The Sangh Parivar (translation: "Family of the RSS" or the "RSS family") refers, as an umbrella term, to the collection of Hindutva organisations spawned by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which remain affiliated to it. These include the political party Bharatiya Janata Party, religious organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad, students union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), religious militant organisation Bajrang Dal that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the worker's union Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. It is also often taken to include allied organisations such as the Shiv Sena, which share the ideology of the RSS.
The Sangh Parivar represents the Hindu nationalist movement of India. Members of the Sangh Parivar or the supporters of its ideology are called Sanghis.
In the 1960s, the volunteers of the RSS joined the different social and political movements in India, including the Bhoodan, a land reform movement led by prominent Gandhian Vinobha Bhave and the Sarvodaya led by another Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan. RSS also supported the formation of a trade union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and a student's organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and many other organisations like Seva Bharati, Lok Bharati and Deendayal Research Institute among others.
These organisations started and supported by the RSS volunteers came to be known collectively as the Sangh Parivar. Next few decades have seen a steady growth in the influence of the Sangh Parivar in the social and political space of India.
While the BJP governments have been progressively seen to be industry friendly, the opinions and the views of the Sangh Parivar constituents like Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) find consonance with the known leftist stands on labour rights. The Sangh Parivar, as a whole, even the BJP in its earlier days, has advocated 'Swadeshi' (Self Reliance). Sangh Parivar leaders have been very vocal in their criticism of globalization especially its impact on the poor and native people.