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Mapping the hidden structure of an unaccountable organisation

RSS: MAPPING THE SUBTERRANEAN 

The RSS has no official registration. No requirement to declare its income. No public records of who belongs to it. And yet, for a hundred years, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has reshaped the political and cultural life of India.

 In the CARAVAN July cover story, Amrita Singh uncovers how the RSS operates from the shadows—expanding its reach through an intricate web of front organisations, proxy institutions and legal loopholes.

Keshav Kunj—its newly constructed Delhi headquarters, whose land and finance records Singh digs into—is the perfect metaphor for what the RSS is today: immense in scale and ambition, but built to evade scrutiny.

From its early admiration of Mussolini and Nazi Germany to its modern-day role in building temples, rewriting history, and influencing elections, the RSS has always worked through quiet capture—not open confrontation. “The RSS is a ghost,” one observer told Singh. “It can do anything. We know nothing about it.”

It claims to be a “cultural” movement. But it drafts legislation, deploys volunteers at polling booths, supplies the BJP with leadership, and builds ideological infrastructure across the country. Because it is not registered under any Indian law, the RSS cannot technically own property, enter contracts, or raise funds. But it does all this through affiliates like the Shree Keshav Smarak Samiti and Rashtriya Sewa Bharti. These groups act in plain sight—while insulating the Sangh from scrutiny or accountability. There are no membership records to confirm who belongs. Which is how it can deny, to this day, that Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse was one of its own—despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot told Singh that the RSS doesn’t seek to take over the state. Its aim is bigger: to control society itself. “Politics,” he says, “is just a means to a more supreme end.”

Read the cover story from our latest issue:

https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/rss-unaccountable-organisation-keshav-kunj?utm_campaign=curtain_raiser&utm_campaign_id=194&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

  
The inauguration of Keshav Kunj, the New Delhi headquarters of the RSS, represents how far the organisation has come and how it is shaping the country to its will.

Amrita Singh
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