On Saturday (August 10, 2024), Congress criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to people for “Har Ghar Tiranga” campaign and accused him of trying to take a national symbol that “his ideological kin have long disowned.”
Prime Minister Modi, on Friday, requested people to make the “Har Ghar Tiranga” campaign an exciting mass movement as he switched his profile picture on X with the national flag and appealed for others to do so.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge communications, wrote on X about Mr. Modi’s “Har Ghar Tiranga” campaign which he said is “a short history of the RSS’ relationship with the Tiranga.”
“M. S. Golwalkar, the second chief of the RSS used this phrase in his book Bunch of Thoughts while criticizing Congress decision on adopting tricolor as National Flag ‘communalism’, drift and imitation,’” explained Mr. Ramesh.
He added on X that according to Organiser, which was an RSS mouthpiece then in 1947: ‘The Tricolour will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.’
The RSS felt that other colors denote communal thought; therefore saffron should have been India’s only color according to its 2015 stand,” he continued
“These kids were not booked until they placed a flag forcefully at its headquarters for three decades since it did not hoist the Indian flag regularly at its headquarters,” says Ramesh.
Mr. Ramesh said that “This non-biological Prime Minister is attempting to appropriate this national symbol that his organization has no history or symbols which can be embraced by India because his ideological fraternity has already disowned them”.
“He particularly chose such a day when India could celebrate the anniversary of the Quit India Movement that the Indian National Congress refused to support while RSS did not participate,” he argued.
In a post on X on Friday, Mr. Modi stated “As this year’s Independence Day approaches again let’s make Har Ghar Tiranga a memorable mass movement. I am changing my profile picture and I urge you all to join me in celebrating our Tricolour by doing the same. And yes, do share your selfies on harghartiranga.com.”
