RSS chief calls for a swadeshi revolution

At a function organised by the Vande-Mataram Shatakottar Raupyamahotsav Samiti to commemorate 125 years of the immortal song, which has in the recent past generated controversy, the RSS chief said, "We should follow swadeshi which will be our second independence revolution and free the country from the clutches of economic superpowers."

Lashing at those who described RSS as a fundamentalist outfit, the RSS chief who arrived in the commercial capital of the country after taking over a Sarsanghchalak of the socio-cultural organisation from Prof Rajendra Singh, he said, "Those who think RSS is fundamentalist are actually using borrowed foreign words." He described them as so-called seculars.

He also warned against religious conversions and said that the RSS will not not tolerate any religious conversions. "We will not tolerate forceful religious conversion," he said. Since the last couple of days the issue of religious conversions has rocked the political scene in the country with the RSS and its frontal organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal declaring that religious conversions would not be tolerated.

During his more than an hour-long address at the Birla Kreeda Kendra at Chowpatty here, he said, when it is `Be American…Buy American, Be British…Buy British and Be Russian and Buy Russian’, why cannot we propogate `Be Indian and Buy Indian’," he said. Amidst thunderous applause by a gathering of intellectuals and RSS workers, he said that villages should be the centre-point of Indian economy as this only will lead India towards economic stability in this glorious new millennium.

"Gandhiji was right in saying that villages should be the centrepoint of economy," he said but lamented that the maxim was never followed. He said that if Gandhiji’s policies had been pursued there would not have been any economic imbalance in India which exists now with a few handful of rich controlling the vast majority of poor.