Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nearly 40-minute address at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) centenary celebrations on Wednesday has effectively put to rest months of speculation about strains between the Sangh and the government.
Delivered at the Dr. Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi, the speech is being widely viewed as one of his most content-rich and ideologically expansive in recent years, weaving together the Sangh’s century-long journey with his government’s vision for India’s future.
The release of a specially minted Rs 100 coin bearing the image of Bharat Mata being saluted by swayamsevaks — the first time RSS iconography has appeared on Indian currency — marked a genuinely historic moment.
Paired with a commemorative postage stamp recalling swayamsevaks’ participation in the 1963 Republic Day parade, the gesture underscored the state’s formal embrace of the Sangh’s symbols, lending material weight to the political message of the day.
The event comes months after reports suggested that the RSS cadre had not fully mobilized during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and senior functionaries had publicly likened differences with the BJP to “those within a large family.”
Reports had also surfaced that the appointment of a new BJP president was being delayed due to differences between the two bodies over the choice of candidate. Historical frictions between the BJP and the RSS are not new — during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure as Prime Minister, he famously maintained a deliberate distance from then RSS chief Rajendra Singh (Bhaiyya ji), often avoiding direct communication.
Modi’s centenary address, however, projected unmistakable alignment — historically, ideologically, and strategically.
The Prime Minister opened by situating the founding of the RSS on Vijayadashami as part of a “thousand-year-old national consciousness.” He framed the Sangh as “a river that has nourished and enriched countless lives,” invoking its role from the freedom movement to Partition relief, the 1962 war, and resistance during the Emergency.
Throughout his address, Modi consistently echoed the Sangh’s core themes. He described shakhas as spaces where individuals transform from “me” to “we,” praised the Sangh’s work among tribal communities through organizations like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, and highlighted its century-long campaign against caste discrimination. He cited Gandhi’s praise for the Sangh’s spirit of equality, Balasaheb Deoras’s denunciation of untouchability as a sin, and Mohan Bhagwat’s call for “one well, one temple, one cremation ground” as emblematic of its social reform mission.
Modi tied these historical and social references to contemporary challenges, placing demographic manipulation and infiltration — a longstanding RSS priority — at the centre of his security message. He linked this to his “Demography Mission” announced from the Red Fort earlier this year, calling for vigilance against threats to national unity. Alongside, he emphasized swadeshi and self-reliance, civic discipline, family values, and environmental stewardship — the RSS’s five transformative resolutions (Panch Parivartan) — presenting them as instruments to build a developed India by 2047.
By anchoring government priorities in the Sangh’s ideological framework, Modi signalled the closing of ranks that had been in question after May 2024. The tone was neither ceremonial nor distant; it was plainly integrative. He repeatedly described the Sangh as the embodiment of national consciousness and explicitly aligned its mission with the state’s developmental and security agendas.
For a relationship often described as that of “family with occasional differences,” the centenary speech marked a moment of convergence. Modi’s narrative made little distinction between the RSS’s ideological journey and the government’s contemporary mission, setting the stage for closer coordination in the crucial and challenging political cycles ahead.
