Q: Are Muslims allowed in the RSS?
RSS chief: No Brahmin is allowed in the Sangh. No other caste is allowed… No Muslim is allowed, no Christian is allowed, no Shaiva.… Only Hindus are allowed.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday asserted that a Muslim or Christian can be admitted to the Sangh if they shed their “separateness” and come as a “Hindu”, a term he defined as a “son of Bharat Mata”.
“People with different denominations, Muslims or Christians, any denominations, can come to the Sangh, keeping their separateness out,” he said at a public Q&A session in Bengaluru.
“Their speciality is welcome, but when you come inside a shakha (congregation of RSS cadres), you come as a son of Bharat Mata, a member of this Hindu society.”
The Sangh has been accused of injecting a convenient ambiguity in its concept of “Hindu”, defining it as a cultural and nationalist term and not a religious one, thereby including everyone with Indian ancestry.
Such a definition allows the Sangh to sidestep allegations of being anti-minority even when championing a “Hindu Rashtra”, and to downgrade Muslims and Christians to “denominations” within Hinduism.
Bhagwat was speaking a day after delivering a talk on “100 years of Sangh journey” in Bengaluru as part of a series of lectures on the subject across the major cities.
He said Muslims and Christians do come to RSS shakhas but are not counted as holding a separate identity and are not asked who they are.
Asked how the RSS planned to build confidence among the minorities, he said the Sangh conducts outreach programmes for hitherto “untouched sections” but doesn’t make any special gestures to them.
“Actually, the Sangh says that we will not do anything for anybody. Each has to do his own duty…. Sangh does only shakha work and man-making…,” Bhagwat said.
In his lecture on Saturday, Bhagwat had claimed there was no “Ahindu” (non-Hindu) in India, asserting that Hindu culture was synonymous with national identity.
“All Muslims and Christians are descendants of the same ancestors. They probably don’t know it, or are made to forget it,” he had said.
“Every Hindu must realise he is a Hindu because being Hindu means being responsible for Bharat.”
For all his sexism-tinged emphasis on a Hindu being a “son” of Bharat Mata, Bhagwat, in answer to a different question, underlined that the Sangh has a women’s wing, the Sevika Bharti.
Asked at Sunday’s session whether the Sangh was ready to make changes to connect with Gen Z and transgender people, he said: “In the Sangh, any change (is possible) except the basic…. Hindustan is a Hindu nation, that is the basics (and) that will never change. Everything else can be brought about…,” he said.
Saffron flag
Asked why the RSS uses a bhagwa (saffron) flag instead of the national flag, Bhagwat obliquely pointed fingers at Mahatma Gandhi.
He said the Sangh was formed in 1925 while the national flag was decided in 1933.
“The flag committee had unanimously recommended a traditional bhagwa (saffron) flag. But then Gandhiji intervened and, for some reason, he said three colours, saffron on the top,” Bhagwat said.
He said the Sangh had always respected and protected the Tricolour, and there was no question of “Bhagwa versus Tricolour”.
“The communist party has a red flag. The Congress party has a Tricolour with a charkha. The Republican Party has a blue flag. So we have our Bhagwa and we respect our national flag,” he said.
Bhagwat resorted to rhetoric while answering a question the Congress has been posing aggressively in Karnataka: Why is the RSS not registered officially?
Underlining that the Sangh was born in 1925, he asked: “Do you expect us to register with the British government?”
He emphasised that registration was not compulsory under the Indian laws.
“A legal status is also given to a body of individuals. We are categorised as a body of individuals and recognised as a body of individuals,” he said.
Registration brings tax and audit liabilities.
“Many things are not registered. Even the Hindu dharma is not registered,” Bhagwat said.
On the Sangh’s backing for a political party, Bhagwat claimed the RSS supports policies and not politics. He said the Sangh backed the BJP because the party had supported the demand for a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
“RSS workers would have even backed the Congress if it had supported the demand for a Ram temple,” he said.