India@70: How RSS-linked think-tanks are helping it capture Indian mind-space

When the administration of Jawaharlal Nehru University celebrated Kargil Vijay Diwas first time ever on the campus on 23 July, a particularly aggressive former General of the Indian Army described it as the “capture” of JNU by the Army. That one statement encapsulates how the pro-Hindutva looks at institutions in the country and what it intends to do with them.

In the Sangh Parivar’s plan for socio-political-cultural dominance, institutions like JNU, that have stood for liberal thought for over half a century now, are to be “captured”. That is because these institutions do not confirm to the Sangh's belief system and are an impediment in the realisation of their goals.

There are two ways in which the led Sangh Parivar is moving ahead on this strategy. One is by “capturing” existing institutions by populating them with its own people and radically changing their character from within. The other is by setting up new institutions of its own, which are founded on and seeped in the narrow, obscurantist and paranoid vision of the Sangh Parivar.

Since opportunities for taking over institutions surface only when BJP comes to power, the bigger project that the Parivar has been engaged in over past several decades is setting up institutions of its own. Catch has earlier highlighted eight of these  -

Here is a look at 18 other such institutions that are directly or indirectly linked with the Sangh Parivar and are involved in research on and promotion of a host of subjects aligned with the Sangh Parivar's agenda.

Launched in 2015 as an online public policy platform, Bharat Niti claims to be “an initiative to encourage objective study and in-depth analysis on varied issues of national and international importance”. Among its key beliefs is the view that “ancient wisdom of India can play an important role in guiding the world towards a peaceful and sustainable co-existence”. On its advisory board are P Muralidhar Rao, National General Secretary, BJP, A Suryaprakash, Chairman, Prasar Bharati, KG Suresh, Director General, IIMC, Arun Anand, Former Executive Editor, IANS and R Balashankar, Former Editor, Organiser. The organiation is reportedly planning to raise a cadre of dedicated internet users to "protect Hinduism from being deprecated and its symbols desecrated on online platforms by people inspired by leftist ideologies or Islamism".