Why does RSS want to meet Rahul Gandhi?
#News Bureau 29,2024
RSS has alleged that Rahul Gandhi does not meet the leaders of the Sangh. So the question is why do the leaders of the Sangh want to meet Rahul Gandhi? Another question is that did the leaders of the Sangh ask for an appointment to meet Rahul Gandhi and was it refused by Rahul Gandhi’s team? Was an attempt made to contact him by writing a letter?
Before finding the answer to these questions, let us know what the RSS has said now. RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said on Saturday that despite claiming to open a ‘dukaan of love’ in the ‘bazaar of hatred’, Rahul Gandhi does not meet the leaders of the Sangh. He also indirectly attacked Rahul Gandhi on this matter.
On the occasion of the RSS annual meeting in Mathura, Hosabale said, ‘You want to run a shop of love in the market of hatred, but do not want to meet. We want to meet everyone.’ Hosabale said that RSS is spreading love, but this is just rhetoric for Rahul.
Hosabale, the second-in-command in the RSS after Mohan Bhagwat, was addressing a press conference in Mathura on Saturday, the last day of the RSS meeting, and was answering a question whether there have been some differences between him and the BJP ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections. He said, ‘We meet leaders of every political party, every industrialist, every leader of different communities. We have no tension with anyone, be it BJP leaders, Congress or people representing other organizations. I do not want to take names here because it will become a different news.’
This statement of the RSS leader has come at a time when Rahul Gandhi has been continuously attacking the Sangh. During his US tour last month, Rahul Gandhi had said at a program in Texas,
The Sangh believes that India is ‘one idea’, whereas we believe that India is made up of ‘many ideas’. Like America, we believe that everyone has the right to dream, everyone should get a chance to participate and this is the fight.
He further said that women empowerment is a part of the ideological struggle between BJP and us. He said, ‘BJP and RSS believe that women should be confined to traditional roles – staying at home, cooking and speaking less. We believe that women should have the freedom to do whatever they want to do.’
He has also been accusing BJP and RSS of interfering in government work. In the month of August, Rahul Gandhi had said that Narendra Modi is attacking the Constitution by recruiting public servants through Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh instead of Union Public Service Commission.
He further said that women empowerment is a part of the ideological struggle between BJP and us. He said, ‘BJP and RSS believe that women should be confined to traditional roles – staying at home, cooking and speaking less. We believe that women should have the freedom to do whatever they want to do.’
He has also been accusing BJP and RSS of interfering in government work. In the month of August, Rahul Gandhi had said that Narendra Modi is attacking the Constitution by recruiting public servants through Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh instead of Union Public Service Commission.
In many of his speeches, Rahul has repeatedly accused the RSS and the BJP of spreading religious hatred. He said that he is running a shop of love amidst the shop of hatred.
In January last year, the Congress leader had said in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, ‘I can never go to the RSS office, even if you slit my throat.’ The question is, does the Congress find something strange in the desire expressed by the RSS to meet? For example, it could be a dilemma that there is some trick of the Sangh in this? Perhaps the Sangh is trying to capitalize on the fact that we are such an organization that even Congress leader Rahul Gandhi does not hesitate to come to? Such arguments have been given earlier as well that the Sangh is such an organization that even Mahatma Gandhi used to meet. A similar example has been given about Indira Gandhi. Recently, the claim has been substantiated by mentioning the visit of former President Pranab Mukherjee to the RSS program.
By the way, another Congress leader had refused to meet the RSS chief. That person’s name was Jawaharlal Nehru. Apoorvanand writes that this was the time for Golwalkar to come out of jail. The RSS chief was put in jail after Gandhi’s assassination. After some time, when RSS people were slowly being released from jail, the RSS chief started trying desperately to get the blessings of Nehru and Sardar Patel in any way. RSS was banned. He wanted to come out in the open in any way. But Nehru was very strict about him. He did not respond to Golwalkar’s repeated requests to meet him. All this has been told by Dhirendra Jha in his biography of Golwalkar.
Apoorvanand has written that before this refusal, Nehru had once agreed to meet Golwalkar in 1947. This meeting, which took place at Golwalkar’s request, was quite tense. Golwalkar tried to convince Nehru that India needs an organization like RSS so that it can influence the world. Nehru rebuked Golwalkar for this and said that such a force should never be demonic. Then Golwalkar argued for a long time to prove that the Sangh had no role in communal violence.
