Seva as political strategy

Disaster Relief and the RSS examines a relatively less emphasised aspect of the RSS' activities

More than a hundred years ago, a 24-year-old nationalist Maharashtrian, pursuing medicine at the National Medical College, Calcutta (now Kolkata), joined a band of volunteers from Ramakrishna Mission. They headed to Bardhaman, about 100 km from the burgeoning metropolis, because rural hinterlands there had been inundated once again by the “Sorrow of Bengal” — the Damodar river. A doctor in the making, he was not only equipped to rescue people from the rampaging waters, but also treat patients afflicted by the outbreak of a cholera epidemic. The time he spent among flood victims encouraged him to make volunteerism an annual