Shatak is recruitment video, tutorial and pat on the back rolled into one. Released in cinemas to mark the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s centenary, the propaganda project is well suited to play on a loop in the lobbies of the Sangh’s ever-sprouting branch offices.

Creator Anil Agarwal, director Aashish Mall, a trio of writers, AI and visual effects join forces to give the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party the perfect Happy 100 gift: a saffron-washed version of pre- and post-Independence history.

Initially revolving around founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (whose full name is mentioned several times to aid memory and pronunciation), Shatak presents the RSS as the unacknowledged, deeply misunderstood force behind key events before and after freedom from colonial rule.

This is the history that you weren’t told about, the 112-minute movie repeatedly tells non card-carrying viewers. Under Hedgewar and later his protege MS Golwalkar, RSS members throw themselves into nation-building and nation-saving, with the noble and necessary goal of creating a majoritarian Hindu society, the film contends.

Hedgewar is introduced as the other revolutionary who was thrown out of a first class compartment by racist British officers. This competition with Mohandas Gandhi, as well as a subtle but insistent undermining of the Mahatma’s secular politics,...

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