The RSS: A Menace to India

Author: AG Noorani
Reviewed by: Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Available at: Left Word Books, 547 pages, Rs 1,500. https://www.amazon.in/
Review:

The tactical Sangh (Sep 14, 2019, Indian Express)

The RSS: A Menace to India is a wide-ranging, erudite, and at times polemical case for the prosecution. Over 500 pages replete with citations, sources and documents, Noorani leaves the reader in little doubt of the myriad ways in which RSS undermines India.…

The RSS has a curious relationship with democracy. Noorani is right in pointing out that the claim – that the RSS is merely a cultural organisation – was always a façade. Its aim was to secure political power for Hindus and it has always been tactical in this regard.…

Whatever may be the simple-minded and selfless dedication of its workers, its leadership has always been, beginning with Savarkar and Golwalkar, made up of men of limited understanding – crude and coarse in their conceptualisation of the world, admiring of Nazism, and constantly duplicitous.… Noorani has no doubt that the RSS was deeply implicated in Gandhi’s assassination. Its plausible deniability in the matter set up a template of working through fronts, where the RSS pleads a feigned innocence in the face of complicity in violence and riots.…