Original subtitles

A morning ritual marked by discipline and faith.

This is a shakha, a local assembly.

Here, youngsters are drilled before they learn to question.

The physical training camp is known as the land of penance. They say the more

you discipline yourself here, the more you achieve later.

At the Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, the young girls train in

self-defense, ready for when the nation needs to fight the enemy.

I never learned as much from school as I learned from the RSS women's wing. My

personality developed there.

Muskan Bansal was introduced to RSS training camps by her grandfather when

she was just seven years old.

The first time my family forced me to go, but by the second time I started

loving it.

Mathura is Muskan's hometown.

The city in northern India is known as the birthplace of Lord Krishna and holds

immense significance for Hindus.

Here, devotion runs deep to the deity and increasingly to the ideology of

Hindutva.

Hindutva is an ideology that envisions India as a Hindu nation.

For Vijay Bahadur Singh, raised in the RSS, it's more than an ideology, it's a

shared identity.

There's power in unity.

When you unite, no one can hurt you.

Power in unity, but for whom?

Loyalty here means devotion, not just to India, but to Hinduism.

Those outside the Hindu fold aren't just excluded, they're often viewed with

suspicion. For most RSS followers, the perceived threat isn't distant, it's

next door.

Muslims are the first to be considered.

Anyone who wants to create unrest in the country is seen as an enemy of the

nation.

Across India.

Hate speech and violence against religious minorities, especially

Muslims, has intensified in recent years.

Even in Delhi, interfaith couples live in fear, targeted simply for loving

across a religious divide.

When a Muslim converts to Hinduism, it's called homecoming.

But when a Hindu converts to Islam, it's called love jihad.

This couple fled their hometown in Uttar Pradesh, hoping for safety in India's

capital.

Dhanak, an NGO for interfaith couples, explained their rights to them under the

Special Marriage Act, a law that allows love across religions without

conversion. But the safety they sought has not materialized.

We came to Delhi hoping for protection, thinking we could file our case.

But the exact opposite happened.

While some couples hide in fear, others celebrate their faith and

their place in a society that increasingly rewards religious loyalty.

In Mathura, Muskan's family gathers for Raksha Banthan, a festival honoring the

protective bond between siblings.

For Muskan's family, the RSS, or Sangh, is more than an organization. It's a

guiding force passed down through generations.

Muskan's grandfather Om Prakash joined the Sangh in the 1950s. For decades, he

led local shakas, or assemblies.

Running the Sangh's assemblies alone will not work.

The purpose of a shaka is to build individuals.

But what will we do with the individuals?

We will send them wherever society needs them most.

We are in that very line of work, bringing people together

and steadily instilling in them our spirit of nationalism.

Every day across India, volunteers gather.

disciplined and devoted.

The RSS says it currently runs over 80,000 branches with millions of

followers across India and in many other countries too. A movement that presents

itself as a guardian of Hindu values.

The RSS claims to be the world's largest volunteer organization.

Founded in 1925 as a Hindu nationalist movement, it promotes a socio-cultural

identity, but is often classified as a paramilitary force.

The head of the RSS is Mohan Bhagwat. His words carry weight, shaping how

millions see India, Hinduism, and their sense of belonging.

At a centenary celebration in October 2024, he made his position clear.

The belief that India belongs first and foremost to Hindus lies at the heart of

the RSS worldview.

The Sangh works in so many different dimensions.

People can't even imagine.

For the sake of society and to take this nation to the highest level,

the Sangh will do whatever is necessary.

Today, that vision shapes national politics.

The RSS is closely tied to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, the BJP,

in power for over a decade.

On Independence Day 2025,

Modi praised the RSS from the Red Fort, the symbolic heart of Indian democracy.

The country is proud to be a member of the National Assembly and will continue

to inspire us on this 100-year-long and dedicated journey.

People are placed in crucial positions within the government structures in

order to suggest, to guide, to control, to let it be known what is the RSS

wish. You see, it's also very interesting, given the power of the RSS

and the understanding that they are like the spinal cord, you know.

For many devout Hindus, Modi's 2014 election victory marked the rise of a

leader shaped by the discipline and worldview of the RSS.

He began his political career as a full-time organizer within the movement.

Narendra Modi is from the RSS himself.

His ideology, his way of thinking have been shaped since childhood.

There he learned how to move our country forward and how to build society.

The core of the RSS ideology, at its very core,

There is an anti-Muslim bias.

There's an anti-minority bias.

I brought in the Christian, but when you reduce it to its hard core, there is a

very strong anti-Muslim bias.

If you take it away, nothing is left of the RSS ideology, actually.

The thinking that now shapes policy, public discourse and daily life in India

was once on the margins.

To understand the present, it helps to look at the past.

to India's fight for independence from Britain.

Led by Mahatma Gandhi, he envisioned a secular republic built on non-violence

and pluralism.

But independence came with partition and the birth of Pakistan.

India was split in two, divided not just by borders, but by beliefs.

The rushed division triggered one of history's largest mass migrations.

Communal violence left deep scars.

Religion became a fault line.

The time of the partition was truly terrifying.

The next two or three years were years of unrest, and people felt that if

anyone could protect them, it was the Sangh.

Essentially, what we have in the situation immediately following

independence now is that there are two distinct visions of India.

One is the predominant majority vision, which is advanced by the freedom

struggle, symbolised by Gandhi, Nehru, the Congress.

which is a clear-cut vision of a secular, democratic, socially just, pro

-poor India.

And the other is the one which is espoused by the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and

such forces, which is they want a mirror image of Pakistan.

If Pakistan is going to be a Muslim state, well then India obviously,

logically, must be a Hindu state.

As time passed, the ideological divide grew deeper.

This whole embedded ideology of anti-Muslim bias and hatred

and all comes out in the form of an attack on the Congress and Gandhi.

Who is the progenitor of partition?

The British.

Not a word against the British.

The entire thing is turned on the Congress.

And this is Gandhi. He's compromising with Muslims. They are pro-Muslim.

Gandhi's inclusive and non-violent ideals.

clashed with rising religious nationalism, a clash that, to some, had

to be silenced.

Mahatma Gandhi was overly committed to non-violence.

And that is okay.

But he had one shortcoming.

He would never oppose the wrongs committed by Muslims.

And yet to Hindus, he would say,

if someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other as well.

Believing that Gandhi had betrayed Hindus, appeased Muslims and weakened

the nation, Nathuram Ghatse, a Hindu masaba activist and former RSS member,

assassinated him in 1948.

The killing shocked the world.

amid the cries of a nation overwhelmed with grief.

Gandhi's killer was sentenced to death and hanged in 1949.

The finger of blame quickly turned to the RSS.

Though no charges were brought, the organisation was banned, accused of

spreading hate and fuelling violence.

1948-50 was a time of suppression and annihilation for the RSS.

Om Prakash recalls how different things were back when he first considered

joining the RSS.

He says others dissuaded and even shamed him.

To this day, no one questions whether Godse actually had links to the RSS.

But those in power can make any accusation.

They suddenly found an opportunity to crush the RSS.

Then came the countless arrests and acts of persecution.

Members insist the RSS had no role in the assassination.

But the repression helped to forge a radical and resilient movement.

In Meerut, near the Indian capital, a temple built in 2015 by a hardline

nationalist now glorifies Gandhi's killer.

Nathuram Godse is a patriot, our idol

and role model.

That is still a very small minority opinion.

I do not at all give it greater weight than that. But it is dangerous because

it now shows the confidence. You're out in the open.

What was once a fringe belief is no longer taboo.

When we openly began honoring the name of Nataram Godsa, the police sent us to

jail and beat us up.

And the general public insulted us.

Gandhi was a very foolish man who caused the partition of this country.

Millions of people died.

Today our biggest enemy is Islam, so Hindus need to be armed. They need to be

armed.

Sentiments like these cause huge problems for some members of society.

In India, interfaith relationships can provoke not just social hostility, but

state violence.

Couples are monitored, harassed.

and sometimes even brutalized.

When I stepped outside,

they shoved me into a car and took me to the Govindpuri police station.

The driver cursed me the whole way, saying things like, you want to run off

with girls, why not from your own family?

Muslims do this, he said.

Then he said, strip him here and make him run on foot.

I was so terrified.

It was the first time anything like this had happened to me.

In that moment, it was just...

Humiliated

for loving a Hindu woman while he was abused by the police.

authorities were trying to convince his Hindu partner to leave him.

I was mentally tortured.

I was pressured not to continue this relationship.

They said many things about Muslims, and they tried their best to brainwash me

and send me back home.

When they refused to give in, her father filed a petition, claiming she wasn't

capable of making her own decisions.

The couple turned to the Delhi High Court, seeking protection and the right

to stay together.

In Muskan's home, warnings about love jihad were very normal growing up.

The claim is that Muslim men seduce Hindu women to convert them to Islam.

I've heard many Muslims say, it's fine, in a few years we will make this a

Muslim country.

So we have to remain vigilant.

But today, Hindutva is growing so powerful that they should be afraid.

So either you embrace our roots and culture or leave here.

You can't live here otherwise. You couldn't survive here.

What does Hindustan mean?

Say it.

The land of Hindus, Hindustan. When did the Muslims arrive?

Before that, who was here?

It was Hindus, wasn't it?

This rhetoric reflects an exclusive vision of nation.

A century ago, European nationalists rallied around authoritarian ideas of

identity.

Mussolini's Italy led the way with fascism, currents that resonated with

some of the early Hindu nationalist thinkers and movements in India.

In 1925, K. B. Hedgavar founded the RSS.

convinced that India's subjugation began not with the British, but centuries

earlier under Muslim rule, symbolized by the Mughal Empire and the Babri Mosque.

Hetkavar's mission was to unify Hindus and reclaim India as both the Holy Land

and Motherland.

The word secular is so misleading.

There's only one true religion.

A vision that excluded Muslims, Christians and other faiths.

It was inspired by Vinayak Damodar Savakar, who first developed the concept

of Hindutva.

Other person who's played a crucial role is Munje, who we recognize as a leader

of the Hindu Mahasabha.

He makes a visit to Italy, coming back from the roundtable conference of

1931, where he goes and meets Mussolini.

And then he goes and visits the youth and children organizations to see how

they are organizing.

And then he comes back and very consciously puts those ideas into

practice, that this is how we need to organize.

It wasn't just Mussolini. The RSS top brass also looked to Adolf Hitler, the

German dictator, for inspiration.

Hitler's ideas were praised in the writings of M.S. Golwakar, the second

chief of the RSS.

He says German race pride has now become the topic of the day.

A good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by is actually

approving and recommending that we do in India to the Muslims

what Germany has done to the Jews.

It's a basic.

Hindus can never be like that.

But one thing holds true.

You need to fight fire with fire.

That is what our principles teach us.

It's not clear whether Golwakar actually condoned the Holocaust.

His writings came before its full horror was revealed.

But his ideas still shape the RSS.

Today, the message travels even faster. Social media has amplified Hindutva's

reach, connecting young voices across India.

Today's youth are strong.

Everyone wants to do something. There is a desire to do something.

And I believe that if they are on the right path, they can build a future of

India.

That desire to build India grounded in Hindutva nationalism would determine the

path taken by Vijay Bahadur Singh.

Raised by the RSS worldview, he became deeply involved in Hindu activism and

joined a campaign in the early 1990s that reshaped India's political

landscape, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

At the heart of the movement was Ayodhya, a small town in northern India.

It was home to the 16th century Babri Mosque, built during the Mughal era.

The mosque had to be removed.

This is Lord Ram's place, and this stain had to be removed no matter what.

For Hindu nationalists, the Babri Mosque became a symbol of historical grievance.

Reclaiming the land for a Ram temple became a matter of faith and national

pride.

The core demand was now a religious demand.

The religious demand with a clear-cut communal angle.

You were not just saying we want to build a grand temple to Ram in Ayodhya

or somewhere else.

You chose something where it was a direct conflict with Muslims.

It sparked fierce debate, not just about religion, but about India's secular

foundations and national identity.

campaigners rallied support for the Ram temple.

In 1990, BJP leader LK Advani travelled across India promoting the message.

Backed by the RSS and other Hindu nationalist groups, they mobilised over

100,000 supporters.

The organisation felt more and more Ram lovers should reach Ayodhya and show

their devotion.

While Hindu hardline foot soldiers like him drummed up religious passions, the

BJP had turned it into a mass political movement.

That set the stage for the fateful day of December 6, 1992.

The turning point came when LK Advani, who was a senior RSS and BJP leader,

later became Deputy Prime Minister, he jumped into the fray and he organized a

march.

Speeches would be given by people on the way and a lot of mobilization was done.

And in fact, Mr.

Modi himself was involved in the organization of Disrat Yatra.

The government deployed police officers across Ayodhya, but they were

outnumbered by hundreds of thousands of protesters who had descended on the

town.

All the borders were sealed.

Anyone wearing Hindu symbols like a tilak, a mala or a kanti was arrested by

the police.

We jumped over the barricades and did whatever we could.

By sunset, all three domes of the mosque were demolished. They were torn down.

The

demolition

unleashed a wave of communal violence across India, claiming over 2,000 lives,

most of them Muslim.

But the deeper impact was ideological.

It normalized religious polarization and laid the groundwork for future unrest.

In 2002, even more brutal riots broke out in Gujarat, the western state led by

Modi. The violence went largely unpunished, and the pressure to conform

to a Hindu identity grew far beyond politics.

When I was at school, people would say, you were converted during the Mughal

era, your forefathers were all Hindus, so why don't you just live as a Hindu?

Why live like this?

But in our view, it wasn't a choice made by us or our parents.

Their relationship isn't rooted in faith, but in love, and in the belief

that the rule of law will prevail.

If we made up our minds, if we decided to do this, I don't believe anyone

should stop us.

So long as we act within the law, and the law does grant us this power, it is

written in our law, so no one should hold us back.

Our greatest hope lies in the Constitution that we have the right to

be together, even today, in a secular country.

But that hope stands in stark contrast to reality.

Religious identity continues to shape public life, affecting how communities

interact with each other and the state.

Along with top BJP leaders, Vijay Bahadur Singh was accused but acquitted

of conspiring to demolish the Babri Mosque.

Once imprisoned for their ideological beliefs, Hindu nationalists now find

themselves aligned with the political mainstream.

The RSS holds a central place in Indian politics.

That influence was on full display when India's Prime Minister inaugurated the

Ram Temple in Ayodhya on the very ground where the Babri Mosque once stood.

By consecrating Lord Ram's statue, Narendra Modi fulfilled one of the most

significant political promises of his 2014 election campaign, building a grand

temple on the site of the former Muslim mosque.

I think Narendra Modi has a big vision of a Hindu nation.

Our roots run very deep. He has built the Ram Temple.

He has taken such a big step.

I see the building of the temple as a symbol of what the

Hindutva forces want India to be.

We have finally asserted our national identity.

What is that natural identity?

Hinduism. Ram, the temple.

Today the situation of the country has improved so much.

Even our great leaders and astrologers say that the 21st century is India's

century.

As the flames rise in celebration, a century-old vision stands fulfilled.

And the future of India remains contested.