In 1978 Rao Saheb Kasbe’s seminal work on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Decoding the RSS: Its Tradition and Politics, an incisive critique of Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts was published. When it was initially published in Marathi, it was publicly burnt by the cadres of the RSS. Kasbe’s book was followed by DR Goyal’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (1979). Goyal, a former RSS pracharak and one of the founding members of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Committee, later renamed Qaumi Ekta Trust (the other founding member was Subhadra Joshi), provided a scathing critique of the RSS and its working style. The book is, even today, regarded as a foundational work on the RSS. In his later years Goyal became an active member of the Communist Party of India.
A slew of books on this theme followed. Historians and researchers like Shamsul Islam, AG Noorani, Pralay Kanungo and Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, have shed important light on this organization. In recent times, there have also been books which, rather than studying the emergence of the RSS from a critical perspective, have sung paeans of the organization. In this regard, Walter Andersen’s works stand out. In all his works, without exception, he has vehemently defended the RSS, its ideology, and its working style. The problems and violence that this organization has posed and perpetuated in Indian history have conveniently been ignored by him.