India's leader-in-waiting fans Hindu nationalism

In the RSS view, the beloved motherland of India – messy, chaotic, and blessed with an astute population that leads the world in software writing but is seemingly cursed with an inability to organize well – needs the kind of systematic discipline their organization alone can provide. Only with a strong Hindu hand can India emerge as the leader of nations that RSS members feel it should be. The RSS would free India from a mentality of subversion and impotence they say was imposed by Muslim invaders, and then British colonialists.

In RSS camps, youngsters are drilled in physical exercise. But according to D.R. Goyal, a former RSS member, this is "much more than a physical routine.... It is a psychological drill leading to total surrender of the individual personality to what the RSS establishment [calls] 'the ideal.' "

On June 20, 1942, a 14-year-old Advani attended an RSS lecture in Karachi that changed his life. The subject: Hindutva.

Within a year, young Advani would meet M.S. Golwalker, arch-guru of the RSS. Mr. Golwalker's photo now hangs in all RSS schools, and his writings on the superiority of Hindu culture, and the need to remove from India the influence of non-Hindus, Muslims, and Christians included, lie at the core of RSS belief.

Ten years before meeting Advani, Golwalker had written: "This great Hindu Race professes its illustrious Hindu Religion, the only religion in the world worthy of being so denominated .... Guided by this religion ... the Race evolved a culture which despite the degenerating contact with the debased 'civilizations' of the Mussalmans and the Europeans... is still the noblest in the world." (Golwalker's books, including the RSS bible, "Bunch of Thoughts," are on sale at BJP headquarters in Delhi.)

Advani at first flirted with an engineering career. But after RSS Officers Training Camp in Indore and then Ahmedabad, he committed himself to the cause. By 1947, the year India was partitioned, Advani was chief of the Karachi RSS intellectual cell; 10 days before the epic and bloody partition of India, Advani became the RSS head in Karachi. On that day, coincidentally enough, Golwalker met him on a tour of what would soon become Pakistan.

Advani is regarded as someone unusually attuned to RSS rhythms. Supporters point out he works 15- to 16-hour days; journalists marvel that he can stand for hours on end giving speeches and talks, holding meetings, and never seeming to tire.

"Advani is the incarnation of RSS ideology," argues Christophe Jaffrelot, author of the comprehensive study, "The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India." He sits as easily with bearded other-worldly Hindu sadus or "saints," as with groomed executives of India's high-tech corporations. He can talk the language of fundamentalism with the old guard, but is contemporary with India's sophisticated young.

In his spare but imposingly spacious Delhi office, Advani is relaxed and wears his power lightly. He smiles, cracks jokes, and says he wants to watch the movie "Pearl Harbor," but hasn't had time for a film since "Titanic."

He stays away from the religious vernacular. But he states, "People fear that if I come to power I will annex Pakistan. Now Pakistan and India are two sovereign countries. But I do concede that a day may come, and a day will come, when both countries and their leaders and people will realize that partition did not help either of them, and perhaps a confederation of the two countries will be in the best interest. I look forward to that day.

"There was a time when the two Germanys could not think of living together."

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