Editing Hindutva (section)

===Growth===
The cabinet of the first prime minister of India [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] banned the RSS and arrested more than 200,000 RSS volunteers, after [[Nathuram Godse]], a former volunteer of RSS, [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|assassinated Mahatma Gandhi]].{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}} Nehru also appointed government commissions to investigate the assassination and related circumstances. The series of investigations by these commissions, states the political science scholar Nandini Deo, later found the RSS leadership and "the RSS innocent of a role in the assassination".<ref name="Deo2015p55">{{cite book|author=Nandini Deo|title=Mobilizing Religion and Gender in India: The Role of Activism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjzgCgAAQBAJ|year=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-53067-1|pages=54–55|access-date=6 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222542/https://books.google.com/books?id=GjzgCgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> The mass arrested RSS volunteers were released by the Indian courts, and the RSS has ever since used this as evidence of "being falsely accused and condemned".<ref name="Deo2015p55"/>

According to the historian Robert Frykenberg specialising in [[South Asian Studies]], the RSS membership enormously expanded in [[independent India]]. In this period, while RSS remained "discretely out of politics", Jan Sangh, another Hindutva-ideology-based organisation, entered the political arena. The Jan Sangh had limited success in the Indian general elections between 1952 and 1971.<ref>{{harvnb|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}}: "After Independence in 1947, the RSS saw an enormous expansion in numbers of new swayamsevaks and a proliferation of disciplined and drilled shakhas. This occurred despite Gandhi's assassination (January 30, 1948) by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a former sevak and despite being outlawed. (p. 193) [...] Thus, even as the RSS discretely stayed out of open politics, and continued its campaign to convert more and more people to the cause of Hindutva, its new party [Jan Sangh] engaged in political combat. (p. 194) [...] For the next two decades, the Jan Sangh followed a narrowly focused agenda. [...] In 1971, despite softening its Hindutva voice and joining a grand alliance, it was not successful. (p. 195)"</ref><ref name="Graham2007p196">{{cite book|author=Bruce Desmond Graham|title=Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-05374-7|pages=196–198, context: Chapter 7|chapter=The Jana Sangh in electoral politics, 1951 to 1967|access-date=10 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222440/https://books.google.com/books?id=KxMgPAAACAAJ|url-status=live}}; Quote: "We have now considered the main factors which worked against the Jana Sangh's attempt to become a major party in Indian politics [between 1951 and 1967]. It was seriously handicapped in electoral competition by the limitations of its organization and leadership, by its inability to gather support through appeals to Hindu nationalist sentiment, and by its failure to establish a broad base of social and economic interests."</ref> This was, in part, because of its poor organisation and leadership; its focus on the Hindutva sentiment did not appeal to the voters, and its campaign lacked adequate social and economic themes.<ref name="Graham2007p196"/> This was also, in part, because Congress party leaders such [[Indira Gandhi]] had co-opted some of the key Hindutva ideology themes and fused it with socialist policies and her father's Jawaharlal Nehru Soviet-style centrally controlled economic model.{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}}<ref name="Hewitt2007">{{cite book|author=Vernon Hewitt|title=Political Mobilisation and Democracy in India: States of Emergency|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sh6yVyWM4pwC|year=2007|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-09762-3|pages=2–4|access-date=6 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222442/https://books.google.com/books?id=sh6yVyWM4pwC|url-status=live}}, Quote: "The use of socialism, of ''garibi hatao'' (Indira Gandhi's populist slogan translated as 'out with poverty') and of Hindutva are in the first instance conceptualized as differing state strategies of co-optation, deployed by elites ..."; From Taylor & Francis [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203944967 summary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506154127/https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203944967 |date=6 May 2019 }}: "[Vernon Hewitt's book] demonstrates how the Internal Emergency of 1975 led to increased support of groups such as the BJS and the RSS, accounting for the rise of political movements advocating Hindu nationalism – ''Hindutva'' – as a response to rapid political mobilization triggered by the Emergency, and an attempt by political elites to control this to their advantage".</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sumit Sarkar|editor=Radhika Desai|title=Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fTSPAQAAQBAJ|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-96821-4|pages=41–45|access-date=6 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222547/https://books.google.com/books?id=fTSPAQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> The RSS continued its grassroots operations between 1947 and early 1970s, and its volunteers provided humanitarian assistance to Hindu and Sikh refugees from the [[partition of British India]], victims of war and violence, and helped disaster victims to resettle economically.{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}}<ref>{{cite book|author1=Subrata Kumar Mitra|author2=Mike Enskat|author3=Clemens Spiess|title=Political Parties in South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dObxI9xahSYC|year=2004|publisher=Greenwood|isbn=978-0-275-96832-8|pages=57–58|access-date=6 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222444/https://books.google.com/books?id=dObxI9xahSYC|url-status=live}}</ref>

Between 1975 and 1977, Indira Gandhi declared and enforced [[The Emergency (India)|Emergency]] with press censorship, the arrests of opposition leaders, and the suspension of many fundamental human rights of Indian citizens. The abuses of Emergency triggered a mass resistance and the rapid growth of volunteers and political support to the Hindutva ideology.{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}}<ref name="Hewitt2007"/><ref>[a] {{cite book|author=Christophe Jaffrelot|title=Hindu Nationalism: A Reader|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mOXWgr53A5kC|year=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-2803-6|pages=329–330|access-date=2 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007221357/https://books.google.com/books?id=mOXWgr53A5kC|url-status=live}};<br />[b] For various sides in the Judiciary versus the Executive authority on Indira Gandhi's government and Hindutva politicians during this period, see {{cite book|author=Gary J. Jacobsohn|title=The Wheel of Law: India's Secularism in Comparative Constitutional Context|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Ceoc1i1KF8C|year=2003|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=0-691-09245-1|pages=189–197 with footnotes; context: Chapter 7|access-date=6 May 2019|archive-date=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007222550/https://books.google.com/books?id=6Ceoc1i1KF8C|url-status=live}}</ref> Indira Gandhi and her party were voted out of power in 1977. The Hindutva ideology-based Jan Sangh members such as [[Atal Bihari Vajpayee]], [[Brij Lal Varma]], and [[L. K. Advani]] gained national prominence, and the Hindutva ideology sympathiser [[Morarji Desai]] became the prime minister of a coalition non-Congress government.{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}} This coalition did not last past 1980, and from the consequent break-up of coalition parties was the founding of the Bharatiya Janata Party in April 1980. This new national political party relied on the Hindutva ideology-based rural and urban grassroots organisations that had rapidly grown across India from the mid-1970s.{{sfn|Frykenberg|2008|pp=193–196}}