The organisation hoisted the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur on August 15, 1947 and then on January 26, 1950.
As Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, earlier this week, targeted Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) over hoisting of tricolour, it renewed the debate around the RSS’ relationship with the national flag.
As Gandhi questioned why did “the RSS not hoist the Tricolour at its headquarters for 52 years”, the BJP’s ideological parent hit back saying that Independence Day celebrations “should not be politicised” and that “every fibre of the RSS is full of patriotism”.
As part of the ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign, the BJP-led central government has been urging people to hoist the national flag at their homes and use it as their profile picture on social media platforms.
While several BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have changed their display pictures to the Tricolour on Twitter, the RSS is yet to do so. This has given fodder to the opposition to question the organisation.
“We are putting the DP of our leader Nehru with the Tricolor in his hand. But it seems the PM’s message has not reached his family. Those who did not hoist the flag at their headquarters in Nagpur for 52 years, will they obey the Prime Minister?” Congress MP Jairam Ramesh tweeted.
Every Independence Day, the RSS shakhas fly Bhagwa Dhwaj, or ‘saffron flag’.
The organisation hoisted the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur on August 15, 1947 and then on January 26, 1950. After that, there was a gap of five decades, and the Tricolour was next hoisted on January 26, 2022.
The Indian Express quoted some RSS members claiming that it was because the India’s Flag Code restricted the hoisting of the national flag by private organisations before 2002.
The ‘Flag Code of India 2002’ lays down a set of guidelines around the use, display and hoisting of the Triclour in the country. It brings together all laws, conventions, practices, and instructions for the display of the National Flag. It governs the display of the National Flag by private, public, and government institutions.
In 2018, speaking at an event in Delhi, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat defended the organisation over the controversy, saying the “Sangh is closely associated with the honour of the Tricolour since its birth”.
In 2015, however, the RSS at a seminar in Chennai had said that “saffron should have been the only colour on the national flag as other colours represented a communal thought.”
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