Bal Thackeray may have called their bombs “damp squibs” and their parent organisations may have quickly disowned the five men arrested by Maharashtra police last week in connection with the crude explosives planted at cultural venues outside Mumbai, but a closer look at the groups and the people behind them reveal an ominous, new network of Hindu hardliners in western India.

The five men were members of the Sanatan Sanstha (SS) and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), hitherto little-known groups operating in the hinterland of Maharashtra and Goa. Two of them are also members of another newly launched outfit called the Dharmashakti Sena, pictures of whose inaugural rally in April show young men dressed in military fatigues.

These groups, which work like wheels within wheels, have been quietly mobilising Hindus on a cocktail of Ramrajya, Hindu dharma and “dharmakranti” — religious revolution — in and around Mumbai for a few years now, investigations by The Indian Express have found.

While the SS and the HJS are both registered in Goa as charitable organisations, the Dharmashakti Sena was set up in 16 Maharashtra towns and cities on Gudi Padwa day this April. Its stated aim: establishing “Ramrajya” and to make Hindus “capable of action”.

Publications linked to the three groups say the Dharmashakti Sena offers free training in self-defence and the training involves inculcating “mental courage”. It also reminds readers of the “armed battle of revolutionaries and saints”, RSS leader Golwalkar’s work on “protecting Hindus” and his teaching that “weapons should be countered with weapons”.

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