'We are recognised organisation, categorised as body of individuals': RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

Bengaluru: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat claimed on Sunday that the saffron outfit’s status as an “unregistered body of individuals” has been recognised and upheld in tax-related litigations in the past and that the organisation’s status is within the Constitutional framework.

“We are categorised as (a) body of individuals. And we are a recognised organisation. The income tax department asked us to pay income tax, and there was litigation. The court said, this is a body of individuals and our ‘guru dakshina’ was exempted from the income tax,” Bhagwat said.

He was responding to queries during the second day of his lecture series in Bengaluru as part of the centenary celebrations of the RSS.

“Even Hindu Dharma is not registered,” Bhagwat said.

He added that the organisation, founded in 1925, also did not register under the British Law against which the then “sarsanghchalak was fighting at that time”.

The funding and the status of the RSS, the ideological mentor of the ruling BJP at the Centre, as an unregistered organisation, have often come in for scrutiny from Congress and its allies. The critics have sought to know why the Sangh is not registered under a statutory framework like a trust or a society.

After the first lecture series held in Delhi last month to mark the centenary year of RSS’s foundation, the two-day event of the RSS chief in Bengaluru comes against the backdrop of Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge’s recent statement seeking a ban on RSS activities in public institutions and public places.

Following up on the demand, the Karnataka government passed an order that private organisations must seek prior permission before conducting their activities on government premises. The move, which also applied to the RSS, was stayed by the high court. AICC president and Priyank’s father, Mallikarjun Kharge, also recently said that his “personal opinion” was that the RSS should be banned.

Referring to the three occasions when the RSS was banned in independent India (1948, 1975, and 1992), the RSS chief said: “And each time the courts dismissed the ban and made RSS a legal organisation. So many times, questions are asked in the Assembly, Parliament, statements are given – pro or anti-RSS, all this is not without recognition. Legally, factually, we are an organisation.” 

Responding to a question whether Muslims are allowed in the RSS, Bhagwat said anyone can come to the Sangh as long as they can “keep their separateness out” and assimilate with the others as “son of Bharat Mata”.

“No Brahmin is allowed in Sangh. No other caste is allowed in Sangh. No Muslim is allowed, no Christian is allowed, no Shaiva, no Shakhta. Only Hindus are allowed. So, people of different denominations, Muslims, Christians, any denomination — they can come to Sangh, keep your separateness out. Your speciality is welcome but when you come inside shakha, you come as son of Bharat Mata, member of Hindu society (sic).”

On the allegation that the RSS respected only the saffron flag and didn’t recognise the tricolour, he said the outfit always stood by the national flag. “Since its creation, Sangh has always stood by, respected, offered tributes and protected this Tiranga Dhwaj. It was first hoisted in 1933,” Bhagwat said.

Claiming that the tricolour got entangled and stopped half-mast when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted it in Faizpur, Maharashtra in 1933, Bhagwat said that an RSS swayamsevak, Kishan Singh Rajput, had climbed the pole and hoisted the tricolour.

Priyank continues attack

Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Priyank Kharge continued his attack on the RSS on Sunday asking who the volunteers of the RSS were and what the scale and nature of the donations were. He was countering RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's claim that the 'guru dakshina' received by the Sangh is exempted from taxes.