India, Sept. 7 -- A couple of centuries ago, Indian tradition decreed that any member of the social elite who crossed the seven seas would instantly lose their caste status. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi could convince his mother to let him sail to England to study law on the condition that he would not eat meat, drink alcohol, and, so the rumour goes, look at a white woman.

The moustachioed and now trouser-wearing 75-year-old Mohan Bhagwat, a Maharashtrian Chitpawan Brahmin, became the first head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh when on August 25 he took flight on a three-nation tour of the United States, Canada and Britain, to dispel "misconceptions" not about the stories of bloodshed and mayhem the groups had generated about itself in...