Page 170 - Islam and Far Eastern Religions
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                                                        The aggressive Hindu na-
                                                   tionalism took form in the
                                                   1920’s and spread across India

                                                   in the 1930’s with the militants
                                                   trained in the Shakhas. This or-
                                                   ganization is still very much ac-
                                                   tive to the present day. It is esti-
                                                   mated that there are 300,000
                                                   shakhas across India and 50 -
                                                   100 youth are being trained at
                                                   any given time in each shakha,
                                                   or in other words, they are re-
                                                   ceiving a radical and aggressive
                                                   nationalist indoctrination.  72
              A poster belonging to the fascist
              RSS party. RSS leaders Hedgewar      These figures suggest that there
              (left) and Golwarkar (right)
                                                   are currently at least 30 million
                                                   fanatical Hindu militants ready

              to carry out the most merciless activities. Considering the number of mil-
              itants who went through the Shakha training over the years it becomes
              evident that this number is likely much higher at the present time.
                   The leaders of the RSS were also quite supportive of Hitler’s racial
              policies in addition to those of Mussolini’s. One of the leaders of the RSS,
              Hedgewar, stated that national unity could only be achieved in the ab-
              sence of non-Hindus like Muslims and Christians, because according to
              him, non-Hindus could neither understand, practice, nor appreciate
              Hindu traditions, culture or ideology. Hedgewar’s distorted perspec-
              tives became even more radical under the leadership of the RSS’s second
              president, Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar. “We or Our Nationhood
              Defined”, published by Golwalkar in 1938 contained many favorable ref-





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