RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat delivered a forceful defence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s unregistered status, declaring that the organisation operates as a legally recognised, though unregistered, “body of individuals” under existing Indian law. He maintained that such a formation does not require formal registration and, by its very nature, is not liable to pay organisational income tax. Speaking at the closing session of the two-day centenary lecture series, “100 Years of the Sangh’s Journey: New Horizons,” Mohan Bhagwat sought to counter growing criticism from political opponents who have questioned the Sangh’s legal standing, financial structure, and transparency.
“We Are a Body of Individuals”
Bhagwat framed the Sangh’s position as both historical and legal. Founded in 1925, he argued, the RSS would hardly have registered with the British colonial regime it opposed. In independent India, he said, the law does not mandate registration for associations like the RSS. He described the Sangh as an association of volunteers who join and leave of their own free will, noting that there is no employer–employee relationship and, therefore, no basis for paying wages or honoraria from a central payroll.
Reiterating the Sangh’s long-standing practice, Bhagwat said that funding is not routed as institutional income but arises from voluntary contributions—guru dakshina—traditionally given by citizens to individual volunteers. By this account, the Sangh does not engage in income-generating activity as an organisation and therefore does not present the profile of an entity that attracts corporate taxation.
“If We Were Not There, Whom Did They Ban?”
The Sarsanghchalak also advanced an argument he presented as both rhetorical and legalistic: that the history of government prohibitions on the RSS is itself a form of official recognition. Citing past episodes in which the organisation was banned and later reinstated, he suggested that state action and subsequent judicial scrutiny together implied that the RSS has, in practice, a recognised public existence even without formal registration. By his telling, the Sangh “operates within the Constitution” and is not an unconstitutional body.
Policy, Not Party
On politics, Bhagwat drew a distinction between Rajneeti (party politics) and Rashtraneeti (national policy). He maintained that the Sangh supports policies rather than endorsing parties or individuals, and he offered the Ram Mandir as an illustration: swayamsevaks, he said, would support any party aligned with that objective. The implication is that ideological alignment on issues—rather than partisan loyalty—drives volunteer preferences.
A Centenary Moment
The Bengaluru engagement formed part of a wider centenary outreach, with similar sessions in other metros. Organisers described the audience as a cross-section of professionals—education, health, social service, culture, sport, industry, and finance—reflecting the Sangh’s effort to speak to a broad civic constituency at a milestone moment. Against a backdrop of heightened political scrutiny and calls for greater transparency, Bhagwat’s intervention sought to consolidate a three-part message: that the law does not compel registration; that the Sangh’s volunteer-centric model places it outside organisational taxation; and that the organisation’s contested history of bans and reinstatements points, ultimately, to legal endurance.
Part B — The Transparency Question
A Voluntary Ethos in a Regulatory Age
On its own telling, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the world’s largest non-governmental, voluntary organisation—an association of swayamsevaks who join and leave of their own free will. Indian law recognises precisely this category: a volunteer is not an employee; there is no master–servant relationship; and there is no expectation of wages or honorarium. In the Sangh’s ecosystem, guru dakshina is described as a voluntary contribution from citizens to individual volunteers, not a salary routed through a payroll. So far, so orthodox.
If a clandestine network or a violent underground group were to operate without formal structure, it might still be explicable. But for a century-old organisation that seeks to articulate the civilisational ethos of the nation and to guide its millions, such opacity appears incongruous. We live in an era where civil-society institutions routinely—and legitimately—adopt transparent legal forms: registered societies, public charitable trusts, foundations, and Section 8 (not-for-profit) companies. These structures exist precisely to confer legal personality, hold assets, open bank accounts, receive grants, publish audited accounts, and remain answerable to regulators. The RSS is none of these—neither a proscribed body nor a covert resistance movement. Why, then, this enduring reluctance to constitute an apex legal entity for what is evidently a vast, hierarchical, and deeply influential national organisation?
The Missing Half of the Picture
What was conspicuously absent from the Sarsanghchalak’s exposition was the other half of the story—the vast archipelago of registered entities that orbit the RSS. These include schools, trusts, service organisations, research institutions, and think tanks, each lawfully incorporated and individually compliant, often enjoying tax exemptions available to charitable bodies, inclduing section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. One might also add the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to this extended portfolio—a duly recognised and registered political party with the Election Commission of India. The buildings, vehicles, training centres, media houses, and offices are frequently vested in these separate entities; as, presumably, are the staff appointments, office expenditures, and logistical infrastructure that sustain the Sangh’s extensive public presence.
In practice, therefore, what emerges is a federated structure in which an unregistered apex body coordinates, guides, and—in the public mind if not in strict law—commands this entire ecosystem. This hybrid arrangement invites legitimate questions: where does guidance end and control begin? When does a “family” of institutions, all ideologically aligned and functionally interlinked, become in substance a single organisation? And most crucially, who bears ultimate accountability for the whole?
Power, Personality, and Accountability
Accountability is not a hostile demand; it is the price of scale. An unregistered apex has no statutory identity, no bank account of its own, no board whose composition is notified to a registrar, and no obligation to file consolidated disclosures. Volunteers and sympathisers may be content with custom and convention, but the citizens who encounter the Sangh’s reach in education, culture, and public life are entitled to know who sets policy, how funds flow, and which forum—if any—hears grievances. If the apex is only a “body of individuals”, are its internal rules of succession, discipline, and decision-making written, public, and justiciable? Who, exactly, receives and responds to a lawful notice from a regulator when issues arise that cut across multiple registered affiliates?
The opacity is not merely theoretical. In any system governed by rule of law, regulators must be able to map responsibility. Fragmented ownership of assets through a web of affiliates is not unusual in the voluntary sector; what is unusual is the insistence that the centre itself declines any formal shape while exercising evident convening and directive power. The result is a compliance perimeter that is porous at precisely the point where strategic decisions are made. That may be legally defensible under current statutes, but it is institutionally unhealthy: it strains public trust, burdens affiliate entities with accountability they may not truly control, and invites the charge—fair or not—of regulatory arbitrage.
The Succession Test
The succession question sharpens the problem. In any enduring body, legitimacy rests on the clarity of how leadership is chosen, how authority is transferred, and how dissent is processed. Unwritten conventions may suffice for a fraternal association; they do not suffice for an organisation that shapes civic culture, frames policy preferences, and influences electoral behaviour at scale. Volunteers deserve to know the code they are joining; the public deserves to know the principles that will outlast a given leadership; the state deserves to know the counterparty responsible for system-wide choices.
Two Honest Paths Forward
There are two honest ways forward.
First, constitute an apex entity—society, trust, or Section 8 company—with a published charter, a board whose members are disclosed, and audited consolidated statements covering material affiliates over which it exercises significant influence. This would align organisational reality with legal form, bringing clarity to governance, finances, and responsibility without impeding the volunteer ethos.
Second, if incorporation is resisted, publish a binding Transparency Covenant: a public constitution of sorts that lays down the rules of succession, the lines of authority, the ethics code for volunteers, the financial protocols for guru dakshina, the firewall between ideological work and political action, and a mechanism for independent audit of system-wide finances and safeguarding. Either route would meet the core demand: that power be matched by clear lines of responsibility.
A Policy Lens Beyond the RSS
There is also a wider policy point. An unregistered-apex model, if normalised, will be eagerly copied by others who wish to operate at scale while staying under the regulatory radar. The remedy should be structural, not selective. Parliament could consider bright-line triggers—based on assets, receipts, or the number of associated entities—beyond which an association must either incorporate or file a consolidated disclosure as a “significant influence organisation”. Donations crossing a defined threshold could be KYC-traceable end-to-end, with beneficial-ownership reporting for any entity claiming affiliation. None of this restricts the freedom of association; it merely insists that, above a certain public-impact threshold, that freedom travels with transparency.
From Legal Sufficiency to Democratic Adequacy
The Sarsanghchalak framed the issue as one of legal sufficiency: the law does not compel registration and previous bans were lifted. The country, however, must frame it as one of democratic adequacy: when an institution claims to speak to and for the nation, democratic society is entitled to ask who it is, how it is governed, how it is funded, and to whom it answers. That is not an attack; it is an invitation—indeed, a challenge—to match moral influence with modern accountability.
A candid national debate on this question is long overdue. Ironically, it is the RSS Supremo himself who, perhaps unintentionally, has now set it in motion. Without such a conversation, India risks entrenching a troubling precedent—where institutions of vast scale and influence operate behind a veil of technical invisibility, while future actors of far lesser integrity exploit the same ambiguity for darker ends.
The Sangh’s reach, discipline, and historic role uniquely position it to lead by example. If it embraces transparency—through formal incorporation or a publicly articulated covenant—it could establish a standard of accountability commensurate with its stature and legacy. Should it choose not to, the onus will inevitably fall upon the State to define that standard for all, converting what is now an internal matter of voluntary disclosure into a question of national regulatory necessity.
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