RSS-BJP leader Ram Madhav’s recent defence of the RSS (‘Needless controversy over the RSS’, IE, June 20) seeks to portray the organisation as a transparent association that has operated openly within the framework of Indian law. However, he relies on a selective reading of history. The central claim of Madhav’s article is that the RSS voluntarily adopted a written constitution in 1949. The historical record tells a very different story. The framing of the RSS constitution was not a voluntary act; it was the outcome of a prolonged confrontation between the RSS leadership and the Government of India following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the ban imposed on the organisation in 1948. The RSS constitution emerged as part of a bargain that M S Golwalkar arrived at with the Nehru-Patel leadership. Far from being a document organically evolved within the RSS, it was virtually drafted by Congress leader D P Mishra and practically shoved down Golwalkar’s throat.

Since its formation in 1925, the RSS’s structure, decision-making........

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