A CONTROVERSY and a debate is raging in the country over the bonafides of the RSS. The context is the focus brought to the fore by reference to the unregistered status of the organisation. For the ministers of the BJP led governments at different levels, this was nothing short of blasphemy. The self-proclaimed righteousness that marks the contention of the ruling party cannot tolerate such questions. Obviously, the association of RSS with fascists of Germany and Italy shaped the structure of the organisation leaving its inevitable mark of intolerance and arrogance.
The August 15 address of Prime Minister Modi from Red Fort featured an uninhibited eulogy for RSS and its past. The glowing praise from a past pracharak was unsurprising. Modi used the ramparts for legitimising RSS as an NGO for its ‘service to the nation’. Strange as it might appear, but self-admittedly, the RSS as an entity does not function within the standard procedures of law and Constitution, and in the current debate has come out claiming that it has been recognised as ‘a body of private individuals’ which does not require any registration.
However, the issue of registration refuses to go away. The paralysis of officials of the BJP-led government on the question eventually forced the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat himself to respond. On November 9, speaking at the ‘100 Years of Sangh’s Journey: New Horizons’ event in Bengaluru, he stated – “Do you know the Sangh was started in 1925? Do you expect us to be registered with the British Government, against whom our Sarsanghchalak (K B Hegdewar) was fighting at the time? After Independence, Indian laws did not make registration compulsory. Legal status is also given to an unregistered body of individuals. We are categorised as a body of individuals. We are a recognised organisation.” This was the core of the tissue of lies which Bhagawat unleashed.
To start with, it is a fact that Hegdewar was associated with Congress and by default. a part of the Freedom Struggle. But the fact remains that RSS ‘as a body individuals’ did not oppose the British government. The foundational basis of the organisation was striving for the formation of Hindu Rashtra and its motto was to ‘unite the Hindus’ and ‘militarise Hindudom’, as authoritatively underlined by Golwalkar, the top ideologue of the Sangh pantheon.
The RSS has also reiterated its opposition to the united nature of the Indian freedom struggle, regardless of caste, creed, religion and cultural-linguistic diversities, against the British Government. Therefore, now claiming that the absence of registration was on account of its engagements in the independence movement against the British is a brazen travesty of truth.
Recently, the BJP led dispensation has shown a penchant for making self-righteous assertions about its effort to cleanse the nation of financial irregularities and diversion of legitimate tax revenues for the public finance in the country. Modi government has especially weaponised the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by providing wide unencumbered powers to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to register cases and arrest people even without a shred of evidence. There are cases galore to show that these provisions are being used to unleash a partisan campaign against Opposition and secure loyalty with a number of courts publicly admonishing the ED and the government for pursuing this vendetta.
However, the RSS has been reserved for a kid gloves treatment. Responding to the questions regarding the huge funds and real estate at the disposal of the Sangh, Bhagawat brushed aside the charge by saying that these are voluntary contributions from its volunteers and officials. What he is trying to gloss over is that this constitutes public money since he himself has admitted that the organisation is a body of private individuals. This is more so because it is pubic knowledge that the Sangh possesses huge amounts of land on which it has constructed mansions and other structures. Unfortunately, as a consequence of its unregistered status, there is no transparent public disclosure of such assets. If the RSS was really a paragon of virtue, why should it want to remain opaque to public scrutiny of its finances?
It is not necessary here to go into the larger question of ideology, functions, and the organisational structure of the RSS. There are massive records of its omissions, commissions and false claims. Even in the last few issues of the People’s Democracy, we have gone into several vital aspects of the RSS intervention on issues and realms which stand in contradiction to the fundamentals of the Indian Constitution. Bhagwat’s assertion that RSS believes in the Indian Constitution and recognises all important national emblems like the national flag and the national anthem is a rehash of the deceit which the Sangh has practiced in its decidedly contrary pursuits.
Modi himself had thundered from the Red Fort and vouched for the excellent record of its service. The charges against RSS for fomenting communal violence and hatred are not merely allegations levelled by its critics. At least five judicial commissions of enquiry into major episodes of communal violence – the Jaganmohan Reddy Report on the Ahmedabad Riots of 1969; the D P Madon Report on the Bhiwandi Riots of 1970; the Joseph Vithayathil Report on the Thalassery Riots of 1971; the Jitendra Narain Report on the Jamshedpur Riots in 1979; the P. Venugopal Report on the Kanyakumari Riots of 1982 – have explicitly indicted organisations and parties having strong affinities with the ideology of RSS for their role in these major communal flare ups that resulted in extensive loss of lives and property of Muslims and other citizens. Predictably, there is neither any objective account, far less an audit of their relief work.
Finally, the very definition of nation and nationhood that has been laid down by Savarkar and uncritically accepted and further reinforced by Golwalkar defines that those who recognise India as ‘matrubhoomi’, ‘pitrubhoomi’ and importantly ‘punyabhoomi’ can be considered as genuine Indians. It is as clear as daylight that people belonging to all faiths in India who enjoy the freedom and equality of pursuing their religious beliefs do not qualify to be an Indian! The foundational concept of RSS is in itself against the secular democratic Constitution and the republic. Therefore, Bhagawat’s claim that the RSS is a ‘body of private individuals’ and recognised as such qualifies them to remain outside the ambit of registration is a fraud on public intelligence. RSS has to comply with the paramount need to come clean and submit to the requirement of public disclosure of its affairs.
(November 12, 2025)
