Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday identified Indianness with Hindutva and called for reform in society based on the “right ideology” so as to help the RSS fulfil its prime objective of making India a strong nation.
“Hindutva is the core of Hindustan, it is its identity,” said Mr Bhagwat, hastening to remove any scope for misunderstanding over the analogy by adding that Hindutva must not been seen as an ideology championed by any particular religion or community.
“The Sangh (RSS) has been trying to bring about the right change in society to make India strong in the hands of a right leader,” said the RSS sarsanghchalak in his address to a gathering attended by senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar and hundreds of supporters of the BJP, ABVP and RSS in the state.
Despite the support extended by the RSS to the projection of BJP strongman and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the saffron party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Mr Bhagwat said widespread perception about the RSS being the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party was essentially wrong.
“The essence of the activities of the RSS is to work at building a strong India with Hindutva at its core,” he said in his address organised on the eve of Shravan Poornima.
Calling for a social movement for change in order to intensify action for nation building, Mr Bhagwat said: “Change has always come from within society and not politics... Just a change of the people in power will not help much”.
To elaborate his point, he spoke on the life of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and his lifelong struggle against social evils and his active participation in India’s freedom movement.
Prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who attended Mr Bhagwat’s address included former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Opposition leader in the Assembly Nand Kishore Yadav, BJP state chief Mangal Pandey and party national vice-president C.P. Thakur.