People's Democracy

NATIONAL FLAG HOISTING ISSUE

RSS Must First Prove Its Patriotic Credentials

ON September 6, a group of university teachers and social activists of Delhi staged a march to the RSS state headquarters in Jhandewalan, to donate the national flag to this organisation. The aim of donating the national flag to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was to register protest against the BJP’s so-called “Trianga Yatra” in the name of defending the tricolour’s honour.

These activists, around 60 in number, belonged to the “Defeat BJP Forum” that was formed some two months before the general elections this year. They were stopped by the police when they were moving in a peaceful procession to the RSS’ Jhandewalan office.

According to Madhu Prasad of the Defeat BJP Forum, “We were marching peacefully to the RSS headquarters to donate a national flag and submit a memorandum, but the police stopped us.” 

She then added that that the RSS should first raise the national flag over its own offices all over the country “before hoisting it in Hubli.” It was “to this end that we wanted to gift the RSS a national flag to fly above its headquarters in Jhandewalan.”

The said procession started from Ajmeri Gate near New Delhi railway station. But Delhi Police put out barricades en route to prevent it from reaching the RSS state headquarters in Jhandewalan. The forum’s activists were shouting slogans like Gandhi, hum sharaminda hain, tere qatil zinda hain! (Gandhi, we are ashamed that your killers are still alive!)

Prevented from gifting the tricolour, the forum has now decided to send some of its activists to the RSS national headquarters in Nagpur to donate this organisation a national flag. “We have a plan to go to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to gift a tricolour,” Ms Prasad said.

The thing highlighted by the forum’s procession is very simple. It is widely known that the fascistic RSS has never been enamoured of the national flag. Yet, with the ulterior motive of dividing the people on communal lines, the RSS and BJP have of late been claiming that, as citizens of this country, they have every right to hoist the tricolour wherever they want. The ulterior motive of the RSS and its outfits is evident from the fact that so far they have hoisted the national flag at only the Lal Chowk in Srinagar and tried to do the same in the Idgah Maidan in Hubli (Karnataka), bothy times with a view to rouse communal passions. Therefore, in order to establish their credibility as patriots, (that is, if they are really patriots), they have to at least first hoist the national flag at their own offices. It is this widespread feeling that the Defeat BJP Forum sought to give a voice on September 6.