Open pledge: Changing dynamics after lifting of ban on govt officials joining the RSS

Aditi Tandon

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government executed something extraordinary this month. On July 9, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) erased the mention of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from a 58-year-old office order that barred Central government officials, serving and retired, from participating in the activities of proscribed organisations.

History of bans

• February 4, 1948 (Issued by Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress government; lifted on July 11, 1949) “It has been found that in several parts of the country, individual members of the RSS have indulged in acts of violence, involving arson, robbery & murder, and have collected illicit arms and ammunition. They have been found circulating leaflets, exerting people to resort to terrorist methods, collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and police and military.”
• November 30, 1966 (Issued by Gulzari Lal Nanda-led Congress government; lifted in July 2024) “As certain doubts have been raised about the policy with respect to the membership of and participation in the activities of the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami by government servants, it is clarified that the government has always held the activities of these two organisations to be of such a nature that participation in them by government servants… is liable to disciplinary action.”
• July 25, 1970 (Indira Gandhi government) “Refer to D.M. dated 30.11.1966… a) the provisions thereof may be brought to the notice of all government servants again; and b) action should invariably be initiated against any government servant who comes to notice for violation of instructions.”
• October 28, 1980 (Indira Gandhi government) Attention of the various ministries is drawn to O.M. dated the 30th November, 1966.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi accomplished what his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee could not — removing the RSS, BJP’s ideological mentor, from the company of banned organisation Jamaat-e-Islami.

The consequential move, which the Opposition Congress-led INDIA bloc denounced as “dangerous” and the RSS and the BJP as “kosher”, did not arise in a vacuum. It stemmed from a 2023 case in which Purushottam Gupta, a superannuated Central government employee, moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court for relief from the November 30, 1966, order, saying it frustrated his “dream of active RSS membership”.

RSS memberships across affiliates

The prominent among the 36 are BJP (politics), ABVP (students), Aarogya Bharti (health), Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad (law), Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (labour), Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (farmers), Bharat Vikas Parishad (social service), Gau Samvardhan (cow protection), Gram Vikas (villages), Kutumb Prabodhan (family values), Kushtarog Nivaran Samiti (leprosy patients), Akhil Bharatiya Sainik Parishad (ex-servicemen), Pragya Pravah (intellectuals), Rashtra Sevika Samiti (women), Rashtriya Sikh Sangat (religious solidarity), Sahitya Parishad (literature), Swadeshi Jagran Manch (economy), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (tribals), Vidya Bharti (education), VHP (religion), Vigyan Bharti (science).

The High Court asked the Centre what its stand was on the November 30, 1966, July 25, 1970 and October 28, 1980, orders. Only after persistent prodding did Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appear in court on May 22, saying the orders under challenge were being reviewed.

What followed (DoPT’s July 9 orders) prompted the court to lament that it took almost five decades for the Centre to “acknowledge that an internationally renowned organisation like the RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations and its removal is quintessential”. The court said future moves of such nature must rest on evidence and stem from law rather than an executive order which is not law.

The High Court observations echo what the RSS has maintained since its inception in 1925 — “we are not a political outfit”.

The RSS’ constitution (written as part of a condition the then Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress government had put to revoke the very first — February 4, 1948 — ban on the Sangh following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination), reads, “The Sangh is aloof from politics and is devoted to social and cultural fields only. However, swayamsevaks are free as individuals to join any party except those which believe in extra-national loyalties, resort to violent or secret activities, or promote hatred towards any other community or religious denomination.”

The latest orders, Sangh insiders say, will ease the needless burden of litigation. They say judges, Army officers, doctors, academics and lawyers have continued to engage with the RSS and its 36 affiliates despite the ban.

Vikram Singh, former Uttar Pradesh DGP, says he agrees with the MP High Court order. “RSS is not political and if government servants want to join it, they should be allowed. When I was in Class 10, many government servants used to join the RSS for fiscal culture and general discipline. There was nothing political about it,” he says, welcoming the end to ambiguities.

The timing

Coming closely after BJP’s humbling in national elections and its evident unease with the RSS, the DoPT’s orders are being viewed as the ruling party’s attempts at a thaw with an angry parent. “Like erstwhile governments, this one could have sat on the matter but the intention was to fix things,” a senior BJP leader said.

The order, which RSS’ publicity chief Sunil Ambekar called “appropriate and pro-democracy”, comes at three critical junctures in the Sangh Parivar’s journey — when the RSS is preparing to mark its centenary in 2025; after the Lok Sabha polls which saw the BJP plummet to 240 out of 543 seats (down from 303 in 2019), and ahead of a three-day coordination meeting the RSS has scheduled with all affiliates, including the BJP, in Kerala’s Palakkad from August 31.

The Samanvaya Baithak will reveal the future trajectory of BJP-RSS ties following serial Sangh admonitions of the ruling party’s perceived arrogance.

BJP’s below-par showing at the hustings invited caustic remarks from RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who reminded leaders that “true servants are never high-headed”. Bhagwat called for precedence to consensus over rancour in politics, the need to view the Opposition as a critic and not an adversary, and the urgency to restore peace in Manipur. These veiled messages were directed at the BJP, which is making some amends. Prime Minister Modi, for his part, has gone an extra mile to buy peace with the RSS by junking a nearly six-decade-old order.

His predecessor Vajpayee had squandered the chance to do so. In February 2000, Vajpayee defended the Gujarat government’s decision to allow its employees to attend RSS shakhas, but when his deputy LK Advani declared that the Centre would also review the 1966 ban, the PM retreated. Then RSS chief Rajendra Singh wrote in Organiser that the Sangh didn’t owe its position to government patronage. “Whether the ban should be lifted, how and when — is the prerogative of the government,” Singh said, easing the pressure on Vajpayee, whose relations with Singh’s successor KS Sudershan were quite fraught.

Punjab-Haryana HC ruling

As many as 15 state high courts between 1955 and 1993 have ruled that the RSS is not a political outfit and government employees can’t be barred from attending its wings and activities. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had on December 21, 1967, set aside the dismissal orders of a state government employee, Ramphal, sacked in 1965 for attending an RSS camp.

“The Punjab government took the view that the RSS is a political party and Ramphal’s association with it was against the conduct rules. The dismissal order was challenged by way of a writ petition, which has now been accepted on the ground that there was no material before the government to hold that RSS is a political party,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled.

But the Congress has a word of caution. AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh, who has done extensive research on Nehru, says the “bureaucracy can now come in knickers and the RSS history has been mainstreamed”.

Jairam recalls Nehru’s January 1948 speech where the late PM had said, “Whoever insults the National Flag — be he a Pakistani, a Britisher or an RSS man — will be considered a traitor.” Nehru accordingly insisted that the RSS, which professed the bhagwa flag (a symbol of Hindu sanskriti as per the Sangh constitution), declare allegiance to the Tricolour as a prerequisite for his government lifting the national ban on the outfit after Gandhi’s assassination. The RSS had complied.

Patel, politics and RSS

Even Sardar Patel, largely sympathetic to the RSS, had held it responsible for creating an atmosphere that led to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948.

In a September 11, 1948, letter to then Sangh chief MS Golwalkar, Patel wrote, “As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji.” What is also true is Patel’s soft corner for the RSS and differences with Nehru on the issue.

As author AG Noorani notes, “To Patel, RSS men were patriots. He addressed Golwalkar as brother even after the latter’s arrest. In the very letter in which he condemned the RSS, Patel wrote to Golwalkar that RSS men can carry on their patriotic endeavour by joining the Congress.” Noorani says Golwalkar was open to collaboration with the Congress in the political field and RSS in the cultural, but he refused to merge the two.

“In 1950-51, Syama Prasad Mookerjee (who was in the Nehru Cabinet) accepted those very terms to form the Jana Sangh, which later became the BJP,” Noorani says.

Sangh leaders, however, argue that the narratives around the first national ban on it were “Congress scripts”.

“The first ban was lifted on July 11, 1949, after courts absolved the RSS of involvement in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination,” RSS national media co-chief Narendra Thakur says, adding that the ban was primarily rooted in “the Sangh’s growing popularity due to rehabilitation work with refugees of the tragic Partition”.

RSS and Janata party

The RSS, a pariah after Gandhi’s assassination, slowly revived during second chief Golwalkar and vastly under his successor Balasaheb Deoras, who lent the Sangh its activist edge and opened it to non-Hindus.

Sangh’s clout rose enough for Jayaprakash Narayan to seek its help during the Emergency after earlier questioning its credentials. “The RSS cannot be treated as a cultural organisation as long as it remains the mentor and effective manipulator of a political party,” JP has been quoted as saying at the second National Conference against Communalism in New Delhi in January 1968.

Just six years later, he took the support of Jana Sangh and the RSS against Indira Gandhi. The Janata Party coalition that came to power in 1977 had three Jana Sangh ministers, all swayamsevaks.

So, claims and counterclaims apart, the debate around RSS’ political ambition still rages.

JP himself felt the Sangh had political ambitions and should merge with the Janata Party, or else open itself to Muslims and Christians. In a letter to PM Morarji Desai (draft published in Dinman) in April 1979, he said, “RSS people are trying to influence politics under the garb of a cultural organisation… I feel the RSS should merge itself with the pro-Janata organisations, but it is bent upon retaining its distinct identity.”

Archives also show that immediately after Janata Party’s insistence that Jana Sangh eschew its links with the RSS and pledge to forego Sangh membership, the BJP was born. “Every member of the Janata Party shall unconditionally accept to preserve the composite culture and secular state and nation not based on religion, and no member shall work in any front which functions in competition to any organisation we sponsor,” read the Janata Party resolution placed for Jana Sangh approval on April 4, 1980. On April 6, the BJP was formed.

All in the family

RSS researchers Walter Anderson and Shridhar Damle speak of the saffron brotherhood’s belief that normalisation of the RSS has something to do with the political victories of the BJP, which could explain the Sangh support to the party despite differences.

The authors mention two occasions when the RSS fully engaged with national elections, lending its pracharaks for campaigns. In both, it had feared the rise of the Congress and the resultant threat to Hindu unification. The first instance was the Emergency when the RSS under Deoras backed the Opposition agitation, reducing the Congress to its poorest performance till then — 154 seats. The second instance was 2014 when the RSS backed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as BJP’s PM face to halt the Congress’ bid for a third term.

“The Sangh’s political clout and mass influence can be judged from the fact that the two general elections in which they directly engaged were also the ones in which the Congress fared its worst,” says a BJP source.

So, what next? Sources say one will have to wait for the Modi-Bhagwat equation to reveal itself, but point to the Sangh’s anxieties about growing personality cults.

Insiders recall Bhagwat’s March 9, 2013, address to the cadres in Bengaluru where he said their first loyalty was to the RSS rather than to any individual. The address came at the height of Modi’s popularity, with some RSS workers comparing him to Lord Rama.

Recently, again, Bhagwat flagged unbridled human ambitions. “A man wants to be superman… Devta, Bhagwaan,” he said, in cryptic references which the Opposition Congress linked to Modi even though the Sangh said the remarks were read out of context. Not ruling out differences, RSS insiders say, “Differences are natural in a family; that does not mean the family will disintegrate, we are one.”

The RSS remains acutely aware of the need for a political vehicle to continue expanding its influence. The BJP, too, is conscious of RSS’ vast network, which came in handy in 2014, when Modi formed the first full majority government in the Centre in three decades.

The import of Sangh’s clout is not lost on anyone. It has 73,200 shakhas (up from nearly 6,000 in 1977, a 12-fold rise), 40 lakh swayamsevaks (up from seven lakh in 1977) and 3,300 pracharaks — a precious resource the BJP, which just finished below the Lok Sabha majority mark, can ill-afford to alienate. The parent and the child both know they need each other more than ever before.