The forgotten pledge: RSS and its betrayal of constitutional and moral promises

 When for the first time the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was banned in February 1948, it was not a casual act of vengeance but a considered response to a crisis of national morality after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. The Nehru–Patel government held that the RSS had fostered communal hatred and eroded the fragile harmony of a newly independent India. The ban was to remain until the organisation demonstrated loyalty to the constitutional order that had just been born.

In 1949, under intense pressure, RSS chief M. S. Golwalkar sought the lifting of the ban. The government set strict conditions: the RSS had to respect the Constitution, honour the tricolour, and work for the welfare of all citizens irrespective of faith or caste. Golwalkar gave a written undertaking to that effect and, for the first time, the RSS adopted a written constitution describing itself as a cultural, non-political body. On that basis alone the Home Ministry withdrew the ban in July 1949.

That undertaking was more than a bureaucratic gesture—it was a covenant with the Republic. Yet, the organisation has since failed to uphold either its constitutional promise or its own moral creed. For years, the RSS refused to hoist the national flag at its Nagpur headquarters, venerating instead its saffron Bhagwa Dhwaj. Its ideologues continued to ridicule secularism and socialism, the twin pillars of India’s constitutional identity, while promoting the idea of a Hindu-first nationhood that excludes large sections of Indian citizens.

Equally serious is the organisation’s neglect of women’s safety and dignity. The RSS often quotes the Sanskrit verse “Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra devataah”—where women are honoured, divinity dwells there. But in social reality, neither the RSS nor its affiliates have taken a consistent stand against violence, exploitation, or harassment of women within Hindu society itself. When women face abuse at the hands of so-called spiritual leaders, temple authorities, or men associated with the wider Sangh ecosystem, the silence of the RSS and its affilates  is deafening. A movement that claims to guard Indian culture cannot choose selective outrage; its indifference to crimes against women from within its own social base exposes a deep moral vacuum.

The contradiction runs deeper. While some leaders speak of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” the organisation’s practice continues to be exclusionary—toward minorities, dissenters, and even women who challenge patriarchal control. This is not the welfare of all citizens that Golwalkar pledged in 1949; it is the narrowing of citizenship to those who fit a particular ideological mould.

Today, as the RSS protests moves by governments like Karnataka’s to limit its activities in public spaces, it must be reminded of the promise that allowed it to re-enter those very spaces. The 1949 undertaking was a promise to the Indian people, not a temporary compromise. By disregarding both the constitutional principles of equality and its own cultural ideals of honouring women, the RSS stands in violation of the spirit that granted it legitimacy. The time has come to hold it accountable—not to suppress it, but to demand fidelity to the very Constitution that gave it a second life.