Right from the dawn of history, Bharath has produced great saints and sages, great beings who made the supreme discovery that the God they sought for many years was no different from their own selves.
Each generation has been blessed by these enlightened souls who spread only goodness throughout India and had the power to grant a divine boon – the boon of perfect wisdom.
Shri Guruji Paramapoojaniya Madhava Sadasiva Golwalkar – the second All-Bharath Chief of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) belonged to this sacred and glorious tradition. Through his selfless life and example, he gave us all the following message: ‘When the Mysterious Unity between the soul and the Divine becomes clear, you will realise that you are none other than God. You will see all your actions as His actions; all your features as His features; all your breath as His breath’. He taught us all that the priceless gift of intelligence can be brought to bear upon each of the chief centres of consciousness in the human constitution. Individuals who cherish this privilege enough to conduct a series of experiments with truth in daily living, will assuredly gain a greater awareness of the dignity of being human. The orbit of the sacred is revolutionary; it is radically subversive to the status quo of one’s previous somnambulistic existence. This is the vision of a perfect being; this is the vision Guruji Golwalkar gave to Bharath and to every Indian.
Right from the dawn of history, Bharath has produced great saints and sages, great beings who made the supreme discovery that the God they sought for many years was no different from their own selves.
Each generation has been blessed by these enlightened souls who spread only goodness throughout India and had the power to grant a divine boon – the boon of perfect wisdom.
Shri Guruji Paramapoojaniya Madhava Sadasiva Golwalkar – the second All-Bharath Chief of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) belonged to this sacred and glorious tradition. Through his selfless life and example, he gave us all the following message: ‘When the Mysterious Unity between the soul and the Divine becomes clear, you will realise that you are none other than God. You will see all your actions as His actions; all your features as His features; all your breath as His breath’. He taught us all that the priceless gift of intelligence can be brought to bear upon each of the chief centres of consciousness in the human constitution. Individuals who cherish this privilege enough to conduct a series of experiments with truth in daily living, will assuredly gain a greater awareness of the dignity of being human. The orbit of the sacred is revolutionary; it is radically subversive to the status quo of one’s previous somnambulistic existence. This is the vision of a perfect being; this is the vision Guruji Golwalkar gave to Bharath and to every Indian.
Madhava Sadasiva
Golwalkar
On 19 February, 2006 falls the birth Centenary of Guruji Golwalkar. He succeeded Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the great founder of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), who passed away on 21 June 1940. From 1940, till his Mahanirvana on 5 June 973, Guruji as the chief of the RSS for 33 years, converted it into a mighty national force for the protection, preservation, consolidation and advancement of Sanathana Dharma. He was a man of great vision, unsurpassed courage and unrivalled judgement. He had a clear, definite and clairvoyant vision of a renascent India of the future. With unshakable faith in his mission, he came to the firm conclusion that it was impossible for Bharath to become strong and confident enough to realise its destiny unless every walk and dimension of life was informed and animated with the pure ideology of Sanathana Dharma – the bedrock of the RSS.
When this great Sanathana Dharma was getting threatened by the rising forces of militant Islam and government sheltered Christianity soon after the First World War, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar who was a staunch supporter of the Congress and a fighter for India’s freedom, realised the urgent national need to start a national-level cultural organisation to re-establish the glory of Sanathana Dharma.
When the Khilafat Movement was at its height under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi after 1920, Mahatma Gandhi made some disparaging remarks about the Hindus by stating that ‘an average Hindu is a coward and an average Muslim is a bully’.
Khilafat Movement stood for Pan-Islamism. This encouraged several Muslims in different parts of India to start an anti-Hindu rebellion in 1923. They slaughtered cows, attacked Hindu processions, molested Hindu women and desecrated Hindu temples. It was against this dark and horrendous background that Dr Hedgewar thought of creating a new organisation to strengthen the hands of Hindus. He was not interested in merely training an army of ‘Yes’ men. It was his dream that an organisation should be created consisting of lakhs and lakhs of self-sacrificing and self-inspired young men willing to lead a disciplined life in the cause of the country.
The great RSS was born on the sacred day of Vijayadasami in 1925. About 15 to 20 young men gathered in the doctor’s house on that day. Chief among them were Bhuji Kawra, Anna Sohni, Viswanath Rao Kelkar, Balaji Huddar and Bapurao Bhedi.
Dr Hedgewar declared to the gathering. ‘We are inaugurating the Sangh today. All of us must train ourselves physically, intellectually and in every way so as to be capable of achieving our cherished goal’. His mission was to charge the people with the true spirit of national character and cohesion. All those habits, superstitions and tendencies which had divided, disrupted and devitalised the nation during the last several centuries had to be eradicated on a war-footing. Sublime and life sustaining values had to be nurtured and cultivated. This was a gigantic task of character-moulding, man-making and nation building. This called for a mighty national organisation. The answer was the RSS.
In order to sustain and stabilise this vision the ‘Shakha’ technique was evolved by Dr Hedgewar. The name of the Sangh, its flag, its prayer, its pledge, its morning hymn, its exposition of thought, the several aspects of its methodology�each one of these conveyed and proclaimed one message: the message of unadulterated devotion to national integrity and national identity. And finally, a child of this motherland nurtured in this soul-stirring philosophy was born the ‘Swayam Sevak’.
The responsibility of presenting before the people of India this glorious mission and vision carrying the living message of what Bharath stands for, and how it proposes to achieve its goal of all-round national regeneration devolved on all ‘Swayamsevaks’.
Dr. Hedgewar transformed himself into a model Swayam Sevak. His ‘Shakha’ model became the most effulgent and enlivening model and thousands of Swayamsevaks were inspired by his example during his lifetime to follow him with undivided devotion and dedication.
Madhava Sadisva Golwalkar was born in Nagpur on 19 February, 1906. His father was Sadasiva Rao and mother Lakshmibai. He was called lovingly as Madhu by his parents. His mother-tongue was Marathi. As his father was posted in Hindi-speaking areas, Golwalkar became very proficient in Hindi right from his childhood days. At the same time he also developed his mastery in English as well. As a school student he was known for his extraordinary memory. In 1924, after completing his intermediate college education, he went to Benares Hindu University to do his BSc. He was quite thrilled to see the mighty library of Benares Hindu University. When he was not attending his classes, he was in the library. He became a voracious reader filled with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He took his MSc Degree in Zoology in I Class from Benares Hindu University.
In 1929, Guruji left for Madras to do research work in the Government Aquarium. He had to return to Nagpur that very year on the retirement of his father for want of funds to pursue his research. In August 1931, Golwalkar became a lecturer in Zoology at Benaras Hindu University. He became a very popular teacher. He got the name of Shri Guruji from his beloved students from Benaras Hindu University who held him in very high regard. Throughout his later life he came to be known as Shri Guruji. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya noticed the extraordinary talents of Guruji and predicted a very great future for him. Through Bhaiyyaji Dani, a Swayamsevak from Nagpur, Guruji came into contact with Dr Hedgewar. Guruji was appointed as Palak of the Shakha in Benaras. In February 1933, on the expiry of his teaching term, he returned to Nagpur. He then pursued his legal studies and took his BL Degree in 1935. He started associating himself actively with the RSS.
After closely watching the extraordinary work and intellectual versatility of Guruji in Nagpur, Dr Hedgewar started entrusting him with more and more responsible tasks. In 1934 Guruji discharged the duties of ‘Sarvadhikari’ of Sangh Siksha Varga in Akhola, with tremendous verve, skill and dedication. When his mother brought up before him his marriage proposal and said that if he did not marry, their Golwalkar family lineage would become extinct, Guruji replied with humility and reverence: ‘In the present situation it is necessary that, for the welfare of the society, if the family lineages of not only me, but several others like me are terminated, I will not in the least be worried’.
Right from 1929, Guruji’s power of discrimination was truly sparkling and awake. In a letter to his friend Telang on 20 March, 1929: ‘I have no desire to attune myself to a mundane human life. What I want is to stretch this string of life to create a still purer tune. While doing so, mental strain cannot be avoided. This means that it does not matter if one has to live apart from the common world. The important thing is that the string of life must not be out of tune with that heavenly music. Now I shall not go to the Himalayas, rather Himalayas shall come to me; its serene silence will dwell within me. Now it is not necessary to go anywhere for attaining that serenity’.
On the one hand the pathetic plight of the Hindu society and of an enslaved nation tortured him. On the other, he was tormented and pulled by his inborn spiritual thirst for self-realisation. In 1936, Guruji quietly left for Sargachi Ashram in search of a spiritual guide. Guruji involved himself actively in the service of Swami Akhantananda. It was Swami Akhantananda who gave the final verdict: ‘It seems Golwalkar would work in association with Dr. Hedgewar’. Swamiji also gave his personal belongings like ‘kamandal’, etc. to Guruji. Swami Akhantananda passed away in February 1937. On his return to Nagpur, Guruji’s life took a new and revolutionary turn. From 1938 onwards, Guruji identified the work of RSS as the sole mission of his life. Guruji declared: ‘Like spirituality, organisation of the nation has also been my inclination from early days. I believe that I would be in a better position to achieve it successfully by being a part of the Sangh. Hence, I have dedicated myself to the activities of Sangh. From the point of view of the insight and practical approach of Swami Vivekananda, my decision is appropriate’.
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