By Arun Srivastava
Notwithstanding its best efforts in projecting its Baudhik Pramukhs (intellectual chiefs),Vicharaks and Prajna Pravah (overarching “intellectual wing” of the RSS that acts as a think-tank for scholars, academics, and intellectuals), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is unhappy with the number of Hindus in its formal membership umbrella. The RSS has decided to focus on the youths to secure long-term ideological continuity, and build a dedicated volunteer base, to counteract perceived cultural disconnects in an increasingly digital era.
The Hindutva organization views engaging students and the “Gen-Z” as essential for nation-building and cultivating future leaders. Launching its connect with the youths of Bengal, it’s starting a month-long drive to reach at least 2.5 lakh youth members across urban and rural West Bengal. This outreach campaign focuses on promoting RSS’s Hindu nationalist ideology to exploit the electoral gains in Bengal to its maximum. The Sangh believes that instilling “nationalist” and cultural values in young minds ensures the eternal vibrancy and endurance of its core philosophy.
Facing a shifting political landscape and ideological apathy among Gen-Z and millennials, the RSS is seriously striving to ensure its core ideology remains relevant and supported by the next generation. It intends to provide physical fitness, discipline, and Hindutva-compatible moral education to children and young adults through the saakhaas. The RSS would encourage youths to acquire global education and professional skills, however with the rider that they apply their expertise to the development of India along Hindu nationalist lines. It also plans to expand its footprint among students (including professional college students) and young demographics through grassroots initiatives, educational projects, and disaster relief.
So far, the main focus of the RSS in Bengal has been the non-Bengali youths, primarily the migrants from Bihar and eastern UP. Sangh has cleverly targeted the non-Bengali populations and youth in Bengal as part of a strategic shift to expand its influence across diverse demographics in the state. Non-Bengalis (primarily Marwaris, Biharis, and people of UP origin) make up roughly 15% of Bengal’s population and are heavily concentrated in urban and industrial hubs like Kolkata, Howrah, and the North Bengal corridor. The RSS has successfully utilized this established base of support in these areas to drive up its grassroots mobilization.
Expectedly, the RSS has launched massive youth outreach campaigns for its centenary celebrations, aiming to recruit students from engineering and medical colleges, as well as urban youth in main cities, using traditional culture and Hindu nationalist ideology as primary draws. So far, the Sangh has been widely perceived in the state as an organization driven by a non-Bengali leadership, drawing its core support from non-Bengali trading communities and the Hindi-speaking belt. To counter this limitation, the organization has now adapted its strategy, focusing on ideological training, social work, and grassroots programs to integrate native Bengali youth alongside non-Bengali migrants. RSS basically relies on communal polarization in the cosmopolitan belts to counter the Trinamool Congress-aligned regional ‘Son of the Soil’ (a la Bangla Pokkho) and Bengali-centric ethnolinguistic identity campaigns.
However, RSS is keenly aware that the modern-day youth, irrespective of the fact whether they are from urban or rural areas, are drawn to luxury over traditional nationalism, largely due to globalization, the rise of digital culture, and a shift toward individualism. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook expose youth to global celebrity culture. Displaying luxury is often used for social validation, upward mobility, and curating a successful personal identity. Youth increasingly value personal happiness, self-development, and experiential living rather than tying their self-worth to national or geopolitical boundaries.
Growing economies and higher disposable incomes have made high-end lifestyles more accessible to working and middle-class youth. Many seek to enjoy the fruits of modernization rather than adhere to older, traditional obligations. However, in India, many sectors are now in decline after a few years of relative growth, and corporate sectors are shifting their bases to tier-2 cities, where they offer smaller salaries to their employees, so as to not hinder their relentless profit making. The BJP government led by Narendra Modi is precious little to help the youth work force, who are increasingly faced with the threat of job loss, as the capitalists continue to make record-breaking profits.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat ought to know that Sangh’s emphasis on cultural roots and nation-building is empty rhetoric which ultimately would not help the youth in shaping a developed future. RSS rebranding is purely cosmetic and masks the underlying move of institutionalizing a permanent Hindutva social base. Most of the non-Bengalis living in the suburb of Calcutta are OBCs and EBCs, who have been desperate to have a political party, which should espouse their interest. Earlier, they had pinned their hope on the CPI(M), rallying behind it but unfortunately it dumped them. The leaders from these communities never found a respectable position in the Left parties.
Denied of opportunity, they have shifted their allegiance to saffron ecosystem. It would be wrong to construe that they did it out of their reverence for Hindutva or that they wholeheartedly subscribe to the philosophy of RSS. They will desert it the day they come to realise that BJP has been using them for its political gains. And the functioning of the month-old BJP government simply strengthens this belief. RSS will launch the enrolment drive in mid-August, till the second week of September, with the Sangh organising small programmes for youths in every gram panchayat and municipal ward across the state.
Biplab Roy, the RSS’s Dakshinbanga Prant Prachar Pramukh, was absolutely wrong in his recent saying; “The people of Bengal are nationalists, and that sense of nationalism has become even more pronounced after the change. Through special programmes for the youth in both villages and towns, we will work to inspire over 2.5 lakh young people with a nationalist ideology”. The fact is just opposite. The people are living under the shadow of lawlessness and rampant violence. People are unwilling to speak their minds. Even the intelligentsia and academics are quietly watching the developments. Sitting in the College Street Coffee house, they foresee more bad days are ahead.
Bengal BJP government being guided by Amit Shah is engaged in the turf war of weaponisation of societal relations and ethos. Even after a month of BJP government started functioning, pelting of eggs and stones at opposition leaders continues on the pretext of manifestation of peoples’ aakrosh (resentment). The matter had to be raised before the Calcutta High Court. While the government is yet to come out with the blue print of improving micro or small industrial clusters and take rural arts and crafts to people across the globe, the overzealous rulers have rendered around 7 lakh pavement hawkers across Calcutta jobless. They have been forced to starve.
For the RSS, youth outreach is an existential and ideological necessity. Sangh desperately needs energetic demographic of young minds to physically train cadres, perpetuate Hindutva ideology, and fuel its long-term grassroots and political ambitions. RSS envisions a fundamental shift in India’s societal and cultural identity. To achieve this, it requires lifelong dedicated volunteers (pracharaks) and grassroots organizers. In an era of Gen-Z and digital information, capturing the youth’s ideological allegiance is necessary to dominate social media, counter liberal narratives, and sustain political power. Electorally, the youth base is a primary target for transforming cultural pride into tangible votes for the political ecosystem of the Sangh.
Recent surveys indicate that an increasingly inquisitive and politically conscious youth demographic is heavily scrutinizing the RSS. Interestingly, the political expansion strategy of the RSS and BJP relies on grassroots ideological mobilization while keeping the opposition preoccupied. By dictating the national narrative and promoting localized social engineering, they continuously force regional and national alliances to react to contentious identity politics rather than governance issues. This they intentionally resort to for simply distracting the people, especially the youth. (IPA Service)
