For nearly a century, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s foundation-day celebration in Nagpur has drawn guests from industry, science, the arts, social service and the highest constitutional offices of India. As the Sangh closes its centenary year, here is a look at who has stood on the Reshimbagh stage, and why the occasion matters.
A foundation day like no other
Every year on Vijayadashami, the festival also known as Dussehra, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) holds its principal annual celebration at its headquarters in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The date is not incidental. Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar founded the RSS in Nagpur on Vijayadashami, 27 September 1925, and the Sangh has marked its foundation day on the festival ever since.
The tradition of inviting a distinguished guest is almost as old as the organisation itself. According to the RSS, guests have attended the Vijayadashami Utsav since 1933, when the chief guest was the Bhonsle Raja of Nagpur, Fateh Singh Rao. Since 1995, the celebration has been held at the Reshimbagh ground in Nagpur.
In recent years the guest list has read like a cross-section of Indian achievement: a former President, a Nobel Peace laureate, a former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a pioneer of India’s IT industry, a celebrated composer and a record-setting mountaineer.
2026: Closing the centenary year
The Vijayadashami Utsav on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, will mark the close of the RSS’s centenary year. The programme begins at 7:40 am at Reshimbagh, and Dainik Jagran Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Gupta will be the chief guest. Sarsanghchalak Dr Mohan Bhagwat will deliver the annual address.
Gupta is also a whole-time director of Jagran Prakashan, the Indian media conglomerate whose flagship publication is Dainik Jagran, one of the most widely read Hindi dailies in the country. He has been a director of the company since 1993.
Former Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar has been invited as a guest for the occasion. Dhankhar served as Vice President from 2022 to July 2025, and before that as Governor of West Bengal from 2019 to 2022. A lawyer by profession, he was also a Union minister in 1990–91. Yaniv Revach, Israel’s Consul General for Mid-West India, is also among the invited guests.
2025: A former President opens the centenary
The RSS completed 100 years on October 2, 2025, and the Vijayadashami Utsav that day launched its centenary year. Former President Ram Nath Kovind was the chief guest at Reshimbagh, where Dr Bhagwat delivered his centenary Vijayadashami address. On the eve of the event, Kovind paid floral tribute at the memorial of Dr Hedgewar and also visited Deekshabhoomi to pay homage to Dr B R Ambedkar.
Ram Nath Kovind served as the 14th President of India from 2017 to 2022. A lawyer by profession, he practised in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court and was Governor of Bihar before he assumed the country’s highest constitutional office. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament, from Uttar Pradesh in 1994 and served two consecutive six-year terms until March 2006.
Alongside Kovind, the special invitees included Lieutenant General Rana Pratap Kalita (Retd), former Army Commander; K V Karthik, Managing Director of Deccan Industries, Coimbatore; and Sanjiv Bajaj, Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. Religious leaders from different faiths attended, as did guests from Ghana, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
2024: The man behind Mangalyaan
In 2024, former ISRO chairman and Padma Bhushan recipient Dr K Radhakrishnan was the chief guest. In his address he spoke of the harmony of valour and determination he witnessed at the gathering. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, then Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and another former ISRO chief, Dr K Sivan, were also present. Dr Bhagwat’s address that year is available on the RSS website.
Radhakrishnan was chairman of ISRO and Secretary of the Department of Space from 2009 to 2014. During his tenure ISRO carried out 37 missions, including Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter Mission, which made India the first country to reach Mars orbit on its maiden attempt.
2023: Music on the Sangh stage
The chief guest in 2023 was the singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan, who opened his address with a rendition of the Saraswati Vandana. Mahadevan, a Padma Shri awardee, is one third of the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio, which has composed music for numerous Indian films. Before the ceremony he offered floral tributes at the statue of Dr Hedgewar. The full text of Dr Bhagwat’s 2023 address is on the RSS website.
2022: A first in the Sangh’s history
In 2022, mountaineer Santosh Yadav became the first woman to be the chief guest at the RSS Vijayadashami Utsav in Nagpur. Welcoming her, Dr Bhagwat said her presence represented Shakti, the feminine principle of strength and consciousness. For more on the Sangh’s approach to women, see RSS View on Women and Gender Equality.
Santosh Yadav, who hails from Haryana, made history as the first woman in the world to scale Mount Everest twice, first in May 1992 and again in May 1993. She was also the first woman to climb Everest via its challenging Kangshung (East) Face. She received the National Adventure Award in 1994 and the Padma Shri in 2000.
2020 and 2021: Low-key years of the pandemic
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the celebration was scaled down and no chief guest was invited. In 2020, the programme was held indoors at the Maharshi Vyas Sabhagruha in the Dr Hedgewar Smruti Mandir premises at Reshimbagh. In 2021, it was again held at the Smruti Mandir premises in keeping with Covid-19 protocols, with swayamsevaks joining the live stream from 40 locations across Nagpur. Dr Bhagwat’s addresses from both years, 2020 and 2021, are published on the RSS website.
2019: A pioneer of India’s IT revolution
The chief guest in 2019 was Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of HCL Technologies. Widely regarded as one of the chief architects of India’s computing and IT revolution, Nadar is an industrialist, technology pioneer and philanthropist who co-founded the HCL Group in 1976. In his address, he spoke of the need for the private sector, citizens and NGOs to tackle challenges together. A summary of Dr Bhagwat’s 2019 address is on the RSS website.
Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and General V K Singh (Retd), along with then Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, were among those present.
2018: A Nobel laureate and the cause of children
In 2018, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi was the chief guest. Addressing the gathering, he said that RSS shakhas, present in almost every village, could serve as a firewall to protect children, especially girls. A week later, he told the media that he did not believe in “ideological untouchability” and had come away from the event satisfied.
Satyarthi, a social reformer and children’s rights activist, shared the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai. In 1980 he founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), which has freed more than one lakh (100,000) children from economic exploitation in hazardous factories, brick kilns and other forms of forced labour. He also set up specialised centres such as Mukti Ashram and Bal Ashram to provide rescued children with medical care, trauma support and education.
Then Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari were among the dignitaries who attended.
2017: An invitation to a revered saint
For the 2017 celebration, the RSS invited Sant Nirmal Das Maharaj, head of the Sri Guru Ravidas Sadhu Sampraday Society of Jalandhar, Punjab, to be the chief guest. He was the first Dalit religious leader to be invited as chief guest at the event. A sudden illness, which required hospitalisation in Delhi, prevented him from attending, but he sent a message urging all to live as one people because the same spirit dwells in all of creation. The RSS website carries photographs of the 2017 utsav. On the Sangh’s stand on social harmony, see What is the RSS’ stand on caste and reservation.
The traditions of the day
The Vijayadashami Utsav follows a set of time-honoured traditions. The Sarsanghchalak, currently Dr Mohan Bhagwat, performs the Shastra Puja (worship of arms) together with the chief guest, a ritual that symbolises the triumph of righteousness over evil. Swayamsevaks (volunteers) take out the Path Sanchalan (route march) through the city and present physical and yoga demonstrations and ghosh (band) performances. The celebration is not confined to Nagpur: according to Sangh figures, 62,555 Vijayadashami utsavs were held across the country in the centenary year, with more than 32 lakh swayamsevaks in uniform.
The highlight is the Sarsanghchalak’s annual address, closely followed across India and abroad, in which he sets out the Sangh’s perspective on contemporary national and social issues. Past addresses are available on the RSS website. Seen together, the guests who have shared that stage over the years reflect the Sangh’s long-standing effort to engage with eminent Indians from every walk of national life. For more on the beginnings of the organisation, see The Beginning on rssfacts.org.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
