Often you must have seen that BJP workers celebrate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday as Seva Pakhwada and every year they add something new to it, like this time the idea of ’My Modi Story’. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday was declared as ‘Children’s Day’ and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday was declared as Good Governance Day. But no one would have heard that RSS celebrates the birthday of any of its Sarsanghchalak or any other officer. Those associated with or in the know of the Sangh also know that the Sangh celebrates only 6 festivals in a year and coincidentally on the New Year Pratipada day, the birth anniversary of the Sangh founder Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar is also celebrated, but nothing special is done for it. In such a situation, when it is known that once the Sangh had celebrated the 51st birthday of its Sarsanghchalak Guru Golwalkar across the country, that too for 83 days, on the completion of 50 years, then it is natural to be surprised.
The truth of the debt story
How would Guruji, who avoided even getting his photo clicked, be prepared to celebrate his birthday? This question may be in the minds of Sangh supporters. Two scholars who have written the autobiography of Guru Golwalkar give the answer to this in their books. Ranga Hari writes that during the campaign against cow slaughter in 1952, the Sangh had launched a huge contact campaign among the general public across the country. In such a situation, after 4 years, a need was felt to run a similar contact campaign and reach out to the public. Whereas CP Bhishikar writes in the autobiography of Guru Golwalkar, during the Satyagraha events, the financial condition of the Sangh was no longer that strong, but the debt had also increased. Generally, the Sangh runs its system only with the Gurudakshina received from its volunteers and does not take money from the general public. But now it seemed that during the contact campaign among the public, financial help should be taken from them in some way.
Ranga Hari does not mention the loan, but he definitely tells that when four big Sangh officials Lala Hansraj, Barrister Narendra Singh, Bholanath Jha and Dharamvir Guru approached Golwalkar with the idea of organizing a birthday, they asked him to collect funds. Guru Golwalkar was surprised to hear about the birthday celebration. All four said, “This program is for the progress of Sangh work, please accept it.” His reply was, “It is so? So this is for the progress of Sangh work? For that you can sacrifice me, I will present myself.” This program was not planned just like that, many eminent faces like Eknath Ranade, Dattopant Thengadi, Professor Bapurao Varhadpande were entrusted with the responsibility of planning this entire event. The goal was to make direct contact with 2 percent of the adult population of the country.
Money was collected through two booklets
On this occasion, the Sangh also published booklets, because through those booklets not only the ideas had to be conveyed to the people, but also money had to be collected from its sale. The name of one booklet was ‘Vyakti Darshan’, it contained literature like the autobiography of Guru Golwalkar, its price was kept at 2 annas i.e. 12 paise. And the second was ‘Vichar Darshan’, it contained a collection of Guru Golwalkar’s thoughts. Which in a way was a reflection of the thoughts of the Sangh itself. Its price was kept at eight annas i.e. fifty paise. A pamphlet was also to be distributed door to door, in which a verse from the famous book Subhasitaratnabhandagaram was printed, “Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah Manushye Sati Durbha Purushata Punstve Punarviprata Vipratve….”
Unlike today, it was never the case that posters, banners or cut-outs were put up at every road intersection. One more thing that was done was that some big scholars and public sector personalities wrote some articles about Guru Golwalkar and the Sangh, which were published in newspapers across the country. The rest of the publicity was done by the volunteers of each branch by going door to door, making contacts, giving booklets, giving verbal explanations, answering their questions, and taking financial support.
It was decided to start the birthday programs of Guru Golwalkar exactly 51 days before his birthday. His birthday was on 8 March that year according to the Hindu month, so this program was started in January itself. It was also decided that the second phase of this campaign will run from March 8 to April 8. The first phase was of action, i.e. increasing contacts, collecting money by giving booklets, increasing awareness about the Sangh and the second phase was of ceremonies to honor Guru Golwalkar. Which was to conclude on April 8 at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi. Every state had formed its own welcoming committee for these ceremonies. In some big programs, enlightened people were invited to sit on the stage. The chairman of the Nagpur committee was the famous historian Radhakumud Mukherjee, while the chairman of the Nagpur committee was Sitaram, former High Commissioner to Pakistan. In every function, a Mangala Patra and money were presented to Guru Golwalkar. Rangahari has given details of the amount collected from different states, which was a total of Rs 21 lakh.
But Dr. Hedgewar’s colleague raised objection
When this campaign started in January, Guru Golwalkar had gone to West Pattambi in Kerala on 31 January for Ayurvedic treatment. After that he returned to Nagpur only on 2 March. But all the big Sangh officials kept coming to meet him in Pattambi. In such a situation, Dadarao Parmarth also came to meet him, he was counted among the early campaigners of the Sangh and people close to Hedgewar. But later his faith in spirituality increased, so he first went to Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry and then to Rishikesh. Dadarao was the person who brought Chennai’s TVR Shastriji to the Sangh, the same Shastriji who had greatly helped Guru Golwalkar in removing the ban from the Sangh.
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The topic of his meeting was a little different, he was not happy with the idea of celebrating Guru Golwalkar’s birthday, he said that there was no such arrangement in the Sangh. Dr. Hedgewar was also strongly against the idea that any individual should be given more prominence than the organization. Then Dr. Golwalkar told him that I also think like you, but if the senior volunteers of the Sangh have collectively taken this decision, there are some reasons behind it. He told those reasons one by one. Only then Dadarao Parmarth was satisfied and agreed and left from there.
On March 8, Vijaya Ekadashi, rituals etc. were performed in Nagpur on the birthday of Guru Golwalkar with full rituals. His mother ‘Taiji’ was very happy, her blessings were taken first. Photographs of Guru Golwalkar were also taken with his permission. After that he also went to the mausoleum of Dr. Hedgewar at Reshmi Bagh and offered flowers. Programs like puja, havan etc. were organized in many small and big cities across the country. Guru Golwalkar himself was also present at such a felicitation ceremony held in Nagpur. On such an occasion, he was a little disturbed from within that everything was happening around him, everyone was talking about him, praising him instead of the Sangh. Perhaps this is what he was not comfortable with.
In such a situation, he was also seen adopting a slightly backfoot policy in such programmes. Regarding the booklet ‘Vichar Darshan’, he said from the stage, “These should not be taken as my views, these are the views of the Sangh”. At one place he said, “The mission is much bigger than the individual. If a person thinks that the mission depends entirely on him, then it is meaningless arrogance. Today the person is there, tomorrow he will not be there. Someone else will come and take his place and the organization will continue. So, I request you to look at the organization and not at the individual.” It is clear from his thoughts that he was not comfortable glorifying himself.
Got angry with press photographers in Delhi!
And because of this perhaps he got a little worried at the closing ceremony in Delhi. He was not used to the way Sangh programs are disciplined, and chaos would spread there. When he stood up to deliver the address, suddenly the press photographers of Delhi first ran for their respective positions, must have cross-examined each other to stand at a particular place and then changed positions at different places to take photographs. The same thing happens even today, but Guru Golwalkar did not have such a habit. There was a crowd of thousands, but they were sitting in a disciplined manner, after his address there was to be a procession, but some were not in discipline, so were the press photographers. They thought that someone would definitely arrange them. But all this happened suddenly, and until someone spoke, even the press photographers were sitting quietly in their places. But Guru Golwalkar was the hero of the day, so everyone rushed to take photographs. Not only this, he also started asking them to give him photos.
And suddenly Guru Golwalkar became a little angry and said to the officials involved in the arrangements, if the photographers do not stop taking my photos, I will leave this meeting. Within the next two minutes everything was arranged. But later, only Times of India had mentioned this incident in its report the next day, some people have made many stories about it.
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