Congress cites book to claim Gandhi described RSS as 'communal body with totalitarian outlook'

New Delhi: As RSS celebrates 100th anniversary, Congress on Thursday targeted the Hindutva outfit by referring to a book that said Mahatma Gandhi described the Sangh as a "communal body with a totalitarian outlook" as well as a 1948 media report about Sardar Vallabhai Patel criticising it.

Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh referred to the book by Pyarelal, who was part of his personal staff for almost three decades and became his secretary after the death of Mahadev Desai in 1942.

He said Pyarelal's books on Mahatma Gandhi have become standard reference works and in 1956, he published the first volume of his book 'Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase', which carried a long introduction by the President of India Rajendra Prasad, as well as an endorsement by the Vice President S Radhakrishnan and a second volume two years later.

"On page 440 of the second volume, Pyarelal writes of a conversation between Mahatma Gandhi and one of his colleagues in which the Father of the Nation describes the RSS as a 'communal body with a totalitarian outlook'," he said sharing a screenshot of the passage from the book. This conversation took place on 12 September, 1947, he said adding, five months later, then Home Minister Patel banned RSS.

In another post, Ramesh said that on 16 December , 1948, Patel spoke at the Congress Session in Jaipur where "Sardar Patel was referring to the steps which the Government had taken against the RSS. He said that the RSS organisation, which operated secretly, was supposed to safeguard Hindu culture."

"There was a challenge to the national flag which had come to be respected by kings and rulers, and the power that ruled over India for 200 years. It was under that flag that the Congress made great sacrifices and today under no circumstances would they give up the ideal for which they had lived and worked," the report quoted Patel as saying.

"He warned that any organisation which sought to supplant the national flag by another would be sternly dealt with. Sardar Patel, who vehemently condemned the activities of the R.S.S. was loudly cheered at the conclusion of his speech," according to the report, which was shared by Ramesh on 'X'.

Earlier, CPI(M) found fault with the release of a postage stamp and a 100 rupee coin by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the RSS, saying it is a "grave injury and insult" to the Constitution of India which the RSS "has never accepted". 

"It is highly objectionable that an official coin should replicate the 'Bharat Mata' image of a Hindu goddess promoted by the RSS as a symbol of its sectarian concept of a Hindutva Rashtra. The postage stamp showing uniformed RSS volunteers at the 1963 Republic Day parade too falsifies history,” it said. 

“This is based on the lie that Nehru invited the RSS to participate in the 1963 Republic Day parade as recognition of its patriotism during the Indo-China war when it has been shown through evidence that the 1963 republic day parade was essentially a huge gathering of more than one lakh citizens. The presence of uniformed RSS volunteers if at all, was unreported and incidental," it added.