Explained | The RSS' relationship with the Tricolour

A row about the RSS' relationship with the national flag erupted recently after the launch of the 'Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign

The PM Narendra Modi-led Central government’s ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign to mark India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations has sparked a political row, with Opposition parties accusing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological parent, of having no love for the national flag.

The row erupted after PM Modi urged Indians to change their social media display pictures to that of the Tricolour, sparking a reaction from the Opposition.

Subsequently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on August 3, accused the RSS of being an “anti-national organisation that did not hoist the Tricolour [at their headquarters] for 52 years.” AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi stoked the flames further by recalling how the RSS’ mouthpiece, Organiser, had “carried a long rant demanding Hindu Rashtra [and] openly insulting tiranga.”

The BJP and the RSS, for their part, hit back at critics, saying that Independence Day celebrations “should not be politicised” and reiterating the patriotism of the religious organisation.

In light of the controversy, we take a look at the RSS’ relationship with the national flag.

The national flag and the RSS:

According to a report by The Indian Express, the RSS hoisted the Tricolour at its headquarters in Nagpur on August 15, 1947, and then again on January 26, 1950.

After 1950, however, the Tricolour was not hoisted at the RSS headquarters till January 26, 2001, when three members of the Rashtrapremi Yuwa Dal forcibly hoisted the national flag at the RSS Smruti Bhawan, against the wishes of the RSS administration. The trio were subsequently booked, and then discharged in 2013.

A PTI report from 2013 on the incident, read, “The incharge of the premises Sunil Kathle first tried to stop them from entering the premises and later tried to prevent them from hoisting the Tricolour.”

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After the 2001 incident, the RSS, of its own accord, hoisted the Tricolour at its headquarters to mark Republic Day on January 26, 2002.

What RSS leaders thought about the Tricolour:

M S Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak or chief of the RSS, in his book Bunch of Thoughts had criticised the Congress' decision to adopt the Tricolour as the national flag.

“Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating. How did this flag come into being? During the French Revolution, the French put up three stripes on their flag to express the triple ideas of ‘equality’, ‘fraternity’ and ‘liberty’. The American Revolution inspired by similar principles took it up with some changes. Three stripes therefore held a sort of fascination for our freedom fighters also. So, it was taken up by the Congress,” Golwalkar had written.

The RSS leader also criticised the Tricolour as being “communal,” writing, “Then it was interpreted as depicting the unity of the various communities-the saffron colour standing for the Hindu, the green for the Muslim and the white for all the other communities. Out of the non-Hindu communities, the Muslim was specially named because in the minds of most of those eminent leaders, the Muslim was dominant and without naming him they did not think that our nationality could be complete! When some persons pointed out that this smacked of a communal approach, a fresh explanation was brought forward that the ‘saffron’ stood for sacrifice, the ‘white’ for purity and the ‘green’ for peace and so on.”

The RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, in 1947 also raised objections with the Tricolour, writing that Indian leaders “may give in our hands the Tricolour but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”

The RSS, in 2015, had also said that “saffron should have been the only colour on the national flag as other colours represented a communal thought.”

Current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, however, said in 2018 that the RSS had been “closely associated with the honour of the Tricolour since its birth.”