The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or, as more commonly called, the RSS-was started in 1925 on the day of Vijayadashami. The founder, revered Doctor Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, passed away in 1940 handing over the charge to Sri Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, popularly known as Guruji, who continued to be the chief of the organisation till 1973.
The present attempt to collect some of his i.e., Shri Guruji’s thoughts has made us feel like ‘picking pebbles on the shores of an ocean’. The impossibility of compressing in a single handy volume the various thoughts that he had expressed for full 33 years of his stewardship of Sangh in thousands of his speeches, talks, discussions, and informal conversation covering a whole range of national topics is obvious. What is attempted here is just to present his viewpoint on various topics in a comprehensive manner. With this end in view, some of his ideas are strung together under different heads. However, we do not claim any exhaustive exposition of the topics under each head.
Moreover, most of his speeches were in Hindi. The force and diction of his chaste Hindi and the inspiring images they bring up are bound to suffer while rendering them into other languages, especially to a foreign language. Naturally, the ideas contained herein are his, but the words are ours. As such we are keenly aware of the shortcomings of these words and expressions. Burdened though with all such anxieties, what made us take up this task is the confidence that the radiance of his thoughts will outshine all these dark spots and illumine the national mind. As the following pages will bear out, the thoughts of Sri Guruji, are proving a beacon-light in the confused state of our national mind even to this day. The crisis in our country is more intellectual and mental than physical. Whatever physical maladies are seen today ravaging our body - politic have their roots in the mental weaknesses and intellectual perversions of the leadership at the helm of our national affairs. Often these failings strut about masquerading as high ideals trying to cover up their disastrous effects. Sri Guruji’s ideas have the intensity of warmth and light to dispel all such darkness and charge the nation’s mind with right vision and the spirit of right action.
Since its publication, nearly three decades ago, the book has been brought out in almost all the major Bharatiya languages. It has indeed stirred the thinking sections of the country and even abroad. It is clear that it had met a long and deeply felt need.
It is no exaggeration to say that thousands, if not lakhs, have been inspired by the living thoughts in the Bunch. As Prof. M. A. Venkata Rao, in his Introduction, says "It will be seen how full, how positive, how patriotic, how practical and idealistic at the same time, the principles and methods of nation-building adopted by the Sangh are, as adumbrated by Shri Guruji."
As could be expected, these thoughts cover the eternal and abiding aspects of our national life, as also the current and the contemporary ones. This is quite natural. Analysis of the burning problems of the day with suitable anecdotes and examples do help to emphasise, and highlight the permanent principles. The excellence of ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ lies precisely in this. The abiding values, which should form the warp and woof of our national fabric, are again and again imprinted on the mind of the reader.
In this Third Edition we have added the Index and effected some typographical correction, which had remained in the Second Edition. A short biographical life-sketch of Shri Guruji and some of his thoughts prior to and during 1947-48 are two more new features of this Edition. We are sure that the present Edition too will meet with the same enthusiastic and enlightened response that greeted the previous ones. The nation’s continuing demand for ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ is amply proving that it is a Philosophy of Thought and Action par-excellence, with its appeal as eternal as the nation itself which it seeks to resurrect and re-build.
We offer our heart-felt homage to late Prof. M. A. Venkata Rao, a scholar of vast erudition and great depth of vision, to whom the book is dedicated - for his excellent Introduction.
We are grateful to Shri V. S. Godbole of U. K. for his detailed observations which have helped us to improve and update the present Edition in a few respects. Our thanks are due to all those whose loving co-operation has made this arduous though pleasant task, possible.