NEW DELHI -- It may not be an exaggeration to say that India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or National Volunteers Corps) has a certain religious doggedness which is uncomfortably similar to the rabid Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Sangh is a suffocatingly conservative Hindu organization whose moral authority over India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been acknowledged by no less a person than Lal Krishna Advani, the country's home minister.
It's understandable why Advani and, of course, most others in the BJP, lean toward the Sangh. These men were nurtured by the Sangh, and they grew and developed on the narrow doctrines of the Sangh that trumpet the supremacy of Hinduism and mulishly decry India's Constitution and national flag.