New Delhi: Earlier this month, the Narendra Modi-led Centre lifted the 44-year-old ban on government employees from joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Centre’s notification on July 9, 2024 has come after a series of BJP-ruled states passed similar orders over the last decade permitting state government staffers to join the RSS, overruling the ban imposed by Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1980.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which comes directly under the Prime Minister, issued the new order, while claiming that the previous order had become “irrelevant”, and therefore “unjustified”.
Interestingly, the Centre’s notification came on the heels of apparent tension between the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological fountainhead the RSS led by its chief Mohan Bhagwat. During the course of the Lok Sabha election campaign, the BJP president J.P. Nadda made a statement that the saffron party was not dependent on the RSS as much as it was earlier, in what was seen as an assertion of BJP’s autonomous functioning under Modi. The RSS rank and file, too, weren’t as active in election canvassing as it had been in previous elections.
To add insult to injury, soon after the BJP fell short of a majority, Bhagwat made a statement that “humans want to become superman, a deity, and God” at a time when they should be striving for betterment of humanity.
The remark was seen as an oblique attack on Modi who during the campaign had likened himself to a divine messenger whose energy was “non-biological”.
The Centre’s notification against such a context is being read in two ways. First, it is being seen as a move to conceal the cracks in the larger Sangh Parivar, as the Prime Minister has attempted to project ideological continuity to camouflage his coalition compulsions in his first-ever non-majority government.
Second, amidst various indications of divisions between the deep-rooted RSS and the BJP, which is fighting anti-incumbency all across India, the notification could also be Modi’s offer of peace to the RSS.
However, irrespective of whether it is a fig leaf or Modi’s move to hold out an olive branch, the Centre’s notification is a political attempt to absolve the RSS of its past sins, and normalise its majoritarian agenda.
History of the ban on RSS
The RSS was first banned by India’s first deputy prime minister and home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on February 4, 1948, three days after Nathuram Godse, a RSS member, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Patel said that the decision to ban the RSS was taken to “to root out the forces of hate and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the nation and darken her fair name.”
He believed that the RSS was an “extremist section” of the Hindu Mahasabha and “constituted a clear threat to the existence of the Government and the State…” Later in September, he also wrote to the RSS chief M.S.Golwalkar that the speeches of RSS workers and leaders are “full of communal poison”, because of which Gandhi was killed.
A year later, on July 11, 1949, the ban on RSS was lifted after Golwalkar promised to remain loyal to the Constitution and the national flag, and stop its political work to remain only as a social and cultural organisation. However, the RSS headquarters in Nagpur has not hoisted the national flag on independence day even once since then.
In 1966, the Union government banned government employees from participating in activities organised by the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami. It held that “any participation in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jamaat-e-Islami by government servants” was akin to participation in “political movement or activity”, thereby violating provisions of sub-rule (1) of Rule 5 of the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rule, 1964.
The Central order was reimposed on July 25, 1970. In 1975, during the Emergency, the Indira Gandhi government banned the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami again, along with 26 other organisations including some CPI(ML) factions and Anand Marg. However, when the Janata Party came to power, it revoked the ban on the RSS and also the order to prevent government staffers from participating in the activities of the RSS.
The 1980 order gave a detailed explanation for the decision, as the order was rescinded in 1977 by the preceding Janata Party government. The decision by the Janata Party government came after it lifted the ban on RSS which was reimposed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975. In 1975, during the Emergency, the Indira Gandhi government had banned the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami again, along with 26 other organisations including some CPI(ML) factions and Anand Marg.
Immediately after coming back to power, the Indira Gandhi government let the RSS function openly but passed a stern order banning government employees from joining the RSS. The October 28, 1980 order emphasised that the decision to prevent government employees from participating in any activity of the RSS or Jamaat-e-Islami was important “in the context of the current situation in the country” when there was a need to “ensure a secular outlook on the part of government servants”.
“The need to eradicate communal feelings and communal bias cannot be over-emphasized. No notice should be taken by the government and its officers, local bodies, state-aided institutions of petitions or representations on communal basis, and no patronage whatsoever should be extended to any communal organization. The Ministry of Finance etc., are, therefore, requested to specially bring once again to the notice of all government employees, working in or under them, the above-quoted provisions in para 1 (regarding ban on joining RSS or Jamaat-e-Islami) on the subject. It is emphasized that any disregard of these instructions should be considered as a serious act of indiscipline and suitable action initiated against the erring employees,” the 1980 order said.
The status quo continued until the RSS was banned again on December 10, 1992, soon after the Babri Masjid was demolished. However, the ban was lifted on June 4, 1993 after the Justice Bahri Commission deemed it to be “unjustified”.
How the BJP-ruled states overturned the government order one by one
As the BJP gained strength in the early 2000s, successive state governments made moves to lift the ban on government staffers from joining the RSS. Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government lifted the ban first soon after he became the chief minister in 2006, claiming that “the sub rule 1 of rule 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Civic Services (Conduct) Rules 1965” was “not applicable on RSS”.
Incidentally, Chouhan, now an Union minister, was the first senior leader to welcome the Modi government decision to lift the ban on government employees. “RSS is not an ordinary organisation, it is a movement for nation building,” he said.
Under Modi, various BJP state governments went on a spree to revoke the ban on government employees from joining the RSS. The BJP-led Himachal Pradesh government in 2008, Raman Singh’s Chhattisgarh government in 2015, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana government in 2021, all lifted the ban, paving the way for Modi at the Centre to overturn the 44-year-old Central government’s order, citing similar reasons.
Meanwhile, the RSS had been consistently lobbying with various governments to lift the ban on government employees, claiming it to be “unjust and unlawful” to prevent government staffers from joining a “social and cultural organisation”.
The RSS has now hailed the Central government order. Its publicity-in-charge, Sunil Ambedkar, said that the Sangh has contributed immensely in the “reconstruction of the nation and service of the society for the last 99 years.”
“From national security to national integration and even during the natural calamities, RSS has worked tirelessly to help the people of the country,” he said, adding that the government employees were prevented from participating in the social and cultural activities of the RSS because of “political self-interests” of previous governments.
He said that the Modi government’s decision now “would strengthen the democratic system of Bharat.”
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been continuously engaged in the reconstruction of the nation and the service of society for the past 99 years. Due to the RSS’s contributions in times of national security, unity-integrity, and natural disasters, the various types of…
— RSS (@RSSorg) July 22, 2024
The Central order, apart from marking a step forward in the mainstreaming of the Sangh Parivar’s majoritarian agenda, delinks the RSS from Jamaat-e-Islami. Thus, government officials will continue to be bound by the old Central order banning them from participating in activities of the Islamic organisation.
As the Modi government made the move to aid the RSS’s mainstreaming, it received a pat on its back from even the Madhya Pradesh High Court on July 25, 2024.
Hearing a petition by Indore resident Purushottam Gupta, a retired government servant who had moved the court to protest against the Central order, the High Court bench comprising Justices S A Dharmadhikari and Gajendra Singh, while dismissing the petition in light of the Modi government rescinding the ban, said, “…it took almost five decades for the central government to realise its mistake; to acknowledge that an internationally renowned organisation like RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations of the country and that its removal therefrom is quintessential”.
“Aspirations of many central government employees of serving the country in many ways, therefore, got diminished in these five decades because of this ban, which got removed only when it was brought to the notice of this court vide the present proceedings,” the Bench said.
Opposition reacts
The opposition, however, has been up in arms. Senior Congress leaders have lamented that the move was “politically motivated” and legitimises “Hindutvaisation” of even bureaucrats.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hit out at the union government, alleging that the new order is a move to charge the government offices and their employees ideologically. He said that the Modi government has removed the ban that once Sardar Patel had imposed.
Congress’s chief spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said, “After June 4th, 2024, relations between the self-anointed non-biological PM and the RSS have nosedived. On July 9, 2024, the 58-year ban that was in force even during Mr Vajpayee’s tenure as PM was removed. The bureaucracy can now come in knickers too I suppose,” Ramesh said.
“Government is taking such a decision to end the resentment of Mohan Bhagwat…Today UPSC, NTA are in such a bad state because RSS people are infiltrating every section of the govt,” said Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owasi asked whether the union government believed in “Hindu nationalism”, which is the core of RSS’s ideology that opposes all forms of pluralism.
Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief, and Mayawati, Bahujan Samaj Party’s supremo, both demanded the withdrawal of the order, and alleged that the decision was taken to “appease” the RSS. Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay SIngh said that the government has now aided the spread of “hatred in the society”.
