Satyagraha Begins
Shri HVR Iyengar, Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, directed Shri Guruji ?to make immediate arrangements to return to Nagpur?. He asked Shri Guruji as to what arrangements he was making, that too, ?not later than tomorrow evening?. Shri Guruji did not oblige. Therefore, he was arrested, sent to Nagpur and then locked in a jail in Seoni, which is about two hundred kilometres from Nagpur.
The RSS had no option but to disregard the ban and start its Shakha-work again. This satyagraha started from December 9, 1948 and continued till January 22, 1949. The nature of satyagraha was to start a Shakha in a public place. The police would come and arrest the swayamsevaks, who would be produced next day before a magistrate, and the magistrate would sentence them to rigorous punishment for various lengths of time. Generally, the behaviour of the police used to be in accordance with law. However, in some cases, the satyagrahis were carried to long distance solitary places, dropped there and were therefore required to trek the long distance on foot. The Madras Police, however, were more cruel. They brutally beat up the satyagrahis by their sticks, smashed their heads and there was bloodshed. The Hindu newspaper, published from Madras, published these inhuman atrocities of the Police. Shri T.R. Venkat Ram Shastri, a former Advocate General, was moved by these reports and he publicly condemned the Police behaviour.
The Congress Governments at the Centre and in the Provinces thought that two to three thousand teenagers, at the most, would participate in the satyagraha and that it would fizzle out in about a week'stime. But the RSS proved the Government wrong. More than seventy-seven thousand satyagrahis courted arrest. Satyagraha was carried in all the Provinces. As the Satyagraha was in full swing, Shri G.V. Ketkar, Chief Editor of Kesari, a Marathi newspaper, founded by the late Lokmanya Tilak, came on the scene as an intermediary. It is reported that he was prompted by the Deputy PM Sardar Patel. He met Shri Guruji in jail and advised him to suspend the satyagraha so that meaningful negotiations could take place. Shri Guruji acceded to the request of Shri Ketkar and suspended the satyagraha from January 22, 1949. But there appeared no sign of lifting the ban.
Venkat Ram Shastri
Then came Shri Venkat Ram Shastri on the scene. He met Sardar Patel and other officers in the Home Ministry and then Shri Guruji who was in jail. Now the Government invented a new reason. The Government said the RSS is a secret association, because it had no written Constitution. This was conveyed to Shri Guruji by Shri Shastri. Shri Guruji replied that the RSS was not banned because it had no written Constitution. It was banned because of its alleged complicity in a conspiracy to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Now that the things are cleared, the Government must lift the ban and allow the RSS to function freely. Shri TRV Shastri was of the age of Shri Guruji'sfather and therefore to respect his persistent request, Shri Guruji sent the written Constitution of the RSS. For the first time, a provision to elect the General Secretary of the RSS was incorporated in the Constitution. Shri Shastri took this Constitution to the Home Department, but the Government stood on false prestige and wanted the Constitution sent by Shri Guruji. So it was sent back to the Seoni jail and Shri Guruji sent it under his signature.
Pig-headedness
The Government thought that Shri Guruji was bending. They did not know what stuff he was made of. They tried to prick holes in the Constitution. Shri HVR Iyengar'sletter, written to Shri Guruji on May 3, 1949, is a specimen of the Government'stypical pig-headedness. Iyengar writes: ?The gravamen of the charges against the RSS was that it functioned in secrecy, that whatever the professions of its organisers might have been, it derived its main inspiration in the minds of the people from the doctrine of communal hatred, that it exalted a communal party above State, and that in practice its followers indulged systematically in violence. The Government of India feel that the Constitution as drafted does not fully safeguard the organisation against these defects.?
Then Iyengar enumerates the following defects:
