What is the Sangh Parivar?

Answer 1

The Sangh Parivar are a family of Hindu Nationalist organisations (including religious, student, political and paramilitary organisations) with similar ideological goals and often overlapping membership. The parliamentary political wing of the Sangh Parivar is the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), successor to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Of the numerous other groups, some of the most prominent are the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarti Parishad (ABVP). The RSS is the oldest of these organisations and all the others spring directly or indirectly from the RSS. The Sangh Parivar has a history of inciting and participating in organised communal violence, namely violence against religious minorities organised in the name of religion.