Gandhi achieved a breakthrough in nationalist politics by successfully shifting the mode of discourse away from the Moderate- Extremist debates that had plagued the Indian National Congress (INC) till then. This breakthrough dislodged the earlier urban, upper caste leadership as Gandhi's movement spread and brought the villages into the center stage of the anti- imperialist struggle.

The demise of the Extremists, led by urban based Brahmins resulted in many of them opting out of the struggle altogether. Having been displaced from what they felt was their "natural" position as leaders of society, they sought to re- establish themselves on a different terrain. Some of them adopted a non- confrontationist, if not a benign attitude towards British colonialism, abandoning their former radicalism.

Hedgewar was one such person, who after his initial years with the Bengal terrorist group Anushilan Samiti and then the INC, moved towards "culturalism" and set up the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Samiti (RSS). As the RSS's subsequent activities have shown, this "culturalism" was nothing but politics by other means.

The RSS right from the beginning, directed its attacks on the Muslims, keeping its agenda as away from anti- imperialism as possible.

Another person who turned away from early militant action was Aurobindo who after the defeat and his subsequent disillusionment with militant action, relapsed into spiritualism. His path was to be followed by relatively fewer adherents and it remained always an esoteric and fringe band.

On the other hand, the RSS has expanded into an organization with a primary membership 1 lakh in 1998, according to its own estimates. Despite its size it remains an organization based on the unquestioning belief in the RSS chief, the sarsanghchalak and complete absence of internal democracy.

The RSS never accepted the Indian nationalist leadership, even 20 years back Gandhi and Patel were anathema to it. Its hostility to Nehru and his project of nation building has never been in doubt. Its own leaders, however, have remained leaders only within the organization and have hardly been known outside, though within the RSS they have been little short of idols.

The present work by a veteran RSS member is aimed to acquaint the layman with the "story" of the RSS founder G.S. Hedgewar who, according to the author, reawakened Hindutva. The author G.S. Hingle has been an RSS member since 1942.

The first chapter gives, expectedly, a rather hagiographic account of Hedgewar's early life. We are informed, with absolutely no historical reference or evidence, the seven year old Baliram Hedgewar asking his father: "How could a handful of Muslims, coming from the Arabic countries, win over India when we had had many epochs of glory, many many great warriors and men of art, thought, science and literature?". This is followed by the usual anti- Muslim rhetoric that is the RSS's USP.

In between the different stories and incidents purportedly related to Hedgewar, we are told about his graduation from an extremist to a Congress nationalist to what is probably the closest Indian version of fascism. The book is nothing but a series of one- sided and one- dimensional questions apparently raised in Hedgewar's mind and which the author has a seemingly fantastic ability to read and decipher, half a century after Hedgewar's death.

The book provides no new insight into the subject's life. In fact, it makes it hazier by the author's own interpolations of dubious stories that have no historical or textual basis. Strangely, Savarkar's influence on the early Hedgewar is completely left unmentioned.

It is needless for the present reviewer to rebut the author's flimsy and erroneous understanding on Indian history. The interested reader is referred to a host of erudite books by historians and activists (see D.R.Choudhary's review of "Secular Challenge to Communal Politics" by P.R. Ram in these columns few weeks back).

For an account of Hedgewar himself, one can gain more by reading two pages from Chirstophe Jafferlot's "The Hindu Nationalist Movemant and Indian Politics" (pages 33-34) or five pages of Ashish Nandy's "Creating a Nationality" (pages 81-86) than the entire 221 pages of Hingle's effort.