Yogendra Yadav Renews Focus on Sangh’s Historic Opposition to the Tricolour

New Delhi: Political Activist Yogendra Yadav’s remark that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) “refused” to  hoist the national flag for nearly 50 years after independence has kickstarted a debate on social media, with supporters of the Hindu nationalist organisation attempting to pin Yadav down. 

However, the persistence with which Yadav produced evidence to support his claim may leave his attackers defenceless.

On December 10, 2025, Yadav’s X post, against the backdrop of the parliamentary debate on Vande Mataram, read,

“For 50 years, RSS refused to fly the Tiranga at its headquarters — and even filed an FIR against those who tried to hoist it. Yet today, the same people claim to define nationalism. History deserves better memory. #VandeMataram.”

The comment subsequently drew attention from one Aabhas Maldahiyar, a self-proclaimed nationalist historian. In his post, Maldahiyar claimed that the allegation survived only because “repetition has replaced record-keeping by the likes of Yogendra Yadav” but collapses “when tested against primary constitutional and archival sources”.

Maldahiyar went on to say that the Indian national flag had no legal or constitutional status before July 22, 1947. He defended the RSS for not hoisting the national flag because “the Flag Code of India (1950) made it explicit that private organisations were under no obligation to fly the national flag at their premises”.

He added that the “oft-repeated charge” that the RSS pressed charges against those who hoisted the flag was unfounded.  

This allegation survives only because repetition has replaced record-keeping by the likes of @_YogendraYadav . When tested against primary constitutional and archival sources, it collapses.

First, the Indian national flag had no legal or constitutional status before 22 July 1947. The Tiranga was formally adopted only through a resolution of the Constituent Assembly of India on that date (Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. V, 22 July 1947). Any claim that an organisation “refused” a national flag for 50 years retroactively imposes legality where none existed. Before adoption, debates on design, symbolism, or suitability were constitutionally valid and routine.

Second, the oft-repeated charge that the RSS filed FIRs against those who hoisted the Tiranga is entirely unsupported by evidence. “No colonial police registers, no Home Department files, no court proceedings, no FIR numbers; British Indian or post-1947; record any such case,” Maldahiyar said. 

“Selective quotation from the Organiser is routinely abused. The editorial dated 14 August 1947 discussed civilisational symbolism at a moment before the flag’s constitutional finalisation. It did not call for disobedience to the Constituent Assembly, nor for dishonouring the adopted national flag. Editorial critique prior to adoption cannot honestly be reframed as post-adoption rejection,” Maldahiyar added. 

However, Maldahiyar appears to have deliberately misled his audience about the fact that the RSS actually didn’t hoist the national flag until January 26, 2002 – something that Yadav also pointed out. 

In his response, Yadav pointed to the RSS’s FIR against Baba Mendhe, Ramesh Kalambe, and Dilip Chattani, who forcibly hoisted the national flag atop the RSS’s headquarters, Smruti Bhawan, in Reshmibagh, Nagpur on January 26, 2001. That was the only time when the RSS headquarters saw the national flag hoisted before 2002 from the time of independence. The three activists from Rashtrapremi Yuwa Dal were acquitted by Justice R.R. Lohia only in August 2012. 

Maldahiyar immediately responded to say that it was a case of trespassing that doesn’t anyway prove that the RSS was opposed to the hosting of the national flag. 

Like Maldahiyar, the RSS has maintained that it didn’t hoist the national flag because the Flag Code of India didn’t allow “private organisations/individuals” to hoist the national flag, and not because of they considered its own Bhagwa Dhwaj as the true signifier of independent India. 

RSS's historic opposition to the national flag

Maldahiyar, and his likes, have sought to deflect attention from the RSS’s controversial history. However, multiple records have already proven that the RSS was opposed to the tricolour ever since it was adopted by independent India. 

Firstly, the Flag Code before 2002 allowed private citizens and organisations to hoist the national flag on special occasions like Independence day (August 15), Republic day (January 26) and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2), but restricted private organisations and individuals to fly the tricolour on ordinary days. That is why most of us have participated in flag hosting ceremonies in our schools, colleges and organisations on these special occasions. But the RSS still refused to hoist the tricolour even on these days. 

When industrialist Naveen Jindal challenged the rule in the Delhi high court in February 1995, after being stopped from flying the national flag at his Raigrah factory, the matter came up before the Union cabinet. The cabinet accepted Dr. P.D.Shenoy committee’s report and allowed all to hoist the national flag on all days from January 26, 2002. 

The RSS was thus forced to adopt the tricolour to avoid being singled out for not hoisting the national flag from 2002 onwards. 

The RSS had always refused to accept the tricolour since its adoption. It openly advocated that the Indian flag should only be saffron in colour, as that reflected the “true nature of India”. 

As recently as 2015, the RSS at a seminar articulated a similar view when its members said that “saffron should have been the only colour on the national flag as other colours represented a communal thought.”

An Indian Express explainer points out RSS’s second sarsanghchalak M.S Golwalkar’s views in his book Bunch of Thoughts, “Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating. How did this flag come into being? During the French Revolution, the French put up three stripes on their flag to express the triple ideas of ‘equality’, ‘fraternity’ and ‘liberty’. The American Revolution inspired by similar principles took it up with some changes. Three stripes therefore held a sort of fascination for our freedom fighters also. So, it was taken up by the Congress.”

He goes on to write: “Then it was interpreted as depicting the unity of the various communities-the saffron colour standing for the Hindu, the green for the Muslim and the white for all the other communities. Out of the non-Hindu communities, the Muslim was specially named because in the minds of most of those eminent leaders, the Muslim was dominant and without naming him they did not think that our nationality could be complete! When some persons pointed out that this smacked of a communal approach, a fresh explanation was brought forward that the ‘saffron’ stood for sacrifice, the ‘white’ for purity and the ‘green’ for peace and so on.”

Before this, RSS mouthpiece Organiser, too, opposed the tricolour in an editorial on August 14, 1947. The editorial said that although Indian leaders “may give in our hands the Tricolour, but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus.”

“The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”

The Sangh parivar has always opposed the tricolour before it changed its position. For many years, it was also opposed to the Indian Constitution in the same way it opposed the Indian flag, and thought it was the Mannusmriti that could have been the basis of independent India’s new constitution, as it reflected the Indian spirit better than Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s “Western” ideals. 

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