Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, popularly known as ‘Doctorji’ was born in Nagpur on Varsha Pratipada day, April 1, 1889.
Hedgewar was the fifth of six children of a very poor family in Nagpur. His father was a Hindu priest. When he was 13 both his parents died the same day in one of the epidemics of bubonic plague that periodically swept India.
He received his early education at Neel City School, Napgur from where he was expelled for greeting the Inspector of Schools by singing Vande Mataram.
He appeard for the Praveshika examination of Calcutta National Vidyapeeth from the Amravati centre and passed it. After receiving help and guidance from Dr B.S. Munje and others, he proceeded to Calcutta and secured the LMS degree in medicine, in 1914 from the National Medical College, Calcutta.
Keshavrao became a doctor and arrived in Nagpur. However, he was not thinking of starting his medical practice. He visualized that it was the Hindu society that had brought prosperity to India and it was also the Hindu society whose weakness was now instrumental in India’s downfall. He also realized that the Hindu society was not organized to an extent that it could bring about a change in the society and that the national consciousness of the Hindu society was in a dormant state. He also realized that the people, who were looked upon to lead the country in such difficult times, were oblivious to the fact that any seeming diversity in the Hindu society was confined to the surface and that there was one cultural norm that pervaded the whole Hindu mind.
Dr. Hedgewar experienced that Hindus were no less in intelligence, physical capability, material prosperity, or in population. He felt that a Hindu, however, used these capabilities for the benefit of his family alone, and the thought of his country was usually relegated to the background. He explained to his compatriots that it was because of the selfcentered mentality of Hindus that a handful of English people were ruling over India.
He had come to the conclusion that it was of no use to blame English people or any other group of people for India’s problems or shortcomings. Such an idea did not effect any improvement in the Hindu community, nor did it give rise to any stabilized unity amongst them, which was vitally necessary for India’s glorious future. People, who were leading the nation at that time, agreed with Dr. Hedgewar on these issues, but they were too busy in the political agitations to devote any time to the basic work of organizing the Hindu society. A common man was carrying the conviction that organizing the Hindu society was an impossible task. Dr. Hedgewar was a devoted worker who knew how to translate his ideas into reality. He believed in winning. He was determined to accomplish his goal, which other people had called impossible to achieve. Needless to say that when persons of such resolve and achievement rise to work, the goal itself starts drawing closer to them.
He felt a remedy was a cultural organisation that would unite Hindus on a common platform and instill among them discipline and national character. On the inspiring day of Vijayadashami in the year 1925, he invited selected youth and some leading personalities of Nagpur to a meeting. There, he set forth that from that day on, the work of awakening the national consciousness in the Hindu society and the work of organizing the Hindu society was going to begin. Thus RSS came in to existance.
