The party’s senior leader, Jairam Ramesh, cites historical evidence showing Gandhi and Sardar Patel denigrating the Hindutva organisation
NEW DELHI — Launching a blistering attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on its centenary anniversary, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has cited excerpts from a book penned by Pyarelal, a close aide of Mahatma Gandhi, claiming that the leader of the freedom movement had described the Sangh as a “communal body with a totalitarian outlook”.
In back-to-back attacks on the right-wing organisation, the Congress leader on Thursday (October 2) also quoted a Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s speech condemning the activities of the Sangh and calling them a clear threat to the state.
The stark criticism from Ramesh, who is the party’s general secretary in-charge communications followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s praise of the RSS for its “continued work on the principle of nation first” during its centenary celebrations.
In a post on X, Ramesh, said Pyarelal was one of Gandhi’s closest aides, being part of his personal staff for almost three decades, and became his secretary after the death of Mahadev Desai in 1942.
Ramesh, in another post, recalled the time when former Union Home Minister Sardar Patel condemned the Sangh activities, emphasising that India should be a secular state. The Congress leader shared a screenshot of a report which detailed Patel’s speech in the Congress session in Jaipur on December 16, 1948, citing the excerpts from The Collected Works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vol 13, edited by PN Chopra
Thursday marked both Gandhi Jayanti and the centenary of the RSS. On Wednesday, Prime Minister 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.
Modi’s praise came in for severe criticism with Congress 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.”
