Fissures within Hindu society on caste lines have been incessant bugbears for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its affiliates including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and other organisations or individuals who are part of the ecosystem of Hindu nationalistic thought.
Although the RSS, especially in its centenary year, now monopolises the idea of Hindutva, the word and its central thesis—that Hindus are a ‘nation’—preexisted the formation of the RSS. Even then, the same challenge had these individuals and organisations in its bind.
Well before the RSS was born in Nagpur in 1925—and decades before Vinayak Damodar Savarkar wrote the ideological treatise, Essentials of Hindutva in 1923—Bal Gangadhar Tilak, nationalist and Hindu revivalist leader, conceived the Ganesh festival in the 1890s to forge the pan-Hindu identity.
This was aimed at countering divergences between different sects and philosophical schools within Hinduism, more importantly, among various castes.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.
