Mohan Bhagwat

Mohan Madhukar Rao Bhagwat (IPA: [moːɦən mədʱukəɾ(ə)ɾaːʋ bʱaːɡʋət̪]; born 11 September 1950) is the sixth and current Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindutva paramilitary organisation, since 2009.

Mohan Bhagwat
Bhagwat at an RSS event
6th Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 March 2009 (2009-03-21)
Preceded by	K. S. Sudarshan
Personal details
Born	(1950-09-11) 11 September 1950 (age 74) Chandrapur, Madhya Pradesh (present-day Maharashtra), India[1]
Relations	Madhukar Rao Bhagwat (father) Malati (mother)
Alma mater	Nagpur Veterinary College (B.V.Sc.)
Occupation	Sarsanghchalak, RSS

Early life

Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat was born in a Marathi Karhade Brahmin family in Chandrapur, then in the state of undivided Madhya Prdesh in present-day Maharashtra.^[2][1][3] He comes from a family of RSS activists.^[1] His father Madhukar Rao Bhagwat was the Karyavah (secretary) for the Chandrapur zone and later a Prant Pracharak (provincial promoter) for Gujarat.^[1] His mother Malati was a member of the RSS Women's Wing.^[4]

Bhagwat completed his schooling from Lokmanya Tilak Vidyalaya and then the first year of his B.Sc. from the Janata College in Chandrapur. He graduated in Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry from Government Veterinary College, Nagpur. He dropped out of his postgraduate course in Veterinary Sciences and became a Pracharak (full-time promoter/worker) of the RSS towards the end of 1975.^[1]

Association with the RSS

After working underground during the Emergency, Bhagwat became the Pracharak of Akola in Maharashtra in 1977 and rose within the organisation responsible for Nagpur and Vidarbha regions.^[1]

Bhagwat was chosen as the Sarsanghchalak (Chief Executive) of the RSS on 21 March 2009. He is one of the youngest leaders to head the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after K. B. Hedgewar and M. S. Golwalkar.^[1]

In 2017, Bhagwat became the first RSS Chief to be officially invited to the Rashtrapati Bhawan by then President Pranab Mukherjee.^[5] In September 2018, Mohan Bhagwat presided over a three-day session at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi as part of outreach to a wider public, where he said that RSS has discarded some parts of M. S. Golwalkar's Bunch of Thoughts which were no longer relevant to the current circumstances.^[6]

Ideology and views

In a rally in Madhya Pradesh in February 2017, Bhagwat asserted "Everyone born in the country is a Hindu – of these some are idol-worshipers and some are not. Even Muslims are Hindus by nationality, they are Muslims by faith only."^[7] Some months later, Bhagwat reaffirmed this, stating that Hinduism was the only true religion in the world, and that all other religions were merely sects that had originated from Hinduism.^[8] Bhagwat has also frequently shown his belief in love jihad, an Islamophobic conspiracy theory promoted by Hindu nationalists, which alleges that Muslim men target Hindu women through means such as seduction, deception, kidnapping, and marriage, as part of a "demographic war" and a broader global conspiracy.^[9]

In an earlier event in 2015, Bhagwat criticised the late Mother Teresa, a nobel prize winning Catholic saint who was primarily known for her humanitarian work in aiding poor and sick people in India. Bhagwat stated "It’s good to work for a cause with selfless intentions. But Mother Teresa’s work had ulterior motive, which was to convert the person who was being served to Christianity."^[7]

In 2019, he stated that the Sangh is not confined to any singular ideology or ideologue. He asserted that while the core principle of the RSS is the belief that India is a Hindu Rashtra—a concept considered non-negotiable by the organisation—it should not be categorised under any specific ideological framework, including that articulated in M. S. Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts.^[10]

In November 2021, Mohan Bhagwat publicly expressed his opposition to the Partition of India and voiced his support for the reunification of the Indian subcontinent. He stated, "The only solution to the pain of Partition lies in undoing it," thereby advocating for the reversal of the territorial division that occurred in 1947.^[11][12]

In January 2023, Bhagwat advocated support towards the LGBT community in India. He stated, "People with such proclivities have always been there; for as long as humans have existed. This is biological, a mode of life."^[13][14]

In January 2025, Bhagwat said that India got its "true independence" with consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.^[15]

Award

In 2017 the state-run Animal and Fishery Sciences University in Nagpur gave Mohan Bhagwat an honorary Doctor of Science degree.^[16]

Bibliography

• Yashaswi Bharat. Prabhat Prakashan, 2021^[17]