India is battling for its very soul. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the most powerful organization in India today; complete with a private army of its own, unquestionably obeying its leader who functions on fascist lines on the Fuehrer principle. Two of its pracharaks (active preachers) have gone on to become prime ministers of India. In 1951 it set up a political front, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which merged into the Janata Party in 1977 only to walk out of it in 1980. In issue was its superior loyalty to its parent and mentor, the RSS; not the Janata Party. Within months of its defection, the Jana Sangh reemerged; not with the name under which it had functioned for nearly three decades, but as the Bharatiya Janata Party, deceptively to claim a respectable lineage. The RSS is at war with India's past. It belittles three of the greatest builders of the Indian State - Ashoka, the Buddhist; Akbar, the Muslim; and Nehru, a civilized Enlightened Hindu. It would wipe out centuries of achievement for which the world has acclaimed India and replace that with its own narrow, divisive ideology. This book is a magisterial study of the RSS, from its formation in 1925 to the present day. With scrupulous and voluminous evidence, one of India's leading constitutional experts and political analysts, A.G. Noorani, builds a watertight case to show how the RSS is much more than a threat to communal amity. It poses a wider challenge. It is a threat to democratic governance and, even worse, a menace to India. It threatens the very soul of India. And yet, despite its reach and seemingly overwhelming political influence, the author shows that the RSS can be defeated. The soul of India can be rescued.

"This book is a magisterial study of the RSS, from its formation in 1925 to the present day. With scrupulous and voluminous evidence, one of India's leading constitutional experts and political analysts, A.G. Noorani, builds a watertight case to show how the RSS is much more than a threat to communal amity. It poses a wider challenge. It is a threat to democratic governance and, even worse, a menace to India. It threatens the very soul of India." -- from inside flap.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. It is also the parent of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Modi was himself a career RSS office-holder, or pracharak. This book explores how the RSS and its affiliates have benefitted from India's economic development and concurrent social dislocation, with rapid modernization creating a sense of rootlessness, disrupting traditional hierarchies, and attracting many upwardly mobile groups to the organization. India seems more willing than ever to accept the RSS's narrative of Hindu nationalism--one that seeks to assimilate Hindus into a common identity representing true 'Indianness'. Yet the RSS has also come to resemble 'the Congress system', with a socially diverse membership containing a distinct left, right and center. The organization's most significant dilemma is how to reconcile the assault from its far right on cultural issues like cow protection with condemnations of globalization from the left flank. Andersen and Damle offer an essential account of the RSS's rapid rise in recent decades, tracing how it has evolved in response to economic liberalization and assessing its long-term impact on Indian politics and society.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) continues to make headlines, despite several books tracing its journey. Curiosity about the functioning of the RSS has increased phenomenally as swayamsevaks have risen to top positions in government and the Sangh's core ideas of Hindu Rashtra and Ekatmata have become the mainstream lexicon of our social and political space.

The RSS is the most influential cultural organization in India today, with affiliates in fields as varied as politics, education and trade. This book fundamentally addresses three key questions: Why has the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates expanded so rapidly over the past twenty-five years? How have they evolved in response to India's new socio-economic milieu? How does their rapid growth impact the country's politics and policy? With unprecedented access, Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle lift the curtains to help us understand the inner workings of the Sangh. Backed by deep research and case studies, this book explores the evolution of the Sangh into its present form, its relationship with the ruling party, the BJP, their overseas affiliates and so much more.

India is killing the Ganges, and the Ganges in turn is killing India. Victor Mallet traces the holy river from source to mouth, and from ancient times to the present day, to find that the battle to rescue what is arguably the world's most important river is far from lost.

[Y]our threats are not going to intimidate me. Then why make such unnecessary statements?' - Pinarayi Vijayan, to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh//The RSS feed on fear. Fighting them requires depriving them of it. Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerela, was born in Kannur, ground zero of RSS terror. He has seen the worst that they have to offer. And he's not afraid. At a time when democracy is in danger, with an organization bent on dismantling the secular tradition of India holding the reins of power at the centre and in many states, Vijayan's bold pronouncements challenging the BJP-RSS combine have a comforting quality. They remind us of the spectre in our midst - dividing people, suppressing women, stifling dissent, while slyly doing the biding of the neoliberal elite. More importantly, they reassure those on the left that all is not lost. The battle for a secular and democratic India, against a sectarian and totalitarian RSS, is winnable. Pinarayi Vijayan is proof of that.