Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said that majority of Muslims in the country did not approve of “love jihad” or Ghazwat-e-Hind (alleged holy war against India), but there was also a large section of “katarpanthis” (fundamentalists) in the community. “Good people, we have to separate ourselves from the crowds of evil people,” he said in Bengaluru while answering questions during the New Horizons lecture session held to mark the centenary of the RSS.
“…Sanskars in our homes, and ‘Maryada’ behaviour… Giving them to our children is our responsibility. We have stumbled and the result is the success of ‘Love Jihad’. Secondly, do not put everyone in one category,” he said, adding that there is a section among Muslims that denounces the perpetrators of the Battle of India and ‘Love Jihad’.
“We must know them. We must keep them in touch,” Bhagwat said. The RSS chief said that although there is a “large section of fundamentalists”, we put the entire Muslim community in a single bracket whenever cases of “love jihad” or other similar incidents arise. “This is not good. We are Hindus, we don’t think that way,” he said, adding that the number of fundamentalists increases if the entire community is blamed.
He told the audience: “A policy of reconciliation is required. We have to fortify ourselves, so a ‘policy of punishment’ is also required… Good people, we have to separate ourselves from the crowds of evil… There must be a distinction between good people and bad people. They must be separated. We cannot treat everyone equally. Treatment must be different from person to person. We must do this.”
He ignored the recent controversy over RSS registration in Karnataka. He said this was not the first time this question had been asked, asking whether anyone would have expected it to have been registered with the British government in 1925. “After independence, the laws did not make registration compulsory,” he said. “We are classified as a group of individuals. We are a recognized organization.”
Referring to the court’s ruling after the Income Tax Department asked the RSS to pay taxes, he said the court recognized it “as a group of individuals and ‘our Guru Dakshina’ was exempted from income tax. We were banned three times. Each time the courts rejected the ban and recognized the RSS as a legal organisation,” Bhagwat said.
On Karnataka Minister Priyank Karg’s recent call to regulate RSS activities in the state, Bhagwat said: “We don’t need to respond to it. We have other important work to do… Criticism makes us more popular. We have just witnessed that here in Karnataka. We will encourage them to raise more questions.”
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On whether the RSS would organize awareness programs for minorities, he said: “Brahmins are not allowed in the Sangh. No other caste is allowed in the Sangh. No Muslim… No Christian… No Shiva… Only Hindu is allowed. People of different castes, Muslims… Christians can come to the Sangh… Your specialty is welcome. But when you enter ‘Shakha’, you come as the son of ‘Bharat Mata’… a member of the wider Hindu community.”
(Tags for translation) Mohan Bhagwat RSS Speech
