Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (pronunciation: /rɑːʂʈriːj(ə) swəjəmseːvək səŋgʱ/, Literal translation: National Volunteer Organization or National Patriotic Organization), also known as Sangh, is a right-wing, nationalist paramilitary volunteer Hindu nationalist. RSS states that its ideology is based on the principle of selfless service to the nation. Its critics have described it as an extremist and a militant organization.

The RSS was founded in 1925 by K. B. Hedgewar, a revolutionary and doctor from Nagpur, as a social and cultural organization in British India, to oppose both British colonialism in India and Muslim separatism.

RSS volunteers participated in various political and social movements including the freedom movement and the organization became the leading nationalist Hindu organization in India. By the 1990s, the group had established numerous schools, charities and clubs to propagate its ideology.

Its volunteers are also known for their role in the relief and rehabilitation work during natural calamities and for running more than 100,000 service programs in the field of education, health care, rural development, tribal emancipation, village self-sufficiency, Farming Programmes in rural India and the rehabilitation of lepers and special needs children.

It was banned by the British, and then after independence three times by the Government of India — first in 1948 when Nathuram Godse, a former member who left RSS, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi; then during emergency (1975–1978); and after the Demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. Human Rights Watch says that the RSS has plotted to uproot the Muslim population in India, and that during the 2002 Gujarat violence, "the RSS circulated computerized lists of Muslim homes and businesses to be targeted by the mobs in advance".