New Delhi: Earlier this month, the Narendra Modi-led Centre lifted the 44-year-old ban on government employees from joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Centre’s notification on July 9, 2024 has come after a series of BJP-ruled states passed similar orders over the last decade permitting state government staffers to join the RSS, overruling the ban imposed by Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1980.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which comes directly under the Prime Minister, issued the new order, while claiming that the previous order had become “irrelevant”, and therefore “unjustified”.
Interestingly, the Centre’s notification came on the heels of apparent tension between the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological fountainhead the RSS led by its chief Mohan Bhagwat. During the course of the Lok Sabha election campaign, the BJP president J.P. Nadda made a statement that the saffron party was not dependent on the RSS as much as it was earlier, in what was seen as an assertion of BJP’s autonomous functioning under Modi. The RSS rank and file, too, weren’t as active in election canvassing as it had been in previous elections.
To add insult to injury, soon after the BJP fell short of a majority, Bhagwat made a statement that “humans want to become superman, a deity, and God” at a time when they should be striving for betterment of humanity.
This story was originally published in thewire.com. Read the full story here.
