The RSS–NU Parallel

Two organizations were born, one in 1925 in India, and the other in 1926 in Indonesia – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) respectively – preaching similar ideologies that had to do largely with the well-being of the majority community of their countries viz. Hindu and Muslim respectively, at a time when they were in the throes of the struggle for freedom from their European colonizers – England and Holland respectively.

Both of them completed a century of their existence – RSS last year, and NU this year – demonstrating stability and strong-willed progress, drawing adequate attention from their sympathizers, detractors, the media, general public and also the outside world, though in differing degrees. Gauging the traction both of them enjoy in their respective countries, demonstrating close similarities as well as stark contrasts, it is worth going into investigating the related contexts, at the backdrop of the civilizational bond between their host nations, India and Indonesia, existing for around two millennia. 

Similarities and Contrasts

The similarities begin at the time-period of their formation –around the first quarter of the twentieth century, only a year apart from the other, and around two decades before their countries became independent. The other similarity is about identifying with and rooting for the majority community of their countries, setting objectives for community’s well-being based on historical and current perspectives, and working towards achieving those objectives guided by set visions, missions drawn and redrawn from time to time, and through well-structured organizational mechanisms.

Another similarity is about their involvement in the freedom struggle in their respective countries – historically, they don’t appear to have fought the colonizers under organizational banners, though their followers may have had contributed their share in individual capacities.

The contrasts are many, the obvious being the different communities they primarily identify with – Hindu and Muslim. Although that is very basic, it possesses a special dimension attributable not only to the medieval history of (a controversially termed) Islamic conquest of India causing later partition of India, but also a millennium and half old pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist history of Indonesia. Another equally basic contrast is about their internal structure – while RSS is a proponent of the Hindutva ideology, its office-bearers do not necessarily possess a Hindu theological background; NU officials on the other hand, are supposed to be Islamic scholars of a particular level of religious learning.

The other contrasts are about the style of functioning, involvement in domestic politics, competition at home and global presence. While RSS functions mostly as the mother organization for its various organs operating in various fields of socio-religio-cultural importance, NU involves directly in the matters like running a huge network of boarding schools and universities. As far as politics is concerned, both RSS and NU have their stakes in the matter, though they handle it differently – while RSS has its political arm in the entity of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), NU lends its vote-bank support to the season’s favourite, and secures in return ministerial berths for its officials. Globally speaking, RSS’s ideological presence is felt outside India through the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) network among the Indian diaspora across the world, NU does not seem to have such an organizational presence outside Indonesia, though its followers are spread across the world. While RSS does not have any competition worth its name and virtually enjoys a monopoly position in the Hindutva space in India, NU does have a close competitor named Muhammadiyah. NU stands by the state ideology of ‘Pancasila’ (Sanskrit ‘Pancha-Shila’) and advocates ‘tolerant’ or ‘Indonesian Islam’ that accommodates local pre-Islamic traditions, whereas Muhammadiyah has been a proponent of ‘pure’ (read Middle-Eastern) Islam throughout.

It is however notable that although NU is younger to Muhammadiyah by over a decade, it has earned the position of being the largest socio-religio-culturally as well as politically influential Islamic organization of Indonesia (where Muslim population is around 88 percent, and Hindu population is less than two percent), in due course of time.

Rival Traditions

Why India needs to compare these two unconnected entities – RSS and NU - and examine their similarities or otherwise? There is arguably a great hidden potential in doing that. Although both RSS and NU had initially envisioned the idea of seeing post-independence India and Indonesia emerging as a Hindu Rashtra and an Islamic State respectively, both seem to have come down to an ideological position where the said objectives don’t seem to be of priority or even relevance anymore. While RSS appears to have reached this position recently, especially going by the recent speeches of its chief, NU had seemingly abandoned that thought a few decades ago, going by its track record of positioning itself as a culturally pluralistic and politically centrist organization in Indonesia’s public space.

What this should mean to Indians, especially those concerned with India’s foreign policy in the eastern Indo-Pacific, inseparable as it is from the legacy of Indic civilizational connection of that geography, and the nation’s geopolitical well-being in its extended neighbourhood, along with a strategic advantage in the long term? The hitherto-held perception of India’s soft power emanating largely from the said Indic civilizational connection also needs to be examined simultaneously, especially in the context of inevitably ever-modifying socio-cultural circumstances in the Southeast Asia region, almost a whole of which was rightfully labelled as ‘Indo-sphere’ around eight decades ago.

There also exists a sizeable slice of Indonesian population, especially the single-largest segment of the Javanese, who are Muslim officially but ‘Javanist’ practically, given to ‘Javanism’ (meaning spiritually-seeking cultism in the ‘Argumentative Indian’ or arguably the Upanishadic way). This should sound as music to the ears of those trying uncovering the embedded Indic influence. But, that’s a completely different and independent subject in its own way. Notwithstanding that, the case of NU’s socio-politically influential position and pluralistic agenda in Indonesia, paired with RSS’s unprecedentedly spreading and deep-seating influence in India, with its stated position of treating every Indian as ‘Hindu’, deserves to be examined by plotting it together on the same canvas, in the larger interest of all concerned.

(The writer is a Ph.D. researcher in international relations. Views personal.)