The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ, National Volunteers' Organisation), also known as the Sangh or the RSS, is a Hindu nationalist organization in India. It was founded in 1925 by Dr.K.B. Hedgewar. The RSS is active throughout India and abroad as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.
Their general philosophical outlook is cultural nationalism known as integral humanism, aimed at preserving the spiritual and moral traditions of India. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu nationalist Movement in India, Columbia University Press, 1998 The RSS believes that Hinduism is not simply a religion but a way of life. The proclaimed purpose of the organization is "serving the nation and its people in the form of God - Bharata Mata (Mother India) and protecting the interests of the People who treat India as their motherland". As it reflects in their everyday hymn before the saffron flag - their real Guru, Param Waibhavan ney tumetat swa rashtram which in Sanskrit means, "for establishing you on the supreme pedestal of glory, o my motherland I shall lay everything that belongs to me".
They have participated actively in the political process through the Bharatiya Janata Party. They are well-organized and have a heirarchial structure to their organization, with the sarsanghchalak being the highest rank.
The RSS was banned in India thrice during periods in which the government of the time considered them a threat to the state: in 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, during the 1975 Emergency in India, and after the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, in order. The bans were subsequently lifted after the Supreme Court of India declined to uphold the bans due to lack of evidence of their involvement in the alleged activities.
The RSS continues to be viewed as controversial due to its often violent commitment to stop conversions of Hindus and to "organise" Hindu society, and by what some academics and commentators have called its "Fascist" tendencies. Its numbers have been bolstered by the rise of its associated Sangh Parivar members, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party.
