One of the paradoxes of the Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) movement in India which has moved from strength to strength in recent decades has been its ability to woo and win over an increasing number of Dalits — the downtrodden castes within a hierarchical Hindu social order — into its ranks. Hindutva’s apparent transcendence of Hinduism’s caste divisions in the process of expanding its cadre base is used by its ideologues to not only explain the exponential aggrandizement of its following but also to drive home its claim that, in essence, the Hindutva movement represents a consolidation, in principle as well as in practice, of a united Hindu family. The familial orientation, which is attributed by Hindutva to the structure of the Hindu community,manifests itself very clearly in the term, sangh parivar, which denotes the aggregate of affiliates and associates that function under the aegis of its so-called mother organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s book, I Could Not Be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS, is the personal narrative of a once faithful, if not fanatical, Hindutva activist who belongs to one of Hinduism’s lowest castes. Meghwanshi’s story covers a crucial span of time in his life, beginning with his initiation into the RSS at the age of 13 to his exit from the RSS fold due to extreme disillusionment with its stated aim of reinventing India into a Hindu rashtra.