Dhirendra Jha unpacks Golwalkar's controversial legacy in this new book

Dhirendra Jha begins the book with a stunning claim - a curtain-raiser to one of the many principal contentions in the book

GOLWALKAR: The Myth Behind the Man, the Man Behind the Machine

Author: Dhirendra K Jha

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: Rs 899

  Except for slightly more than a decade, in almost a hundred years of its existence, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been perceived as a shadowy organisation. For a highly restrictive collective that harps on privileging the sangathan (organisation) over vyakti (individual), it has had just seven sarsanghchalak (chief), excluding stop-gap head, L V Paranjape, for seven months in 1930-31 when founder-sarsanghchalak Keshav Baliram Hedgewar was in jail after participating in a protest movement that ran parallel to the Civil