Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge’s persistent questioning of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s legal status appears to have forced a reckoning of sorts. The organisation’s chief Mohan Bhagwat and other senior functionaries have now claimed that these questions were settled decades ago and are offering “evidence” to that effect.
These statements are only half the story. The rest lies in the RSS’ constitution and has been pieced together by legal scholars and journalists from court filings and documents provided by insiders in the organisation. The picture that emerges is of an organisation designed to evade legal scrutiny. One that Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as the “world’s biggest NGO,” and which functions out of multi-storey buildings worth crores – while claiming that it owns no assets.
