Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said the organisation is recognised as a “body of individuals” and does not need formal registration, while highlighting that even “Hindu Dharma is not registered”, PTI reported.

At an event in Bengaluru to discuss the completion of 100 years of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bhagwat remarked: “RSS was established in 1925, so do you expect us to have registered with the British government?”

He said that after Independence, the government of independent India did not make registration compulsory and that the RSS functions legally as a body of individuals.

He added that both the Income Tax Department and the courts had acknowledged this status and granted tax exemptions.

Besides he added that “we were banned thrice, which means the government had recognised us; if we didn’t exist, whom would they have banned?”

The RSS, which is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, was banned briefly thrice by the Union government since Independence, including after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Bhagwat’s remarks came after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated his call for the RSS to be banned, while his son, Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge, questioned the organisation’s registration number and sources of funding, The Indian Express reported.

On October 31, Mallikarjun Kharge had called for a ban on the Hindutva organisation, claiming most law and order matters in the country were caused by the BJP and RSS, The Indian Express reported.

On November 3, Priyank Kharge asked how the RSS, while being an unregistered organisation, could hold large-scale marches across the country, ANI reported.

In October, the Congress government in Karnataka had issued an order restricting unauthorised gatherings of more than 10 people in public spaces, a move likely to affect RSS activities, but the Karnataka High Court subsequently stayed the order.

Meanwhile, in response to another question about whether Muslims can join the RSS, Bhagwat on Sunday said that anyone can attend shakhas if they identify as “a son of Bharat Mata, a member of this Hindu society”.

He said: “No Brahmin is allowed in the Sangh, nor is any other caste allowed. No Muslim is allowed, no Christian is allowed in the Sangha… Only Hindus are allowed. So people with different denominations, Muslims, Christians, any denomination, can come to the Sangha but keep your separateness out.”

Bhagwat remarked: “Your specialty is welcome, but when you come inside [RSS] shakha, you come as a son of Bharat Mata.”

A day prior, Bhagwat had said that in the organisation’s view, all Indians are part of Hindu society regardless of religion.

“There is actually no Ahindu in Bharat,” Deccan Herald quoted him as saying. “All Muslims and Christians are descendants of the same ancestors. They probably don’t know it, or they are made to forget it.”

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