Some questions take a lifetime to ask. Others take a century.The recent remarks by Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge questioning why the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) should not be subject to registration and public accountability, like countless other organisations, have triggered yet another political controversy. Supporters of the RSS have dismissed the suggestion as politically motivated. Critics have welcomed it as an overdue challenge to one of India’s most influential institutions.To me, however, the controversy means something far more personal.I did not first encounter the RSS through newspapers, academic research or political debates. I encountered it at home.My father devoted most of his adult life to the RSS. He was deeply committed to its ideals and maintained close relationships with several senior leaders of what later became the Bharatiya Janata Party, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. Like many RSS workers of his generation, he experienced the turbulent period that followed Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, when the organisation was banned and many of its members were detained.In our home, discussions about discipline, sacrifice, nationalism and service to the nation were part of everyday life. For me, the Sangh was never an abstract political organisation. It was woven into family life long before I understood politics.I eventually followed the same path, , the next 20 years, before I realised what RSS was really all about, and quit in the 1980s, just before I left for the US.The questionFor nearly two decades I worked within the RSS, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), and later the BJP. Like countless young swayamsevaks of my generation, I believed I was participating in a movement that would strengthen India. It was only gradually, through experience, observation and reflection, that I began questioning many of the assumptions I had accepted in my youth.Those questions eventually became books.In In the Belly of the Beast, published in 1998, I attempted to describe my experiences inside the organisation and to raise concerns that I believed deserved wider public discussion. More than two decades later, I revisited many of those themes in Gandhi’s Killers India’s Rulers. The political landscape had changed dramatically. The questions had not.That is why Priyank Kharge’s intervention caught my attention.Whether one agrees with his politics or not, he has asked a question that reaches beyond Karnataka and beyond partisan rivalry. It is a question about democratic accountability.Also read: RSS Claims to be Apolitical. Priyank Kharge’s Letter Seeks to Expose the Lie.Much of the public discussion has focused on registration. Registration, however, is only one part of a larger issue.Modern democracies routinely expect organisations of significant public influence to maintain identifiable legal structures, comply with applicable laws and, where required, maintain financial records and disclosures. The precise legal obligations vary depending on the organisation’s form and activities, but the underlying democratic principle is consistent: influence and accountability should grow together.So why should the RSS be treated any differently?As someone who spent nearly 20 years inside the organisation, I believe this is where public discussion has remained surprisingly limited.The question before India is larger than the RSS. How should a constitutional democracy encourage transparency, accountability and public trust among institutions that exercise substantial influence over national life?That question should not depend on whether an institution is popular or unpopular, old or new, or aligned with the government of the day. It is a principle that should apply consistently.Questions I first asked in 1998When In the Belly of the Beast appeared in 1998, I hoped it would stimulate discussion about aspects of the RSS that, in my experience, remained largely invisible to the broader public.One subject particularly concerned me.Every RSS worker is familiar with ‘Guru Dakshina’.To an outsider, it appears to be a ceremonial offering made to the saffron flag, which symbolically represents the Guru of the organisation.To an insider, it is also an important organisational event.During my years in the RSS, volunteers were generally informed beforehand of the contribution expected from them according to their individual circumstances. The contribution was placed inside an envelope bearing the contributor’s name and offered during the ceremony beneath the saffron flag. Local functionaries would then count the collections.As an ordinary swayamsevak, I experienced this process year after year.What I did not experience was public discussion about how collections of this nature were consolidated, reported or disclosed.Also read: Why the RSS’s Vishwaguru Vision Collapses Under Its Own HypocrisyThat absence of transparency became one of the questions I later raised in my writing.My purpose was not to challenge the sincerity of those making contributions. Most volunteers, including myself at the time, believed they were supporting a noble cause.The question was different: How should an organisation of such size and influence demonstrate accountability regarding the resources entrusted to it?That question, in my opinion, deserved discussion then. And it deserves discussion today.Where public debate goes silentMy memoir also referred to reports and widespread perceptions regarding fundraising among supporters abroad through organisations associated with or sympathetic to the Sangh family. Those references reflected concerns that I believed warranted greater public examination. Whether viewed through the lens of my own experiences or through independent reporting and scholarship, the broader issue remains the same: organisations that play a major role in public life inevitably invite questions about governance, transparency and accountability.For many years, however, those questions seldom became part of mainstream political conversation.Why?That question leads to another subject that has occupied much of my thinking over the past three decades.For many years, I have argued that journalism is shaped not only by what it reports but also by what it leaves unexplored. I have described this phenomenon as the ‘journalism of exclusion’.This idea does not suggest that journalists act in concert or that difficult questions are deliberately suppressed. Rather, it describes a recurring pattern in which some issues become central to public debate while others, despite their importance, receive only episodic attention before fading from view.The question of institutional transparency within the RSS is, in my view, one such example. And that is why Priyank Kharge’s intervention deserves attention beyond the immediate political exchange it has generated.A personal reflectionWhen I think about these questions, I inevitably think about my father.He believed deeply in the RSS and dedicated much of his life to it. I eventually travelled the same road before arriving at different conclusions.Between his generation and mine stretches nearly a century of the organisation’s history.We did not reach the same understanding, but we shared something that every democracy should value: the belief that ideas matter, that institutions matter, and that India’s future is worth debating with seriousness rather than slogans.Partha Banerjee spent nearly twenty years in the RSS, ABVP, and BJP before leaving the movement. His memoir In the Belly of the Beast (1998) and his later work Gandhi’s Killers India’s Rulers (2020) reflect on those experiences and on questions of democracy, media and political accountability in contemporary India.