Har Ghar Tiranga: PM Modi attempts to appropriate flag his ideological kin disowned, says Congress leader Jairam Ramesh

Congress criticizes PM Modi for "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign, accusing him of appropriating a national symbol disowned by RSS.

The Congress on Saturday (August 10, 2024) took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his appeal to people for the "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign, alleging that he is attempting to appropriate a national symbol "his ideological kin have long disowned".

Prime Minister Modi on Friday asked people to make the "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign a memorable mass movement as he replaced his profile picture on X with the national flag and urged everyone to do the same.

Noting Mr. Modi's "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared on X what he said is a "short history of the RSS' relationship with the Tiranga".

"M. S. Golwalkar, the second chief of the RSS, in his book Bunch of Thoughts had criticised the Congress' decision to adopt the Tricolour as the national flag, labelling it 'communal' and 'a case of drifting and imitating'," Mr. Ramesh said.

"The RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, in 1947 wrote that 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," he said on X.

Mr. Ramesh further said that in 2015, the RSS said that "saffron should have been the only colour on the national flag as other colours represented a communal thought".

“The RSS did not regularly hoist the Tiranga at its headquarters till 2001, when three youth forcibly hoisted the flag on its premises, a “crime” for which they were booked,” he said.