• “‘The Kerala Story’ has made history. The group opposing the success of the film is also stunned. The group tried to stop the film by giving different types of arguments. Right there, the film has crossed 100 crores in just nine days” — Viswa Samvad Kendra, the social media platform that publicises and posts content coming from the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its functionaries, wrote these lines about the movie on a Facebook post on Sunday.
• ‘Organiser’, the English mouthpiece of the RSS in a cover page editorial- titled ‘The Kerala Story: Dangers of Denial’, said “…questions arise when usual hypocrites deny creative freedom by blocking the release of a film named ‘The Kerala Story’, highlighting the problem of systematic grooming, deceitful conversions and human trafficking…”
• In June, 2022, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat attended the priority screening of a period piece movie — ‘Samrat Prithviraj’ — at a theatre in central Delhi and said, “We are now looking at history from India’s perspective” calling the movie as “world class”.
• In April, 2022, Bhagwat, in a video message said the movie ‘The Kashmir Files‘ reveals the tragedy of Kashmiri Pandits.
The above mentioned instances quite prominently show how the RSS supported, influenced and inspired movies to make the history of India “right”, quite literally. RSS, with its around 50 affiliates and hundreds of pro-Hindu offshoots, has always been known in the social-political circle as an organisation, which is “closed” in nature while to the common masses it remained an enigma.
However, in the past year, the RSS, that remained averse to publicity has embarked on a journey of “decolonising” India through “rectifying” history, bringing corrigible changes in education system and finally by influencing or inspiring movie makers to produce and make movies that depict how “Hindus were wronged and victims of Muslim fundamentalists for years”, said a senior RSS functionary while explaining the current narrative of RSS in leading the debate. He called series of instances as a ‘movement’, and it is called “Chitra Bharati”.
Making the cinema ‘Right’
According to the official website of Chitra Bharati, the organisation was formed for ‘Bharatiya Chitra Sadhana’. The website further explains that it was created “to encourage and promote film-makers with commitment to Bharatiya values and ethos, to maximise efforts all over the world to include Bharatness in films, to organise competitive film festivals at local, national and international levels, to identify young minds with aptitude to various spheres of film making and to train them, to create a fund to promote films with dominant content related to Bharatness, to create awareness and skills of amongst masses to appreciate good films.”
“Cinema of Bharat is supposed to reflect Bharatiya in its real nature. A part of our cinema reflects our past and present but a significant section of the Cinema of Bharat seem to be unfair to Bharatiya ethos and values. Either the Bharatness is absent or it is presented in a distorted and derogatory manner. A section of the cinema uses this potent medium to divide the society. Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna (BCS) aims to use the art and craft of this audio-video medium to present Bharat in a realistic manner so as to integrate the society rather than to create fissures in various sections,” it further added.
The advisory board includes renowned film producer-directors like Subhas Ghai, Priyadarshan Nair, Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri. A production and cast analysis of the three movies mentioned above reveal that the makers are related or associated with the Sangh ideology or with its affiliates. Agnihotri, a member of the advisory board of Chitra Bharati directed ‘The Kashmir Files’, while Chandraprakash Dwivedi, who made ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, have been closely connected with RSS affiliate Sanskar Bharti.
Sudipto Sen, director of ‘The Kerala Story’, met two senior RSS functionaries in Delhi in 2015 and travelled to Kerala where he interviewed the victims of ‘Love Jihad’ in an NGO, run and managed by another senior functionary of the RSS.
Not a ‘Secret Society’
In March this year, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described the RSS as “a secret society formed to build along the lines of Muslim Brotherhood”, while speaking at a session organised by Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
Even though, Gandhi did not explain why he called the organisation that holds its ‘Shakhas’ (morning assembly meetings of its members) inside school ground premises or local parks, the senior functionaries of the RSS, however, analysed the probable reasons for the Opposition leader having such an idea.
“Apart from his ignorance, there can be other reasons too. Earlier, we never went to general people and did not try to make them understand about us. To common masses, RSS is an organisation that built or gave birth to the BJP. But it is not correct. BJP was born out of Jan Sangh and it was a political movement then. RSS was formed almost a 100 years ago as we will be soon celebrating our centenary. We need to make an outreach to common masses and inspire them to believe in our only ideology — patriotism,” said a senior member of RSS central committee.
As part of the outreach and its efforts to connect with people in general, the RSS has now started interacting with media, holding seminars and even hiring Public Relation firms.
Earlier, the volunteers and people associated with the organisation were self-aware, however, now with time, the rigidity is gone, the style of functioning has changed. Another senior RSS member pointed out, “We do not even consider what Rahul Gandhi said, but we need to make people come out and deny his claims. There is nothing secret about the RSS, one just needs to have willingness to understand.”
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