The RSS faces the law at last: Congress breaks a 100‑year silence

By Shamsul Islam 

Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge has taken a momentous step by demanding that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh register as an organization. The move carries profound implications for India’s democratic and secular future and poses an unprecedented challenge to an entity that, while claiming to be merely a “cultural” body, functions today as the de facto power center of the Indian state. Kharge’s action is not an impulsive gesture but the outcome of deliberate political reasoning within the Congress leadership, which appears to have concluded that the RSS—now an omnipresent, extra‑constitutional authority—must finally be confronted.

According to press reports, Kharge wrote to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on June 13, 2026, seeking details about the organization’s legal status, finances, office‑bearers, and tax compliance. The request is grounded not only in law but in principle: the RSS itself claims more than 60,000 shakhas and crores of swayamsevaks across India and abroad. As Kharge put it, “It is precisely because of this scale, influence and reach that the RSS must be held to the highest standards of transparency, accountability and constitutional compliance.” He added that an organization constantly invoking nationalism, discipline, and duty must demonstrate those very values through openness and respect for the Constitution. If ordinary citizens, NGOs, religious bodies, and companies must register, disclose, audit, and pay taxes, then the RSS cannot exempt itself from the rules of the land.

No government in independent India has ever dared to pose such direct and fundamental questions to the RSS.

Bhagwat, speaking in Kerala, dismissed the letter, claiming he did not “need to respond” and insisting that the RSS is not secretive. He characterized the move as political gimmickry and argued that “Hindu Dharma is not registered,” implying that the RSS, too, need not be. But the reality is that the Karnataka government’s action has placed the RSS in a position where it must respond. Bhagwat’s assertion that “for over 100 years, nobody told us to register” only underscores the historical anomaly. As Kharge noted, the wait is over; the RSS must now “start preparing documents for registration.”

The political temperature rose further when Sudhir Bangera, an RSS supporter in Karnataka, issued a casteist and violent threat to Kharge, declaring, “The time has come to finish you off,” after the minister stated he would not allow the RSS to spread communalism. The episode illustrates the climate of impunity surrounding the organization and its affiliates.

For decades, the RSS has insisted that it is not a political body and does not participate in elections. Yet its own internal history contradicts this claim. M.S. Golwalkar, the organization’s most influential ideologue after K.B. Hedgewar, made clear that swayamsevaks assigned to political work were expected to obey instructions without question. In a 1954 speech, he said that if volunteers were told to enter politics, they must do so without personal preference; if told to withdraw, they must comply just as readily. Their “discretion is just not required.” In 1960, Golwalkar reiterated that swayamsevaks working in politics must perform their assigned roles like actors in a play—neither more nor less. These statements reveal the RSS’s long‑standing political ambitions and its method of deploying cadres strategically while maintaining formal deniability.

The organization’s own publications further expose the scale and structure of its political project. In 1997, the RSS’s central publishing house, Suruchi Prakashan, released Param "Vaibhav Ke Path Par", a book detailing more than forty organizations created and controlled by the RSS. The preface openly states that understanding the RSS requires understanding the activities of its swayamsevaks across these numerous fronts. The Bharatiya Janata Party appears prominently in this list, alongside the ABVP, VHP, Hindu Jagaran Manch, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, and Sanskar Bharati. The book describes the creation and evolution of the Jana Sangh and later the BJP as RSS projects. Today, the Prime Minister, most Union ministers, chief ministers, and governors publicly identify as RSS cadres—an extraordinary admission for an organization that claims to be non‑political.

The book also reveals the clandestine nature of many RSS fronts. The Hindu Jagaran Manch, for example, is described as a “forum” rather than an organization, allowing it to avoid registration, membership rolls, and elections. This structure enables the RSS to disown groups like the HJM, VHP, Bajrang Dal, or ABVP whenever their violent activities draw public scrutiny. Yet the RSS routinely mediates between these groups and BJP governments, demonstrating the underlying unity of purpose.

The publication even acknowledges covert operations. It recounts how swayamsevaks in Delhi, immediately after Partition, posed as Muslims to infiltrate the Muslim League and gather intelligence. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, in a 1948 letter to Sardar Patel, warned that RSS men disguised as Muslims were planning to incite communal violence by attacking Hindus and Muslims in turn. Such revelations underscore the organization’s long history of conspiratorial activity.

The list of RSS‑affiliated bodies is vast and spans every sector of Indian society: students, education, labor, agriculture, women, tribals, culture, science, law, economics, publishing, and more. Many of these entities receive government funds, despite Bhagwat’s claim that the RSS accepts none. Investigations have shown that RSS‑linked institutions have benefited from public money, including funds diverted from elite sports programs. The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram’s recent national event in Delhi was hosted with full support from the RSS‑BJP government. Meanwhile, the RSS itself remains unregistered, unaccountable, and without a bank account, even as it collects vast sums domestically and internationally and employs thousands for overt and covert operations.

A citizen from Nagpur, Lalan Singh, has spent years petitioning the judiciary for a simple answer: under what legal authority is the RSS provided state security costing billions of rupees annually? The courts have refused even minimal transparency.

This situation is untenable for a democracy. The RSS has long been openly hostile to the Constitution, the Tricolour, and the principles of equality. Golwalkar declared in 1940 that the RSS, “inspired by one flag, one leader, and one ideology,” was lighting the flame of Hindutva across India. On the eve of independence, the RSS’s Organiser denigrated the national flag, calling the Tricolour psychologically harmful. When the Constitution was adopted in 1949, the same publication lamented that it did not incorporate the Manusmriti, which it described as a superior legal tradition. The Manusmriti, of course, treats women and Shudras as inherently inferior—an ideology fundamentally incompatible with modern democracy.

Drunk on unchecked power, the RSS now equates itself with Hindu Dharma, just as the Muslim League once equated itself with Islam. The danger of such conflation is obvious and grave.

Priyank Kharge’s demand for registration is therefore not merely administrative. It is a long‑overdue assertion of constitutional authority over an organization that has operated outside the law since before Gandhi’s assassination. India has waited decades for this moment.

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