Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat brought the Hindutva organisation’s ideology front and centre during a programme here today.
In order to grow within Meghalaya, one of the few Indian states that does not have a Hindu majority, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a member of the RSS, tends to avoid raising the Hindutva ideology that has made the party popular, and feared, in other parts of the country.
However, this was not the case with Bhagwat, who said, “When we talk of Hindutva, we are not talking about only one sect. For us, every citizen of this country is a Hindu. Hindutva is a way of life, a culture.”
And although he mentioned diversity as being one of India’s strengths, he also spoke, darkly, of “invaders” seeing this differently. “We have been one always. When we forget this, we lost our independence. Hence, we must make sure that we become one and make our country stronger and more self-reliant. We all have to work for this unity.”
Bhagwat’s visit was akin to one by a top political figure, though he holds no constitutional position in the country, with blaring police convoys and high levels of security. This was Bhagwat’s third visit to Shillong, though first as RSS boss. The two-day Meghalaya visit will end on Monday.
The RSS chief kept drawing his audience’s attention to the past, a cleaner, purer past when India was unsullied by the so-called invaders. Without saying it explicitly, he again and again referred to the ancient spirituality of India, which could only mean Hinduism, as Islam and Christianity are more recent additions to India.
Another point of Bhagwat’s is that, just as a country needs strong citizens, a strong India will give birth to strong Indians.
To explain this, he referred to Uganda under dictator Idi Amin, who expelled Asians from the country en masse in 1972. “Indians there had to suffer despite no fault of theirs. India’s stature in the global arena was weak then. Our objections had no impact that time as our country was on a weaker footing. Nevertheless, if the nation Bharat (India) becomes powerful and prosperous, each Bharatiya (Indian) will become powerful and prosperous,” he said.
