This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Sewa Bharati was founded in 1989, timed deliberately to the birth centenary of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist volunteer organization Sewa Bharati serves as the formal service wing of. Before 1989 the RSS already ran a scattered set of social projects through its members and allied bodies; the new organization's purpose was to gather that existing work under one coordinating department, generally referred to inside the Sangh as its sewa vibhag, or service department.
What Sewa Bharati coordinates today is not one charity but a network of them. Independent reporting and the organization's own materials describe it as an umbrella body over several hundred affiliated non-governmental organizations across India, active in healthcare, education, disaster relief, women's welfare and rural development, guided within the RSS structure by a national service coordinator drawn from the Sangh's own ranks. The affiliated bodies keep their own local names and boards, in the same layered pattern several other large service federations in this atlas follow: a central coordinating organization sits over many locally rooted member bodies rather than running the work directly itself.
Sewa Bharati's RSS affiliation is not incidental to its identity; both the organization and independent reporting describe it plainly as the RSS's own service and welfare infrastructure, formally distinct from the Sangh's political and cultural wings but drawing its leadership, coordination and much of its volunteer base from the same movement.