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Journalism of Courage
A THREE-DAY annual meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) apex decision-making body began at Samalkha in Haryana Sunday with tributes to late Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and other public figures who passed away over the past year.
Sources said apart from Mulayam, tributes were paid at the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) to former JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, senior lawyer Shanti Bhushan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Hiraben, former Union Minister Yoginder Alagh, former Governors Omprakash Kohli and Keshari Nath Tripathi, architect Balkrishna Doshi, and singers Vani Jayaram, Bhupinder Singh and Shivamogga Subbanna.
In all, sources said, the the Sangh paid tributes to about 100 personalities who passed away. The list also includes Bollywood personalities Satish Kaushik, Javed Khan Amrohi and Nitin Manmohan, and industrialists such as Vikram Kirloskar and Jamshed Irani.
The Sangh paying tribute to Mulayam is significant as its cadre had held his then UP government responsible for opening fire on kar sevaks in Ayodhya at the peak of the Ram Mandir movement in 1990. The SP has also been consistently targeted by the BJP over the alleged appeasement of Muslims, and both parties remain bitter rivals in UP.
In January, the BJP-led Centre conferred the Padma Vibhushan on Mulayam. This move was viewed as an attempt to please OBC communities in UP among which Yadav had a massive following. In the 2021 UP Assembly elections, the SP was seen as having regained some of its lost ground among OBC voters even though it lost the elections.
With the Lok Sabha elections just a year away, the RSS is expected to mobilise its cadre in UP to help the BJP improve its tally. The ABPS meeting, which will end on March 14, is likely to discuss a host of issues related to the working of the Sangh, including its expansion plans.
Issues such as radicalism in Punjab, unemployment, the caste question in light of the Ramcharitmanas controversy in UP, friction between the Sangh and the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, increasing role of women in the Sangh Parivar, population control, and efforts to change the Sangh’s “negative image in certain quarters” are also likely to be discussed, sources said. Close to 1,400 leaders and workers of the Sangh Parivar are attending the meeting, sources said.
Briefing the media on a proposed resolution for the meeting, RSS joint General Secretary Manmohan Vaidya said: “We are celebrating the 75th year of swadhinta (self-rule). But what is the ‘swa’ in swadhinta? Swatantra (Independent), swavalamban (self-dependence) and swadeshi (of one’s own country). So, the idea is that India’s policies should be formulated in the light of this ‘Swa’. And in this, the society participates. So, the resolution will focus on what the society needs to do to promote this.”
Vaidya said, “There will also be a statement on the 2550th mahaparinirvan of Mahavir Jain. The 200th birth anniversary of Dayanand Saraswati is also coming this year. His contribution and his message will be remembered. There will also be a statement on the importance of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s coronation 350 years ago.”
Speaking about the RSS, Vaidya said there are 68,651 training shakhas (branches) in operation at the moment. Of these, 42,613 are daily, 26,877 are shakhas and 10,412 are monthly. He said that “as many as 5.5 lakh RSS workers were helping people” during the pandemic. “We have been able to bring it (shakha work) on track finally,” he said.
