WHY AMBEDKARITES PROTEST AGAINST RSS IN MAHARASHTRA?

Sun 26 October 2025:

In what is being described as “historic”, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) organised a massive protest march outside the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad on Friday, directly challenging the organisation’s ideological stronghold.

Led by the VBA and joined by local Ambedkarite political groups and organisations, the protest drew an overwhelming crowd — what organisers called “the first time in independent India that a political group has demonstrated right outside an RSS office.”

Addressing the protest in Aurangabad, Sujat Ambedkar, the VBA leader and great-grandson of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, said the demonstration was meant to be a peaceful assertion of the values enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Speaking to Maktoob, Ambedkar said, “We went there not to provoke violence but to remind the RSS that no organisation stands above the Constitution of India.”

Ambedkar added that the VBA had intended to hand over three symbolic gifts to the RSS: a copy of the Indian Constitution “to make the RSS follow, respect, and conduct its activities under the constitutional framework, the national flag “to remind RSS to hoist it proudly in all their offices and to stop observing Independence Day, August 15, as a ‘black day’ as they have been doing since its inception and a copy of the Maharashtra Public Trust Act, “to help the RSS, which remains an unregistered body, to finally register itself under Indian law.”

However, RSS members fled the office before the protesters could reach the gates, allegedly stating that the office was “closed.” Eventually, Aurangabad’s Deputy Commissioner of Police accepted the gifts on behalf of the RSS.

He added, “They told us that the office is non-functional and left it before we could even reach there.”

“I don’t know why so much police was required for the political people having national emblem, constitution and tricolour in their hands, who were just reminding the RSS of their national duties,” Ambedkar said. “At least 7,000 police troops were deployed on the streets where we were protesting peacefully while challenging the RSS ideology.”

The protest was held in response to a “join RSS” campaign that took place a few days earlier inside the premises of the Polytechnic College of Aurangabad. While the RSS registration campaign was under way, some students associated with Samyak Vidhyarthi College, a student wing of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, tried to question the organisers. Some of those students were subsequently slapped with cases under non-bailable sections and booked by Aurangabad police.

Ambedkar asked, “Why an organisation that goes against the very soul of the nation running a drive inside a college campus. That too when it is not even recognised under the act required.”

“They did not have any permission to even enter the college and they were running the “join RSS” campaign to the college’s knowledge,” he said. “And why were the students booked who democratically questioned RSS, an organisation which refuses to adopt the values of this nation and doesn’t recognise the national flag?”

Condemning what he described as the RSS’s “cowardice,” Ambedkar said, “The fact that they shut their doors and ran away shows that the RSS still harbours hatred toward the Constitution and the national flag. They have never accepted the ideals of democracy, equality, and secularism, the very pillars of India.”

He further said, “Only the Ambedkarite movement has the strength, the moral courage, and the political will to stand against the RSS. We will defeat their ideology, no matter how long it takes.”

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“A political message beyond symbolism”

The Aurangabad protest is being viewed as a bold and symbolic escalation in Maharashtra’s ideological battleground, where the VBA has consistently accused the RSS and the BJP of undermining the values of social justice and secularism.

The VBA’s action comes amid renewed debates around the RSS’s legal status, its influence over governance, and the growing mobilisation of Bahujan and Ambedkarite forces challenging Hindutva politics on constitutional grounds.

Siddharth Mokle, chief spokesperson of the VBA, told Maktoob, “If anyone has the strength to confront the RSS, it is only Babasaheb Ambedkar and his descendants.” “If this country is to run, it will be run by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution. We demand that the RSS first register itself legally. It should bring itself within the framework of the law and only then implement registration programs,” he added.

Another VBA leader, Farukh Ahmad, state vice-president of the VBA, said, “Those who live in India but do not respect India’s Constitution, India’s national flag, or India’s national emblem the Ashoka Pillar are traitors to the country.” “RSS, what is your registration? Only Phule-Shahu-Ambedkarites have the guts to ask this question. If the RSS is not registered under the law, if any illegal organisation worships weapons, then Mohan Bhagwat should be put in jail,” he added.

Ambedkar, in his address outside the RSS headquarters on Friday, said, “This is not just a protest, it’s a warning. The Constitution belongs to the people, not to Nagpur. The RSS can’t hide from it forever.”