SOCIAL REFORMS

RSS says it rejects the caste system and believes in the equality of all Hindus. It has expressed concern over caste-based political and social conflicts and has urged Hindus to "get rid of this evil at the earliest"^[50]. In addition, the RSS has advocated the training of Dalits and other backward classes as temple high priests (a position traditionally reserved for Caste Brahmins and denied to lower castes). They argue that the social divisiveness of the Caste system is responsible for the lack of adherence to Hindu values and traditions and reaching out to the lower castes in this manner will be a remedy to the problem^[51]. The RSS has also condemned "upper caste Hindus" for preventing Dalits from worshipping at temples, saying that "even God will desert the temple Dalits cannot enter"^[52]

Christophe Jaffrelot observes that most of the RSS founders and its leading organisers were all Maharashtrian Brahmins.^[53] and argues that the pervasiveness of the Brahminical ethic in the organisation was probably the main reason why it failed to attract support from the low castes. He notes that "[i]mportant aspects of the RSS's ideology seemed therefore to contradict its ambition of building an encompassing Hindu Rashtra." He argues that the "RSS resorted to instrumentalist techniques of ethno-religious mobilisation – in which its Brahminism was diluted – to overcome this handicap."^[54]

Contrary to what Jaffrelot observes, many Dalit and tribal volunteers of the RSS have grown into prominence in political and social spheres. Dr Suraj Bhan, a Dalit, who had been a full time worker of the RSS, became the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, in 1998.^[55] Another volunteer of the RSS, Babulal Marandi, belonging to the tribal community, became the first Chief Minister of the State of Jharkhand^[56]