Historical accounts confirm that the tricolour was not regularly displayed at the RSS headquarters for decades, although the circumstances surrounding the 2001 incident and the subsequent adoption of regular flag-hoisting have been the subject of political debate.
Tapase also questioned the RSS’s role during India’s freedom struggle and cited the organisation’s ideological positions on nationalism and the national flag.
“From 1925, when the RSS was founded, until 1947, the organisation did not join a single campaign related to the freedom struggle — not the Civil Disobedience Movement, not the Quit India Movement of 1942. While the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were in British jails?” he said.
He also referred to former RSS chief M S Golwalkar’s views on nationalism and questioned whether the issue would be addressed by current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat during his Independence Day interaction with Gen Z.
“Will (current RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat ji will talk about this in his Independence Day dialogue with Gen Z?” Tapase asked.
The NCP (SP) leader said the national flag belonged equally to all sections of Indian society and rejected what he described as an attempt by the BJP-RSS to claim exclusive ownership of patriotism.
“You cannot stay away from the freedom struggle and then, a hundred years later, claim love for the movement. The tricolour belongs to every Indian who fought, sacrificed, and died for it – from the Congress to the socialists, to the revolutionaries, to the communists. It does not belong to those who once called it inauspicious,” he added.
The BJP has organised Tiranga Yatras across the country ahead of Independence Day as part of its campaign around the national flag. The criticism from NCP (SP) comes amid a broader political debate over the use of nationalist symbolism by political parties and organisations. Recent opposition criticism has also targeted the RSS and BJP over the nationwide ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign.
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