To claim RSS association with the tricolour, Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat plants lie in nationally televised speech

In a blatant distortion of facts to claim an association with the national flag, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat presented a falsified version of a circular issued by RSS founder Dr KB Hedgewar on 21 January 1930. The circular, instead of supporting Bhagwat’s assertion on the RSS’s fealty to the tricolour, shows that the RSS went out of its way to distance itself from the tricolour and embrace its own bhagwa dhwaj, or saffron flag.

Delivering the first of his three-part lecture on the RSS’s perspective on the “Future of India” at Vigyan Bhavan on 17 September, Bhagwat said in his nationally televised speech, “When Congress passed the resolution for Purna Swaraj [complete independence], Doctor saheb [Hedgewar] issued a circular asking all [RSS] shakhas to march past with the tricolour.”