K.S. Sudarshan

Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan led the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist organisation that has long run a Sikh-facing wing, the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat. He was born on 18 June 1931 in Raipur, in a Kannada Brahmin family from Kuppahalli village in Karnataka, and trained as an engineer at Jabalpur Engineering College. He first attended an RSS shakha at the age of nine, became a full-time pracharak in 1954, was prant pracharak of Madhya Pradesh in 1964 and a Joint General Secretary of the RSS in 1990.

Key moments

• March 2000: he became sarsanghchalak, the RSS's chief, after Rajendra Singh stepped down for reasons of health. ThePrint says he was chosen over the senior H.V. Seshadri, who had a heart ailment.
• 2000 to 2001: in a television interview with Karan Thapar, republished by The Wire, he said India "by definition is Hindu", that Muslims and Christians are not outsiders because their forefathers were Hindu, and that the Constitution should be reviewed completely; he denied calling for it to be scrapped. The interview does not mention Sikhs.
• About 2001: The Quint reports that when Akal Takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti criticised the RSS, Sudarshan claimed that Sikhs are Hindus, a statement that upset many Sikhs. The Quint gives neither his exact words nor a date.
• 2000 to 2005: he clashed with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. ThePrint says Vajpayee thought him too conservative, and that Sudarshan promoted swadeshi while the economy was being opened up. Wikipedia reports that in 2005 he suggested Vajpayee and L.K. Advani step aside for younger leaders.
• 23 July 2004: the Akal Takht issued its edict against the RSS. The Tribune says it called the RSS's activities a deep-rooted conspiracy against the Sikhs and links it to complaints about the RSS's part in the 400th Parkash Utsav of the Guru Granth Sahib; it does not name Sudarshan. The Caravan reports that the edict called the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat an anti-Panth organisation and asked Sikhs not to support it.
• 21 March 2009: he stepped down for reasons of health and Mohan Bhagwat succeeded him. He died on 15 September 2012 at Raipur and was cremated at Nagpur.

Remembered for: his hard line on swadeshi and a Hindu nation, and, in the Panth's memory, for the statement that Sikhs are Hindus, made in the years when the Akal Takht moved against the RSS.