Organiser (magazine)

Last updated

Organiser
Organiser magazine cover.jpg
Managing editorBharat Bhushan Arora
Current editorPrafulla Ketkar
Former editorsA.R. Nair
K.R. Malkani
L.K. Advani
V.P. Bhatia
Seshadri Chari
CategoriesNews, Politics, Science, Sport, History
FrequencyWeekly
Circulation 50,000
PublisherBharat Prakashan Delhi Limited
First issue1947;77 years ago (1947)
Country India
Based in2322, Sanskriti Bhavan, Laxmi Narain Street, Paharganj, New Delhi
LanguageEnglish
Website organiser.org

Organiser is a mouthpiece of the Hindutva voluntary organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). [1] [2] It was launched as a newspaper in 1947 in the weeks before the Partition of India. [3] [4] The newspaper has been edited by A. R. Nair, K. R. Malkani, L. K. Advani, V. P. Bhatia, Seshadri Chari and Dr R. Balashanker. [5] It has promoted misinformation on many occasions. [6]

Contents

History

After the Second World War, the leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) contemplated how to communicate its views quickly to the growing membership of the organisation. Its theoretical underpinnings established by the founder K. B. Hedgewar discouraged publicity and mass communication. He preferred informal communication of verbal messages carried by RSS pracharaks (full-time workers). However, in the run-up to Indian independence, the "activist pracharaks"–those that favoured more wide-ranging activities for the RSS than societal organisation—argued that the RSS needed to publicise its position on the Partition, on the goals of independent India and on how Hindus should respond to communal tension. After discussion, the RSS leaders consented to the establishment of trusts that could publish newspapers and journals sympathetic to the RSS. Consequently, in late 1946, the swayamsevaks (volunteer members) in the Punjab and Delhi region sold shares for the Bharat Prakashan Trust and raised Rs. 400,000. [3]

The Bharat Prakashan Trust started publishing the Organiser as a weekly starting on 3 July 1947, roughly a month after the British announcement to grant independence and partition the country. The initial issues of Organiser focused on the impending partition of India and called for resistance to such proposals. [7]

The 1948 ban of the RSS following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the press attacks on the RSS strengthened the `activist' members calling for a network of newspapers. In subsequent years, further newspapers were started in vernacular languages, including Panchjanya and Rashtra Shakti, and a news wire service Hindusthan Samachar. [8]

`Activist' members of the RSS worked for the Organiser and other newspapers of the RSS. They were also the most regular contributors to the Organiser, writing on a wide range of social and policy issues where the RSS had a point of view.

Current status

In February 2013, media reports indicated that the RSS had dismissed the editors of the Organiser as well as Panchjanya for having taken a pro-Narendra Modi stand ahead of the RSS's endorsement of him as the Prime Ministerial candidate, and while they extended no support for the BJP President Nitin Gadkari. [22] [23] Vijay Kumar, the Managing Director of Bharat Prakashan took temporary charge as the editor of Organiser. In July, Prafull Ketkar, a political scientist from the BRD Arts and Commerce College for Women in Nashik, was appointed as the editor. [24]

Multiple controversial articles have since appeared in the magazine, most notorious of which being an article calling Kerala a "Godless country." [25] [26] The article invited widespread condemnation including a censure by the Press Council of India. [27] The publication of an interview of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in the run-up to the Bihar polls is said to have embarrassed the BJP government and contributed to the defeat of the party in the polls. In January 2016, the RSS has appointed Jagadish Upasane, a former journalist with India Today and a director in the Bharat Prakashan Trust, as a "group editor" with full control over the editorial content of both Organiser and Panchjanya. [28]

Misinformation

The Organiser has promoted misinformation on many occasions. Sify found Organiser to have spread misleading information about Kerala state in 2015. [6] In 2020, Janta Ka Reporter found Organiser to have spread fake news with the claim that a hungry minor girl was lured and raped in Tamil Nadu. [29]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</span> Hindu nationalist organisation in India

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar, which has developed a presence in all facets of Indian society and includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling political party under Narendra Modi, the 14th prime minister of India. Mohan Bhagwat has served as the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS since March 2009.

Hindutva is a political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bharatiya Jana Sangh</span> Former Indian political party

The Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh (abbreviated asBJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, was an Indian nationalist political party. This party was established on 21 October 1951 in Delhi, that existed from 1951 to 1977. Its three founding members were Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal Upadhyaya. Jan Sangh was the political arm of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation. In 1977, it merged with several other left, centre and right parties opposed to the Indian National Congress and formed the Janata Party. In 1980, the members of erstwhile Jan Sangh quit the Janata party after the defeat in the 1980 general elections and formed the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is the direct political successor to the Jan Sangh.

The Sangh Parivar refers, as an umbrella term, to the collection of Hindutva organisations spawned by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which remain affiliated to it. These include the political party Bharatiya Janata Party, religious organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad, students union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), religious militant organisation Bajrang Dal that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the worker's union Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. It is also often taken to include allied organisations such as the Shiv Sena, which share the ideology of the RSS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K. B. Hedgewar</span> Indian physician and founder of the RSS (1889–1940)

Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, also known by his moniker Doctorji, was an Indian physician and the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Hedgewar founded the RSS in Nagpur in 1925, based on the ideology of Hindutva with the intention of creating a Hindu Rashtra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M. S. Golwalkar</span> 2nd head of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (1906–1973)

Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, popularly known as Guruji, was the second Sarsanghchalak ("Chief") of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Golwalkar is considered one of the most influential and prominent figures among Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh by his followers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh</span> Overseas branch of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh is a non-profit, social, educational, and cultural organization of the Hindus living outside India. It was founded in 1940s in Kenya, it is currently active in 156 countries and estimates 3289 branches.

Balraj Madhok was an Indian political activist and politician from Jammu. Originally an activist of the nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), he later worked as a politician in the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanaji Deshmukh</span> Indian Social Reformer

Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh BR, better known as Nanaji Deshmukh, was a social reformer and politician from India. He worked in the fields of education, health, and rural self-reliance. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award in 2019 by the Government of India. He was a leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and also a member of the Rajya Sabha.

Walter K. Andersen is an American academic known for his studies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – a Hindu nationalist organization. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and is a part of the faculty of Tongji University, Shanghai (China). Previously, he taught comparative politics at the College of Wooster before joining the United States State Department as a political analyst for South Asia specializing in India and Indian Ocean affairs. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor at The American University in Washington, D.C.

The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) is an Indian farmers' organization that is politically linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. BKS was founded by Dattopant Thengadi in 1978. As of 2000, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh claimed BKS had a quarter million members, organized in 11,000 villages and 301 districts across the country. The organization is dominated by landed gentry.

Panchjanya is an Indian weekly magazine published by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Hindi. It was launched by RSS pracharak Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1948 in Lucknow. RSS is a right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation that is widely regarded as the parent organisation of the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hindu terrorism, sometimes called Hindutva terror or, metonymically, saffron terror, refer to terrorist acts carried out on the basis of motivations in broad association with Hindu nationalism or Hindutva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eknath Ranade</span> Leader of the Indian RSS (1914–1982)

Eknath Ramakrishna Ranade was a social activist and right-wing leader. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) when in school, and was its general secretary from 1956 to 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christophe Jaffrelot</span> French political scientist (born 1964)

Christophe Jaffrelot is a French political scientist and Indologist specialising in South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. He is a professor of South Asian politics and history the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po (Paris), a professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute (London), and a Research Director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS).

Dinanath Mishra was an Indian journalist and writer belonging to the Hindu nationalist movement. He authored a seminal work RSS: Myth and Reality on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from a nationalist point of view. He was elected to the Upper House of the Indian Parliament and served a five-year term.

Mauli Chandra Sharma was a senior Indian politician, originally of the Indian National Congress. He was a founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, serving as its Vice-President and President, before being forced out by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activists in the party in 1954.

These are the references for further information regarding the Sangh Parivar.

References

  1. ↑ "Modi's charisma, Hindutva not enough to win polls: RSS mouthpiece Organiser". Deccan Herald. 5 June 2023.
  2. ↑ Shamshul Islam. RSS Primer: Based on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Documents. p. 23.
  3. 1 2 Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron 1987, pp. 114–115.
  4. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics 2011, p. 32.
  5. ↑ "Organiser - ABOUT US". Organiser. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  6. 1 2 "The many lies about Kerala by the RSS' Organiser". Sify . Archived from the original on 18 November 2015.
  7. ↑ Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron 1987, p. 115.
  8. ↑ Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron 1987, p. 115-116.
  9. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics (2011 , p. 194): K. R. Malkani wrote: "Sangh must take part in politics not only to protect itself against the greedy designs of ppoliticians but to stop the un-Bharatiya and anti-Bharatiya policies of the Government and to advance and expedite the cause of Bharatiya through state machinery side by side with official effort in the same direction." (Organiser, 1 December 1949:7-14
  10. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics (2011 , p. 32): "In our ideal, we would wish to abolish the provinces and wish to establish a unique and a unified administration in our country." (Organiser, 29 December 1952: 3).
  11. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics 2011, p. 230.
  12. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics 2011, pp. 167, 193, 210, 229, 257.
  13. ↑ Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron (1987 , p. 163): "Organiser informed its readers that Sharma "suffered from a fatal flaw of an insufferable self-aggrandisment—even at the cost of the party. In this he had no scruples as to the means he employed. Soon it became clear that he was hardly the man to lead a great and growing organisation." (Organiser, 8 November 1954).
  14. ↑ Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron 1987, p. 225.
  15. ↑ Andersen & Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron 1987, pp. 232–233.
  16. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics (2011 , p. 507): "The havoc the politics of reservation is playing with the social fabric is unimaginable. It proves a premium for mediocrity, encourages brain drain and sharpens caste-divide." (quoted from Organiser, 26 August 1990:15). "There is today an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fall-out from an unexpected Shudra revolution." (quoted from Organiser, 1 May 1994:20).
  17. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics (2011 , p. 218): L. K. Advani, while acting as the home minister, wrote about the possibilities, "whether the politicalsystemneeded to be decentralized, whether to continue with the parliamentary system, and whether the electoral system needed to be reformed." (Organiser, 29 March 1998: 29).
  18. ↑ Hansen, Saffron Wave 1999, p. 171.
  19. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics 2011, p. 164.
  20. ↑ Maclean, Kama Kellie. "Embracing the untouchables: the BJP and scheduled caste votes." Asian Studies Review 23.4 (1999): 488-509.
  21. ↑ Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics (2011 , p. 310): A rader writes: "Tolerance is a great quality but not at the cost of wiping out the great religion... there are several [...] cases where minority card is being played. But when it comes to a Hindu thought, psyche, religion or anything associated with Hindu, there is a lot of demeaning, defamation, hurting the religious sentiments, etc." (Organiser, 2007:80) Another reader: "The Hindu in India is faced with a unique situation. While he is theoreitcally part of a majority, he is so fractured into various ideological groups that he is virtually powerless to influence the politics of the country." (Organiser, 2007:80).
  22. ↑ "New editor for RSS Hindi weekly". Indian Express. 15 February 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  23. ↑ "Editors of two RSS weeklies lose jobs over pro-Modi stand". Times of India. 6 April 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  24. ↑ Prafulla Ketkar is new editor of Organiser, Organiser, 27 July 2013.
  25. ↑ Row after article in RSS journal calls Kerala a ‘godless country’, Indian Express, 13 November 2015.
  26. ↑ RSS mouthpiece article on `live-in relationships' in Kerala sets off social media storm, The Hindu, 13 November 2015.
  27. ↑ Press Council notice to Organiser for ‘mocking’ Kerala on beef issue, The Hindu, 23 December 2015.
  28. ↑ RSS appoints senior journalist Jagadish Upasane as group editor, Indian Express, 13 January 2016.
  29. ↑ "Fact-Check: Was 'hungry minor girl lured with food and brutally raped' in Tamil Nadu? RSS mouthpiece Organiser spreads fake news". Janta Ka Reporter . 9 June 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
Sources
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.