Was Dr. K.B. Hedgewar was Freedom Fighter?

 

Dr. Hedgewar was a freedom fighter and pre-RSS Congressman who was arrested and sentenced for a year’s imprisonment for his role in the Khilafat movement (1919-1924) and that was his last participation in the freedom struggle. Soon after his release, Hedgewar, inspired by Savarkar’s idea of Hindutva, founded the RSS in September 1925 and this organisation remained subservient to the colonising power and opposed the mass movements for India’s freedom in every phase of the struggle.
 
According to Hedgewar’s biography published by the RSS, when Gandhi launched the Salt Satyagraha in 1930, he “sent information everywhere that the Sangh will participated in this movement. However those wishing to participate individually in it were not prohibited. This meant that any responsible worker of the Sangh could not participate in the Satyagraha”. This announcement of Hedgewar was actively discouraged cadres to participate in these momentous events. M.S. Golwalkar, who succeeded Hedgewar, wrote-- 
 
“..there was the movement in 1930-31. At that time many other people had gone to Doctorji (Hedgewar). This delegation requested Doctorji that this movement will give independence and Sangh should not lag behind. At that time, when a gentleman told Doctorji that he was ready to go to jail, Doctorji said: ‘Definitely go. But who will take care of your family then?’

That gentleman replied: ‘I have sufficiently arranged resources not only to run the family expenses for two years but also to pay fines according to the requirements’.

Then Doctorji told him: ‘If you have fully arranged for the resources then come out to work for the Sangh for two years’. After returning home that gentleman neither went to jail nor came out to work for the Sangh.”

However, Hedgewar himself participated in an individual capacity and went to prison. Although, this time, not with the motives of a freedom fighter. He went to prison, according to his RSS-published biography, with “the confidence that with a freedom-loving, self-sacrificing and reputed group of people inside with him there, he would discuss the Sangh with them and win them over for its work”.

Alarmed by the motivation of both Hindu and Muslim sectarian groups to use Congress cadres for their own disruptive purposes, the All India Congress Committee passed a resolution in 1934 which prohibited members of the Congress party from becoming members of the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim league.

By the end of the decade in December 1940, when Gandhi had launched the satyagraha for Quit India, a note from the home department of the colonial government reveals that RSS leaders met the secretary of the home department and “promised the secretary to encourage members of the Sangh to join the civic guards in greater numbers,”.

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