VARANASI, INDIA -- The Economist once called it the largest non-communist organization in the world. One of its activists killed India’s beloved independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Fascist, theocratic, chauvinist and militant are only a few of the epithets hurled at its members.

But to those members it is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Roughly translated as the National Volunteers Union and commonly known as the RSS, the organization claims more than seven million adherents across the subcontinent dedicated to Hindu nationalism and the idea that India is, first and foremost, a Hindu nation.

It is a top-down organization, with more than 25,000 chapters all over India but concentrated in the countryside. Each chapter, or shaka, gathers daily for an hour of calisthenics, discussion and prayer, and these meetings are also known as shakas.

Just off Assi Ghat, on the banks of the holy Ganga (formerly Ganges) River in the city of Varanasi, dozens of young boys gathered for an evening session one night last month. They came from nearby apartments to a packed sand courtyard that was home only to one ragged sawtooth oak and a nondescript, white shack off to the side that serves as a Hanuman temple.

Dressed in varying degrees of conformity to the RSS uniform, which consists of pleated khaki shorts, a white, collared long-sleeved shirt folded to the elbows, black shoes and a black cap, the students ranged in age from 5 and 6 to their mid-20s. Their instructors were middle-aged men who themselves had been attending the shakas since childhood.

Their leader, who gave only the name Gyanesh, called out orders as the games portion of the gathering began. Resembling a Hindu version of boy scouts, they stood in line shortest to tallest, wrapped their arms around the waist in front of them, and started running, worm-like, shouting and cheering and soon tripping over each other’s feet.

“The aim is higher nationality,” explained Gyanesh. “How we can grow, that is our goal.”

After the games came what appeared to be a martial arts segment, complete with lunges and sharp arm movements punctuated with "hiyas." “Judo karate,” explained another RSS volunteer, but was quickly corrected by his friend. “Niyud,” a long-time Varanasi resident Devesh Tripathi interrupted. “An Indian martial art.”

RSS volunteers show off their martial arts prowess. (Ari Paul)

The RSS was founded in 1925, by Dr. K.B. Hedgewar, “to save Hinduism from conversions of Christians and Muslims,” as Tripathi put it. Initially set up as an anti-colonial movement, its main goal was to unite Hindus across caste and linguistic lines. Christian and Muslim missionaries would target low-caste Hindus, so the RSS, then and today, created programs targeting poverty and economic development to keep Hindus within their fold.

Often called the “saffron brotherhood” along with their allies in the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or VHP) and the Bharata Janata Party (BJP), the RSS-led network is united under a banner of Hindutva. Saffron is considered the color of Hinduism, but Hindutva is not essentially theology. Instead, it is an idea that imagines India as a motherland and a holy land and its followers take up strident nationalism in the name of her defense.

“We don’t pray to God here, we don’t salute a person,” Tripathi explained, “we pray to the flag.” The children lined up in rows and faced a short pole with a limp orange cloth hanging from its top. This was not the Indian flag, but the Hindutva flag. “Bharat Mata ki jai!” the ragtag bunch shouted, “long live Mother India!”

Tug-of-war, Bharat Mata style. (Ari Paul)

Abhay Pandey, a government employee at Banaras Hindu University who now serves as the RSS head in Varanasi, described his initial attraction to the group. “My family was involved,” he recalled in halting English. “My father was active in RSS,” he continued, “he would work for society, for nation, for deprived persons.”

“We are sons of Bharat Mata,” Pandey said, referring to the motherland. “Our duty, and our worship, is to work for nation.” He thought for a moment, and then clarified, “not only state.”

Even though the RSS stresses its “social and cultural” activities and vocally denies any stake in politics, the group is generally understood as the parent organization of the right-of-center BJP.

The BJP rose to power in 1992, after a national dispute over a 400–year-old mosque in the town Ayodhya that was allegedly built above the ruins of an ancient Hindu temple. Its leaders helped incite a mob that eventually tore down the mosque. A decade later, local Hindutva leaders in Gujarat were accused of participating in the communal slaughter of more than 1,000 Muslims after several dozen Hindus were killed in a train fire, allegedly set by Islamic militants. By 2004, the BJP-led coalition was knocked out of power by the secular Congress Party, though it still controlled many state governments throughout India.

As in Iraq, where Sunnis and Shiites increasingly turn to sectarian leadership for protection since no central force has successfully clamped down on the violence, so, too, communal appeal in India often waxes and wanes with the level of security. “It’s a patronage kind of thing,” said Mannika Chopra, a Delhi-based journalist.

In Varanasi, where bomb blasts killed four and injured dozens last month, Hindus and Muslims have a long, if storied, history of living relatively peacefully together. Varanasi’s Hindus participate in the Muslim holiday of Muharram, and worship at Sufi shrines. The legendary Muslim flute player and one of Varanasi's most celebrated locals,Ustad Bismallah Khan, often plays devotional songs at Hindu temples.

But after the Ayodhya violence, Varanasi’s local Hindi papers published fictionalized accounts of Hindus being killed at a nearby Muslim university and other bouts of Hindu-Muslim violence.

The usually joyful Saraswati Puja, a Hindu holiday celebrating the goddess of knowledge, took a sinister turn this year as the RSS marched in the street carrying swords.

“Young people start with the RSS, and spend two or three years with them and grow disillusioned,” said Priyankar Upadhyaya, a professor at Banaras Hindu University, describing the experience of some members. “Even the bomb blasts for the RSS people were more a tamasha than anything else,” he said, referring to a word used in India meaning show, or entertainment.

“They are basically good people, who want to do good,” Upadhyaya said. “You take away hatred of Muslims and there is not much left.”

The RSS depends on an international fundraising network of Indian expatriates to survive. Dr. Upadhyaya explained that he comes across RSS activists when he visits the U.S. more often than he does in India. “I spent time with Sudarshan in North America,” he recalled, naming the RSS chief. “They just don’t understand the practical implications.”

If the RSS depends on anti-Muslim sentiment as a binding force, they also believe the opposite is true. K.S. Sudarshan offered in an interview with The Indian Express last year, “Pakistan’s identity depends on its enmity with India. If this is removed, then Pakistan will be finished.”

Back at Assi Ghat, the shaka leader, Gyanesh, was finishing up a story about how the 17th century Sikh leader, Guru Gobind Singh, lost his family to Emperor Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor who was forcing Hindus to convert to Islam or be killed. Instead of surrendering, Gyanesh explained, Singh solidified Sikhism in order to protect Hinduism.

“If your country needs you, will you go to the borders?” Gyanesh shouted in Hindi during the final exercise of the evening. They all raise their hands eagerly.

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In the early morning glow, a sadhu and woman bathed and prayed on the banks of the Ganges. (Sophia Chang)

“Going to the Ganges is like going to church. But church is a matter of choice, and the Ganges is a religious obligation.”

This was the introduction to the spirituality of the Ganges River from our guide, Onkar Dubey, on a pre-dawn bus on Day 12 of our journey. We were driving toward the river to observe the Hindus of Varanasi bathing in its sacred waters. Varanasi is a city of early risers and morning ablutions in the river are considered one of the most sacred and auspicious of Hindu rituals. They are so valuable in Hindu mythology that when some men and women get older, they leave their families and move to Varanasi, where they bathe daily in the river until their deaths.

Dubey explained that sadhus, holy men who renounce family and material possessions to seek a greater spirituality, are particularly drawn to the river’s sacred waters. Many sadhus ritually bathe in the Ganges early each morning, get a blessing from a priest, receive a mark on their foreheads, then sit for an hour or so reading the Bhagavat Gita or pages from their own prayer books. They may visit one of the 2,000 temples that dot the banks of the Ganges for the seven kilometers that stretch through Varanasi. Praying to the rising sun, said Dubey, brings light and life to people.

From a rowboat as the sun was rising, we observed sadhus bathing along with locals and spiritual westerners; monkeys, considered holy in Varanasi because of their relation to Hanuman, the monkey god, chasing each other along steep ghats; two rams butting heads repeatedly; a man floating on his back in the river, surrounded by candles and marigolds. Dhobis, or washermen, soaked clothing in the polluted waters of the Ganges, then slapped the pants and shirts against rocks by the river bank, knee-deep in water.

Dubey pointed out that no houses are built on the east bank of the Ganges, and that the temples and guest houses along the west bank are submerged when the water rises 40-50 feet in the rainy summer months. A local myth says that if someone builds a house on the flood-prone east bank he will be reincarnated as a donkey.

Varanasi is sometimes called a city of burning, and cremation ceremonies take place 24 hours a day along the Ganges, with people coming from all over India to burn their dead on funeral pyres and scatter the ashes into the holy river. Hindus believe that if the body is cremated on the Ganges, the soul goes directly to heaven and achieves moksha, or freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth. To build a funeral pyre takes about 360 kilograms of wood and costs around Rs 3,000 (or nearly $70). In the funerals we witnessed, bodies wrapped in red and white shrouds burned silently. No one wept or displayed grief as they felt blessed to provide their relatives a burial in the Ganges, Dubey explained.

Aruna Viswanatha, our Hindu student journalist, felt more connected to Varanasi than to any other stop on the trip. She was taken with the authenticity of the city, among both the long-time residents and foreigners alike. “In the U.S., capitalism co-opts culture,” she said. “But in India, India co-opts culture. It’s captivating in the way that it’s such an openly spiritual experience, it’s open but personal and not in a contrived way. And that seems really hard to do.”

After checking out of another hotel (“if it’s Saturday, it must be Varanasi!”) we traveled the 10 km to Sarnath, a famous site of Buddhism in India. Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama around 600 B.C. in Lumbini, Nepal and achieved enlightenment in Bodh Gaya in the Himalayan foothills. He gave his first sermon to five disciples in the deer park in Sarnath. Sarnath was destroyed in 1197 by Muslims, according to Dubey, and became a buried, forgotten city until the 1830s when it was rediscovered and excavated by the British.

Sarnath has a touristy feel, but inside the Buddhist temple built on the site of Buddha’s cottage in the deer park all was peaceful, and colorful frescos depicted the important moments in Buddha’s life. At the end of the temple an altar held a giant statue of Buddha surrounded by flowers in vases.

Buddha was originally a Hindu, and his teachings are in part a response to Hinduism. Buddha sought to do away with the caste system, and to abolish temple rituals, priests and animal sacrifices. Instead of these, Buddhism pointed to a middle path, a life of moderation that avoided extremes. Jesse Ellison was taken with the connection between Hinduism and Buddhism. “I thought it was so telling that Hindus believe Buddha was a reincarnation of Vishnu,” she said later in the Varanasi airport. “The way Hindus embrace the Buddha as part of their ancient faith speaks to the complexity of Indian culture. India and Hinduism are like giant sponges. They soak everything up and make it their own.”

A lot of the artifacts found at the temple during the British excavation are on display at a nearby museum, including the four lions of the Asoka Column that are featured on all rupee notes and coins. Sophia Chang and some others observed a group of Thai Buddhist monks, clad in yellow robes, chanting in front of a statue of Buddha. Chang found their chanting beautiful. “It was nice that they turned the museum into a place for prayers and redefined what a shrine or temple has to be.”

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When traveling on an overnight train, follow these rules: Make sure to wake your bunkmate if you go to the bathroom, stow your suitcase with zippers facing inward, and avoid prolonged eye contact with strange men.

On our third and final train ride, from Agra to Varanasi, we passed the seven hours sleeping in paired bunks, one piled on top of the other. Tired and weary, we boarded the train around midnight and fell quickly to sleep. Morning broke and soon the singsong repetition of “vegetable cutlet” from a vendor walking through the aisle reminded us of where we were and lulled us back to sleep. Finally Sree Sreenivasan woke his tribe of 14 children with smiles and cookies. A few students sipped sweet chai tea as our train pulled into our penultimate destination: the city of Varanasi.

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Approximately 300 km southeast of Delhi, Varanasi is on the western bank of the Ganges River. Called Ganga in Hindi, the river is often known as the Ganges, the name it was given by the British. It is the locus of city life and impossible to miss; the maze-like streets lead directly to it. Our hotel, the Palace on Ganges, sits above the water.

Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world, and is for Hindus what Mecca is for Muslims. The Ganges is the pathway to eternity, where daily ablutions are performed and souls washed clean in the same water where most residents wash their laundry and brush their teeth.

Hindus believe those who are cremated and released into the waters of the Ganges will attain salvation and liberation from the karmic cycle of death and rebirth. The ghats—or steps that lead down to the ritual bathing areas—are the holiest places on the waterfront. It is here that pilgrims disrobe at daybreak and light candles at nightfall. Tourists pass by in throngs of row boats, snapping pictures and disrupting the quiet.

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Tara Devi watches worshipers' shoes while they pray. When the bomb exploded, she hid behind a tree. (Aili McConnon)

On March 7, the day we departed New York for India, Varanasi was struck by bomb blasts at the train station and a temple, with another explosive device diffused in a nearby residential area. Some students were nervous about going at all. “Is this the place where the bombing took place?” questioned ArunaViswanatha first thing Friday morning, as we made our way through the Sankat Mochan Temple, site of the most recent bombing and among the most sacred of the thousands of temples in the city. Viswanatha, whose family is Hindu, spoke of feeling disconnected as we wove through crowds of worshipers and many in our group whose foreheads were also dotted with orange kumnkumn powder. “I think it would be more poignant if I weren’t with all of you,” she said, “It
almost detracts from it. I can’t feel it.”

Because the temple visit was the most newsworthy of any religious site we visited during the two week trip, questions were plentiful and translators in demand. “By the grace of Hanuman,” said our guide, Sameer Mathur, “Just a few people died.” Hanuman, known as the monkey god, is one of the most popular gods in Hinduism and the one to which the temple is dedicated. The bomb exploded shortly after six o’clock in the evening of Tuesday, March 7, while nearly a dozen couples were waiting to be married in the temple’s courtyard.

Since the blast occurred during wedding season and Tuesdays and Saturdays are the most heavily attended by worshipers, many think the bombing date was timed to wreak the most havoc. Several militant Islamic groups have been mentioned in connection with the blasts but investigators have yet to turn up any conclusive proof.

Ari Paul asked whether both Hindus and Muslims came to help following the bombing. Mathur responded that “we weren’t asking who was Hindu and who was Muslim” as the injured were removed on improvised stretchers made of blankets. Though Varanasi’s majority population is Hindu, approximately twenty 15 to 20 percent are Muslim. A week and a half after the bomb blasts, the city is calm and attendance at the temple is back to normal.

Raju, who does not have a surname, sells trinkets across from the courtyard where the bomb went off. He remarked that little had changed since and he returned to work the very next day. “They believed in God then,” he said, his shirt still pink from recent Holi celebrations, “They believe in it now.”

Tara Devi, who looks after worshipers’ shoes while they pray, has worked at the temple for decades. She hid behind a tree when the blast went off. “Of course I was scared,” she said, “But now there is so much security that we’re not scared. We’re a little nervous and anxious and are always looking for bags and boxes or anything strange.” Since the bombing, dozens of police officers now secure the temple and two metal detectors are installed at its entrance.

Walking out of the gates, Stacey Samuel remarked, “I would think that like elsewhere, people would abandon the temple out of fear, but I’m most impressed that instead they’ve come in greater numbers.” Carolyn Slutsky chimed in, amazed by how “even at 11:30 in the morning, tons and tons of people are being devout.”

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Later in the afternoon we met with Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra, who was named by Time magazine as one of the heroes for the planet. He taught hydraulic engineering at Benares Hindu University and now oversees the Swatcha Ganga Campaign, dedicated to cleaning the polluted river.

Talk quickly turned to the bombings, since Mishra is also mahant, or high priest, of the Sankat Mochan Temple. He considered it God’s grace that the bombings had not escalated into a larger problem. “We were there to tell people that we are to be calm,” said Mishra, “The temple was calm. The city was also calm.” Concern turned to reporters, who have flooded the city since the blasts went off. “The media makes a scripted story,” he said, “And then they start finding actors for their story.”

As we made our way via auto rickshaws to a vegetarian feast, Erik Wander remarked, “It was the best sit-down we’ve had yet.”

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