public intellectuals.And some have featured in discussions around Indian Knowledge Systems.The big question here is this: Why would any organisation spend decades focusing on schools, universities and textbooks?Because education is not just about getting a degree.It is one of the ways a society decides how it understands itself.Long before we form our own political opinions, schools shape our understanding of the nation. They influence who we remember as builders of India, who we see as threats, which ideas deserve celebration and which stories receive less attention.And that is why education has never been completely separate from politics. And RSS has understood this a long time ago. Avail 1947 offer: https://pages.razorpay.com/tnm-1947Like Pooja's LME? Support the show:https://rzp.io/rzp/support-lmeLike our journalism? Become a subscriber:https://www.thenewsminute.com/subscriptionFollow our WhatsApp channel:https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbDIedz2phHLQZTyNj1WProduced by Megha Mukundan, script by Lakshmi Priya and Pooja Prasanna, edit by Nikhil Sekhar and Jaseem Ali, Camera by Ajay R