“The government, whose glorified leaders have neither played any role in freedom struggle before independence nor have accepted the Indian flag as their national symbol post independence, are now stoking-up a ‘Tricolour Campaign’ throughout the country. What these people are doing is just an eyewash to wash off the sins they have committed in the past,” Observed Dr.Rakesh Pathak, Chief Editor Karmveer.org while participating in a debate over a new channel on Tuesday.
“By welcoming the ‘Tiranga’ move we cannot simply let them squat free from what they did in the past as they carry the history that always tried to reject the national flag from the very beginning,” he said, adding that “If we browse through the history of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or Hindu Maha Sabha quite earlier, we could easily able to find that their resentment towards the national flag is from the time when the insignia was first ratified by the Congress government in 1930 during a Lahore Convention.”
Soon after the congress declared the tricolour as national flag of the nation, the then RSS founding Chief (Sarsanghchalak) Keshav Baliram Hedgewar formally wrote a letter appealing the members or his organisation in general and all the Hindus in particular to desist from hoist national flag on 26 January 1930 and instead raise ‘Bhagwa’ (Saffron) flag as their national symbol.
Earlier this, he said, Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar – the then second most prominent figure in the saffron brigade and also known as Guru Golwalkar, proclaimed that the Hindus will never accept the tricolour. “While addressing a gathering in Nagpur on the occasion of Gurupurnima, Golwalkar said, “The Hindus of India will never ever accept the ‘Tiranga’ as national flag as we have our own traditions and a Bhagwa flag to represent our own identity since decades,” he recalled.
Later, on August 14 1947 – just a day ahead when the country first time was preparing to celebrate the Independence Day through flag hoisting ceremony at Red Forte on August 15, 1947, the organizer, the mouthpiece of RSS, wrote “Some people by chance rose to power and was trying to forcefully impose the tricolour on the nation. The flag was made up of mixing three colours into one which is a bad omen and will not help the country to prosper.”
Even after the country attained independence, Rakesh Pathak said, the RSS leaders’ disdain towards the national flag never simmered down. One has to remember that till the year 2001, no flag hoisting ceremony was held at the Headquarter of RSS at Reshmi Bagh, Nagpur.
Recalling one more incident, he said, when the three activists of an organisation called Rashtrawadi Yuva Dal, barged into RSS headquarter and try to hoist a national flag on the occasion of January 26, 2001, they were all ran in to police by the RSS members and later a case was also booked against them. All these three people namely Baba Mendhe, Ramesh Kalambe and Dilip Chatwani were booked and their only mistake was to hoist the flag on RSS headquarter. Not only this, the post Gandhi ji murder incidents saw these people crushed the national flag with their boots to celebrate the killing.
“An organisation that never allowed the national flag to hold over its headquarters until 2001, is trying to stoke up a campaign urging people to hoist the national symbol over their houses in 2022. This means, it is trying to rinse off the sins it has committed in the past. The whole campaign is to cover the wrong doing of the RSS and their mentors have committed in the past. It goes with a famous proverb denoting politics that says ‘Nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,’ asserted Dr.Rakesh Pathak.
