The election of Dattatreya Hosabale as the new Sarkaryavah or General Secretary of the Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (RSS) marks a generational shift in the organization and also heralds closer ties with the ruling BJP government.
Hosabale, 65, replaces Suresh ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi (73), who became the general secretary in 2009, when Mohan Bhagwat took charge of the RSS as the Sarsanghchalak. Bhaiyyaji Joshi completed four terms and the decision to replace him with Hosabale was taken after an internal election in Sangh’s Akhil Bharatiya Prathinidhi Sabha – the annual meeting of the top RSS functionaries – in Bengaluru.
The general secretary is number two in the RSS hierarchy but for all practical purposes, he controls the actual functioning of the organisation. As per the RSS constitution, the RSS chief functions as a “guide and philosopher”. It is the general secretary, who appoints central office bearers and presides over the formal meetings of the RSS, assisted by four sah-sarkaryavahs or joint general secretaries.
Hosabale, popularly known as ‘Datta ji’ in the RSS, belongs to a small village in Shivamogga district in Karnataka, from a family associated with the Sangh Parivar. Erudite and an effective orator, Hosabale has a post-graduate degree in English Literature with a keen interest in foreign affairs. In fact, in a bid to unshroud the RSS, he was fielded to interact with the foreign media last year where he spoke about the “selfless and equitable seva” of RSS workers across the country during the lockdown.
Joining the Sangh in 1968, he was associated with the students’ wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), and served as its general secretary for 15 years. Interestingly, Hosabale is the first general secretary to come from the ABVP, and not directly from RSS shakhas. This fact had been a subject of serious debate within the organisation. According to sources, this also seems to have delayed his elevation to the powerful post of sarkaryavah.
His predecessor Bhaiyya ji Joshi was known to maintain a distance from the BJP but this may change now. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Datta ji have a good working relationship. Datta ji is likely to be more actively associated with the functioning of the party. He had played a very important role in the last UP Assembly elections in 2017, shifting his base to Lucknow one year before the polls. He was involved in all aspects of election management,” says a Sangh functionary.
Hosabale is also known to be an avid reader and was active in literary activities from his days as a student. In fact, during the lockdown, he had put out an eclectic list of 15 must-read books as part of #StayHomeIndiaWithBooks, that included Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics, Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Leon Uris’ Exodus and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
He is believed to have enjoyed proximity with almost all writers and journalists of Karnataka, notable among them being Y. N. Krishnamurthy and Gopal Krishna Adiga.
