India: Why Does the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Resent Cricket?

India Ink / The New York Times Blogs, July 2, 2013

Why Does the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Resent Cricket?
By VAIBHAV VATS

Saurabh Das/Associated Press
A cricket match between India and Australia in progress in Nagpur, Maharashtra, on Oct. 28, 2009.
Nagpur, a city of nearly 2.5 million in central Indian state of Maharashtra, has the slow rhythms of a small town. The noise and edginess of the new Indian metropolis, the gargantuan shopping malls and luxury automobiles, have yet to overwhelm it. Nagpur seeks half-hearted recognition as India’s Orange City, for being a major trade center for oranges cultivated in the region. Nagpur makes an appearance on the national stage when the right-wing guardians of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), pronounce their views on Indian politics or society from their headquarters in the city.

Among other things, they have often aired their dissatisfaction with cricket — their chief complaint being that, as a game, it is not sufficiently “Indian.” In A Corner of a Foreign Field, a magisterial history of Indian cricket, Ramachandra Guha reproduced parts of a speech M.S. Golwalkar, one of the R.S.S.’s founders, had given in the 1950s. Mr Golwalkar argued that “the costly game of cricket, which has not only become a fashion in our country but something over which we are spending crores of rupees, only proves that the English are still dominating our mind and intellect.”

In 2011, following the Indian team’s progress through the Cricket World Cup, I was in Nagpur to attend India’s match against South Africa. One morning, I decided to visit the offices of the RSS to understand why they resented cricket.

Nobody seemed to know where the RSS office was. At Badkas Chowk, a chaotic roundabout barely a hundred meters from the RSS office, two shopkeepers had no clue. A puzzled autorickshaw driver asked me, “What is RSS? A shop?”

I had expected the headquarters of the powerful Hindu nationalist organization in India to be a prominent address in town. I was amused by the sight of locals scratching their heads about its whereabouts. After several fruitless forays, I finally spotted a pale, unremarkable building, tucked inside a lane off from the main square. Two policemen surveyed the street from a watchtower behind its gate.

The RSS headquarters had no signboard. The boundary wall was not high, but several rolls of barbed wire had been added to it. Prohibitive barricades were placed outside the main entrance. Inside the complex, there were bunkers and tents, where security personnel slept when not on duty.

“A few years ago, this was a relaxed place,” a colleague and friend had told me. After the reports of involvement of fringe Hindu groups in bomb attacks on several Muslim religious institutions in India, in which the RSS was accused of aiding and abetting the perpetrators, the mothership of India’s Hindu right was scared of reprisals.

At the reception area, an inordinate number of details were sought : name, father’s name, address, occupation. After an official at the reception area examined my details with a grave, diligent expression, he pushed a button behind him and waved me in. I was led to Harish, a portly man, who used only one name. He wore a checkered shirt and a sarong, and had smeared his forehead with tilak. I asked Mr. Harish if I could speak to someone about cricket. “The office is empty,” he said. “Everyone is in Mangalore for a meeting.” I might have seemed incredulous. “You can have a look inside if you like,” he said.

I wandered about for a while. The inner courtyard had a temple with a Krishna idol. A few group photographs of the RSS workers on the walls did not have a single woman in them. It had the feel of a military barrack.

I eventually returned to Mr. Harish. He seemed to specialize in a form of non-conversation, almost as if being drawn into a discussion was a breach of organizational discipline.

“Are you from Nagpur?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“A few years.”

“Do you watch cricket? What do you think of cricket?”

“I have no views on cricket,” he said. “I don’t even have a television.”


Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh during a youth camp in Bangalore, Karnataka, on Jan. 26, 2002.

Our non-conversation went on for several minutes. Each question was followed by a long silence. Mr. Harish was calm. After a while, utterly pleased with the visible exasperation on my face, he suggested that I should visit the RSS office in Reshimbagh area, about five kilometers away. “We do our shakhas, our maharaj satsangs, our big meetings there,” he said. “You may be able to speak to someone there.”

In Reshimbagh, a dusty area populated with vocational institutes and rundown hostels, the RSS complex, which seemed like a high school compound, merged seamlessly into the landscape. The buildings in the complex sat opposite a muddy, grassless field. The rooms shared a small porch, which served as a place for socializing and gossip.

Inside the Reshimbagh complex of the RSS, I met Vinod Nalgaonkar, a mild, bespectacled man. Mr. Nalgaonkar worked as a mid-level bureaucrat in India’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Civil Aviation. He had retired from the government service and devoted himself to working for the RSS, which he had been a member of throughout his employment with the Indian government.

Mr. Nalgaonkar was an unabashed cricket enthusiast. After I told him I had come to Nagpur to write about the Cricket World Cup, he promptly proceeded to comment on the Indian bowler Ashish Nehra’s last over against the South African team, which cost India the match. With South Africa needing 13 runs to win, Mr. Nehra had conceded 16 runs, which included two fours and a six, in just four balls.

Mr. Sunil, who did not wish to share his last name, was another retired bureaucrat and lifelong RSS follower. He joined Mr. Nalgaonkar. As most Indians do, Mr. Nalgaonkar spoke authoritatively about the Indian cricket team. He analyzed why the Indian team lost the match against South Africa and recommended measures for improving its performance. Mr. Sunil sat in silence as his friend spoke. He seemed bored by the talk of cricket. I took this to be a natural aversion to the game that many members of the RSS shared.

I was startled a few minutes later when Mr. Sunil broke his silence, discussing the performance of the players Munaf Patel and Yusuf Pathan.

“Munaf and Yusuf should be dropped,” he said. “They are no good at all.” There was no attempt at subtlety or veiled criticism. Mr. Sunil was forthright in directing his ire at the two of the Muslim players in the Indian cricket team. Mr. Patel and Mr. Pathan, who both hailed from the western state of Gujarat, had not performed well in the match against South Africa. Mr. Patel, a fast bowler, had given away too many runs while Mr. Pathan had been dismissed for a duck. They were not alone; several other players had performed poorly in the match against South Africa.

I think his outburst slightly embarrassed Mr. Nalgaonkar. He tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Look at Sachin! He is from our Maharashtra,” Mr. Nalgaonkar said “There is no one like him. At 37, he is still performing so well. At his age, none of the others will even be able to run.”


Amit Bhargava for The New York Times
Members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh taking oath at a morning exercise session in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on June 25, 2002.

Mr. Nalgaonkar and Mr. Sunil helped organizing the shakha, the annual physical training and indoctrination camp. Among the shakha’s activities were the practice of yoga and the playing of kabaddi. “Do you ever play cricket in the shakha?” I prodded them on cricket.

“No chance,” they both replied together.

“We have kabaddi and other Indian games,” said Mr. Sunil. “No cricket. The RSS doesn’t approve of it.”

After our conversation, Mr. Nalgaonkar gave me a tour of the complex. A part of the building housed a small hostel, where 20 children were being lodged and educated. Most of them were poor orphans, while some had been sent by parents who admired the disciplinarian ethos of the RSS. When we stepped into the recreation room of the hostel, the children, between the ages of five and 15, were glued to a solitary television set, watching highlights from the previous day’s game.

A little later, I was struck by a map of India hanging on a wall. India’s peninsular shape appeared strangely bloated, its bulge extending towards both east and west. A closer look explained it: the RSS version of the Indian map included the territories of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

I pointed out to Mr Nalgaonkar that the Saffron-colored map was perhaps incorrect. “What does it represent?” I asked.

“Akhand Bharat,” he said in an admonishing, berating tone, “Undivided India. That’s what we believe in.”

I followed Mr Nalgaonkar to the shrines of K.B. Hegdewar and M.S. Golwalkar, the founders of the RSS. Mr. Hegdewar in black marble sat imperiously on a pedestal wearing the RSS cap, his moustache unperturbed by the breeze, his legs crossed. A little ahead, Mr. Golwalkar was represented by a small flame; an inscription in Marathi and Hindi stated his desire not to have a memorial.

In 1925, Mr. Hegdewar founded the RSS in a small ground in Nagpur. Upon his death in 1940, Mr. Golwalkar succeeded him as the chief of the organization, a position he held for more than three decades. Mr. Golwalkar, who had a fondness for anti-Muslim invective, was one of the more rabid public speakers in modern Indian history. Another of his personal hatreds concerned the game of cricket, which became the reason for the organization’s opposition to cricket.

But beyond the boundary of the RSS complex was a modern cricket facility, where the children of Nagpur filled the impressive nets of Reshimbagh Gymkhana, oblivious to Mr. Golwalkar’s passions and commands.

Vaibhav Vats’s first book, “Triumph in Bombay: Travels during the Cricket World Cup,” will be published by Penguin Random House India in July.