On Thursday, the Congress cited excerpts from a book by Pyarelal, one of Mahatma Gandhi’s closest aides, to highlight Gandhi’s critical view of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh pointed out that in Pyarelal’s book Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, published in 1956, Gandhi referred to the RSS as a “communal body with a totalitarian outlook.” According to Ramesh, this remark was made during a conversation on September 12, 1947, just months before Union Home Minister Sardar Patel banned the organisation.
Thursday marked both Gandhi Jayanti and the centenary of the RSS. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the RSS for its contributions to nation-building, comparing it to a river that had “nurtured and nourished a civilisation of nationalists.” Modi also released a commemorative stamp and coin featuring Bharat Mata for the first time on Indian currency, alongside a stamp acknowledging the RSS’s historical participation in the 1963 Republic Day parade.
The Congress criticised Modi’s praise, arguing that Patel had considered the RSS’s activities as creating an atmosphere that contributed to Gandhi’s assassination. The party also disputed Modi’s claim that RSS leaders had faced imprisonment during the freedom struggle, stating, “RSS, an organisation that divides the country… At the time of independence, its leaders neither went to jail nor were ever banned by the British.” Opposition parties described the stamp and coin release as “an insult to the Constitution.”
