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above. Over 200 different organizations are campaigning actively in
India, and various radical nationalistic Hindu groups are active in
America and Europe. Thousands of books and other documents are

printed and websites designed solely for the purpose of spreading the
Hindutva ideology. All these documents are based on distorted infor-
mation which clouds the people’s perception of facts, making them thus
vulnerable to provocation against minorities. These booklets dissemi-
nate lies to the effect that Hindus have been maltreated by centuries of
tyranny by both Muslims and Christians, and they are blamed for all the
90
ills of the country. This smear campaign smacks of the propaganda di-
rected against Jews by the Nazis in the 1930’s. The extent of the RSS’s
control over India is revealed in great detail in an article titled “The New
Indian Right- Soldiers of Hindutva” and published by Achin Vanaik, a
lecturer at the New Delhi Third World Research Academy known for his

work on the Hindutva movement:
“Today, the RSS far outstrips the Left in numbers (estimated at over 2 million),
organised strength in civil society (40,000 shakas or branches), and morale. It runs
thousands of schools and has a plethora of front organisations for all sections of so-
ciety, from housewives to pensioners to retired military personnel, unmatched by
any other force. Its nervous system is a saffron brotherhood of pracharaks, several
thousand supposedly celibate, spartan, full-time organizers, incorruptibly devoted
to the pure Hindu Rashtra of their dreams. The all-male local shakhas are animat-
ed by a powerful ethic of loyalty and obedience, with an emphasis on physical cul-
ture and body-building through calisthenics and drill. Neighbourhood implanta-
tion is strong: as guardians of wisdom, the shakha will only allow a boy to attend
with the consent and daily knowledge of his family. The campaign against the
Ayodhya mosque, the greatest in scale and depth since the National Movement in
India, would have been impossible without the unparalleled local infrastructure
and unified central command of the RSS. The Hindutva phenomenon is more

Islam And Far Eastern Religions