RSS chief gives V-Cs a lesson in Saffron ideology

Sources said that the meeting was attended by various vice-chancellors as well as industrialists.

Written by Satish Jha , Kumar Anand
Ahmedabad | July 24, 2014 10:01 AM IST

2 min read

The vice-chancellors (V-Cs) of different universities in Gujarat held a meeting with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat at the residence of an industrialist in Ahmedabad on Wednesday evening. The meeting was turned as “breakfast” meeting where the RSS chief introduced its ideology to the V-Cs. Bhagwat was in Ahmedabad for the past three days which ended with the meeting at the house of Pankaj Patel, chairman of Cadila Healthcare, a renowned city-based pharma company. Patel was not immediately reachable for comments. The RSS, however, downplayed the meeting as “routine”.

Sources said that the meeting was attended by various vice-chancellors as well as industrialists. M N Patel, V-C of Gujarat University, said that the meeting was attended by many of his counterparts and Bhagwat had been invited by them. He, however, didn’t divulge specific details. “I attended the meeting for a short time where we discussed with Bhagwat about the ideology of the RSS. We also asked him about his stand on art, culture and other such topics. We asked him specifically on his take on English as a language and we were surprised to hear that he was advocating promotion of all languages, including English.”

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MSU V-C Yogesh Singh also attended the meeting. When asked about it, he said, “It was a breakfast meeting with Bhagwat, who introduced RSS ideology to the V-Cs present at the meeting.” RSS workers said that Bhagwat also held meetings with the office-bearers of the organisation and also with various social workers and industrialist to understand “what is happening at different fields in the state and how to take RSS movements further.” They said that this is a routine pravas (tour) of Bhagwat, who keeps touring the state. Before this meeting, Bhagwat also met Chief Minister Anandi patel at RSS office in Maninagar.

Last month, Bhagwat met Vadodara’s royal Gaekwad family members, including Samarjisinh and invited him to attend a religious ceremony at its headquarters in Pune.