Nagpur, October 20: On a morning steeped in tradition and heavy with symbolism, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat delivered the organisation's annual Vijayadashami address at the Reshimbagh grounds here on Tuesday, an event that carried the added weight of concluding the Sangh's centenary year.
The RSS was founded on the festival of Vijayadashami exactly a century ago, in 1925, by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in this very city, and the ground on which Bhagwat spoke has long been the spiritual and organisational heart of the movement.
Earlier in the day, the Sarsanghchalak performed the traditional shastra puja, the ceremonial worship of weapons that is an inseparable part of the Dussehra observance for the Sangh, and paid floral tributes at the Smriti Mandir, the memorial to Hedgewar, the organisation's founding figure. The ritual observances lent the gathering its customary blend of solemnity and martial symbolism, a feature of the Vijayadashami function that has remained unchanged for decades.
The chief guest list this year drew considerable attention. Former vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar attended the event, while Sanjay Gupta, the Editor-in-Chief of Dainik Jagran, was invited as the chief guest.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and state Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule were present, and the Consul General of Israel in Mumbai, representing western India, also attended the proceedings, an international presence that underscored the diplomatic dimension the annual address has acquired in recent years.
At the core of Bhagwat's address lay a single concept, which he returned to repeatedly and elaborated at length: "svabodh", or self-awareness. For the RSS chief, this self-awareness of India's identity and ethos is the emotional bond that holds together a nation of extraordinary diversity, the invisible thread that keeps a vast and varied land from fraying at its edges.
He described it as the sense of "we" that binds a multitudinous society into one people, and argued that this awareness is already reflected in the founding text of the republic itself.
"Svabodh is reflected in the Preamble of the Constitution — 'We, the people of India.' That sense of 'we', 'sva' is our emotional bonding with which such a multidiverse country has always been one country, one society, one nation since ancient times," Bhagwat said.
He added that the words "We, the People of India" in the Preamble are, in fact, a symbol of that very self-awareness and emotional unity, and that on the basis of the ethos of that "sva", efforts are being made to unite India and make it stronger.
The address wove together history, philosophy and contemporary politics. Bhagwat offered a sweep of Indian history as a cautionary tale, arguing that when Indian society lost sight of unity and belonging, people became divided and progressively weaker, a fragmentation that eventually led to centuries of subjugation.
To preserve the freedom won through countless sacrifices, he said, Indians must incorporate the emotional bond that is reflected in the Directive Principles of State Policy into their everyday civic life. He acknowledged that having a natural attachment to one's language, caste or faith is not wrong, but insisted that the nation and a shared sense of national identity must remain paramount over all such narrower attachments.
"India is a land of diversity; our traditional character has been to accept and protect this diversity," he said, framing pluralism not as a modern concession but as an ancient civilisational trait. In a passage that drew on philosophical reflection, he told the gathering: "Sow a thought and you reap action; sow character and you reap destiny," urging individuals to cultivate character as the foundation of national strength.
On the purpose of human life, he said its ultimate aim is to recognise the unity of existence and to live with self-restraint, sacrifice and the spirit of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" — the ancient teaching that the world is one family.
The address also carried a sharp warning about forces the Sangh chief believes are ranged against India. Bhagwat spoke of a "Western-driven wave of regime change" and pointed to unrest in countries such as Nepal, France, Albania and Bangladesh as evidence of a destabilising current in global politics. "India remains an ultimate target" of these forces, he declared, before asserting with emphasis: "Regime change will not happen in India."
He said protests in a democracy should focus on resolving problems rather than creating hostility and division, and cautioned against agitation driven by the pursuit of power, popularity or the desire to spread animosity — a remark widely read as a comment on the politics of street protest.
Looking ahead, Bhagwat highlighted the Panch Parivartan, or Five Transformations, as the practical programme through which the Sangh intends to channel the centenary year's energies. Self-awareness and the adoption of Swadeshi — the preference for indigenous goods and self-reliance — form the foundational pair of this concept, he explained, presenting them as the basis from which social harmony and civic discipline can grow.
The centenary theme ran through the speech's historical passages. Bhagwat invoked Sant Ravidas, whom he credited with spreading the message of "svadharma nishtha" — steadfastness in one's own path — along with social harmony and devotion, at a time when foreign invaders were unleashing terror on the land.
He recalled Swami Shraddhanand on the centenary of his martyrdom, describing him as an Arya Samaj ascetic, an educationist, a pioneer of the Shuddhi movement and a freedom fighter.
He paid tribute to Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on his birth centenary, remembering his decades of work among tribal communities in Odisha, and noted that the nation is marking the 200th birth anniversary years of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Bengal's Shrimad Rajnarayan Basu, both of whom he placed in the lineage of social reformers who strengthened the national fabric.
Beyond the grand themes, the address touched on a range of contemporary concerns that Bhagwat believes require social attention rather than governmental action alone.
He spoke of the floods that have devastated parts of Nepal, of the need for balanced development that does not sacrifice the environment, of environmental protection as a civilisational duty, of the scourge of drug addiction among the young, and of the need for responsible use of technology — a reminder that the Sangh's programme extends from the philosophical to the practical, from the national to the personal.
The timing of the address gave it particular resonance. The conclusion of the centenary year marks a moment of institutional self-reflection for the RSS, an organisation that has grown from a small group of volunteers in a Nagpur playground to one of the largest voluntary movements in the world.
Bhagwat's emphasis on "svabodh" can be read as both a celebration of that journey and a prescription for its next century: a call for every Indian, regardless of affiliation, to cultivate the self-awareness of belonging to a single civilisational family.
As the gathering dispersed from Reshimbagh, the speech left its audience with a dual message — confidence in India's resilience and vigilance against forces that would divide it. Whether the concept of "svabodh" moves beyond the Sangh's own vocabulary into the broader national conversation remains to be seen, but on the centenary's concluding morning, it was the word on every lip in Nagpur.
(Reporting based on The Times of India, The Economic Times and powercorridors.in.)