Matrabhumi or motherland is a recurring theme during daily prayers at the Saraswati Bal Mandir, a higher secondary school affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at Lajpat Nagar in the national capital. “Tell me, what’s wrong in asking the students to be patriotic?” the school principal, Mr Ram Gopal Agarwal, asks.

He denies that the school is espousing any ideology. “It is wrong to believe that Saraswati Bal Mandir schools are teaching anything different from other schools. We follow NCERT syllabus and our schools are affiliated to the CBSE.”

Padma Kant, a farmer, awaiting his grandson’s admission, says that he chose this school because “I have been associated with the RSS.” The school “stresses on discipline and doesn’t exploit in the name of fees” and children, he says, need to be “moulded in a certain way.”

The RSS was founded in 1925 by Dr K. Baliram Hedgewar, a doctor from Nagpur. A social-cultural organisation, it shot into the limelight in 1948 after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a former RSS member, Nathuram Godse. Many prominent leaders of the outfit were arrested and it was banned on February 4, 1948. The ban was lifted after the RSS leaders were acquitted.

The RSS has expanded rapidly over the years and though there is no official data on the number of RSS members, it is conjectured that it has over 10 lakh members or swayamsevaks and organises over 25,000 shakhas across the country.

There has been much debate and controversy about the RSS ideology. The RSS founder, Hedgewar, said, “Even if the British leave, unless the Hindus are organised as a powerful nation, where is the guarantee that we shall be able to protect our freedom?”

The RSS website says: “His (Hedgewar’s) words have proved to be prophetic. Conjointly with Independence, parts of Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and the frontier-areas were sundered from Bharat; and, four and a half decades after the nation’s attaining freedom, Kashmir remains a thorn in the flesh.” It goes on: “Continuous efforts have been there to make Assam a Muslim- majority province. Likewise, no-holds-barred efforts to proselytise by Christian missions continue unabated. Even armed revolt has been engineered (eg, in Nagaland) to carve out independent Christian provinces. Such activities receive ready support and unlimited funds from foreign countries and agencies keenly interested in destabilising Bharat.”

However, a senior RSS functionary, Mr Rakesh Sinha, argues that the “RSS is not some underground militant organisation targeting the minority community. Our work is related to social development, not anti-social activities. Is there any proof to link us with those involved in the Ajmer or Malegaon blasts?”

Former Bajrang Dal chief and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Prakash Sharma is less conciliatory. “Agar ye appeasement policies roki nahien gayee, to iska parinam aage chal kar bhayankar ho sakta hai,” (if these appeasement policies are not stopped, it may have dangerous consequences). He went on to stress that the majority of bomb blasts in the country were linked to Muslim terror organisations.

The Bajrang Dal and the Durga Vahini are the youth wings (of men and women, respectively), of the VHP. A member of the Bajrang Dal.

However, the Bajrang Dal describes its activities as being confined to “protests against insults hurled at Hindu Maan-Bandhus, Hindu traditions, Hindu conventions and beliefs etc… protests against vulgarity, obscenity on television and through beauty contests and oppose illegal infiltration.”

The Durga Vahini or Army of Durga, the young women’s wing of the VHP was established in 1991 by Sadhvi Rithambara, one of the accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

A senior VHP functionary reads aloud the VHP website’s version of the role the Durga Vahini played when the Babri Masjid was demolished: “The blood-stained scenario in Ayodhya on that day rather forced them to forsake their normal female tenderness and affinity and assume a most splendorous form by creating a living, sturdy women’s wall around to protect their brothers who were being assaulted by the security forces with lathis and bullets.” An RSS functionary denies that any RSS activist is involved in any terror incident.