Hosabale, who is called Datta by his fraternity, joined RSS in 1968 and was sent to ABVP in 1972, where he became a full-time worker in 1978. He was made sangathan mantra of the ABVP in December 1992 in the Kanpur session.
Dattatreya Hosabale has been elected as Sar-karyawah or General Secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Hosabale, 66, is from Shimoga district of Karnataka and was the organising secretary (sangathan mantra) of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, for nearly 12 years. He replaces Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi.
Hosabale, who is called Datta by his fraternity, joined RSS in 1968 and was sent to ABVP in 1972, where he became a full-time worker in 1978. He was made sangathan mantra of the ABVP in December 1992 in the Kanpur session.
He was back in RSS in 2003 and was appointed the outfit’s sah-bauddhik pramukh (joint-incharge of intellectual activities) in 2004. Then, in 2009, he became sah-sarkaryawah in the team of Bhaiyyaji Joshi, when the latter replaced Mohan Bhagwat on the post.
As he was appointed sar karyawah today, Hosabale took the blessings of sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat and outgoing sarkaryawah Bhaiyaji Joshi by touching their feet.
Considered very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hosabale’s name was proposed by regional sanghchalak Ashok Sohoney of Gujarat and endorsed by five other delegates. In fact, his name was doing the rounds for many weeks. In an indication of things to come, he was being deputed in several recent RSS programmes that Bhaiyyaji Joshi was supposed to attend. His name had emerged even in 2015 and 2018 but Joshi was re-elected both occasions.
After his schooling at his birthplace of Hosabale and Sagar (taluk HQ), Hosabale moved to Bengaluru to pursue his college education and joined the famous National College. Later, he obtained his masters in English Literature from Mysuru University.
Hosabale is fluent in Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil and Sanskrit. He also founded a Kannada monthly magazine named Aseema. He enjoyed proximity with almost all writers and journalists of Karnataka, notable among them being Y. N. Krishnamurthy and Gopal Krishna Adiga.
Hosabale was imprisoned for more than a year under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during the fight to restore democracy against the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi government.
In the ABVP, he launched several new initiatives and one of his key projects was Youth Development Centre in Guwahati, Assam, World Organization of Student and Youth (WOSY).
He is the first sar-karyawah whose most of the time as a pracharak was in an anushangik (frontal organization), that is ABVP. Before him, Madandas Devi was sah-sarkaryawah for nine years but he was never a sar-karyawah. Several RSS pracharaks have been in RSS’ frontal organisations, starting from Dattopant Thengdi to Ashok Singhal, but they never were never elected as sar-karyawah of the RSS.
As sah-sarkaryawah, Hosabale is currently headquartered in Lucknow and closely looking after the BJP-RSS coordination there.
After announcement as sarkaryawah, he addressed the delegates for nearly five minutes and told them that his family’s main occupation is farming and they were also into trading of betelnuts (supari).
RSS is currently preparing for its centenary celebrations (1925-2025), which will start in October 2024. The next ABPS is also in March 2024., which means that Hosabale is likely to remain in the post for another tenure.
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