JOIN USThe VHP has put the NDA government in a tight spot ahead of Parliament’s monsoon session next week with its patron Ashok Singhal on Saturday declaring that India will be a Hindu nation by 2020, following the BJP’s victory in the 2014 polls.
Singh described the 2014 general elections as a “revolution” in the country. “I was at the Sai Baba Ashram where Sai Baba told me by 2020 the entire country will be Hindu by 2030 the entire world will be Hindu. I feel that revolution has started,” he said at a function to mark the release of a book on the life and work of former RSS chief K S Sudarshan, who died in 2012.
The VHP leader said the BJP’s electoral win ended 800 years of “slavery” and “this is not a modest revolution. It will not remain confined to India but present a new ideology before the world”. “Sudarshan ji was not only a saint but a visionary who had predicted that a revolutionary change in the country will begin in 2012 and ultimately that happened in 2014,” he said, alluding to the BJP-led alliance’s victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who took part in the function, spoke about the role of Sudarshan who, she said, had genuine concern for the development of the country and advocated the “swadeshi” model of development.
Singhal’s remarks came after a break in controversial statements by the Sangh hotheads, who were asked by the RSS leadership to fall silent.
Modi and the BJP chief had complained that rows created by them were aiding the opposition to divert attention from the work of the NDA government, which was keen to revive the economy and bring much needed investment in infrastructure and other sectors.
Modi, who avoided the controversies initially, was later forced by the opposition to break his silence in February over religious freedom. Since then, he has spoken a number of times on protecting the rights of minority communities, with the latest one being in June, when he told Muslim leaders that he doesn’t believe in politics that divides people on communal lines.
On July 8, Modi at the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan praised India’s Islamic heritage, in a tone that was in direct contrast with the Sangh Parivar. The PM used the example to highlight the fight against terror, pointing out how true Islam has “always rejected the forces of extremism”.
Meanwhile, RSS mouthpiece “Organiser” flayed holding of Iftar parties by political parties, saying they amounted to “secular tokenism” and go against the ritual’s spirit which requires common meals to be fed to poor rather than to “well-fed” political guests.
The editorial titled “The ‘Secular’ Tokenism” said such rituals were “ridiculous” and the “tokenism” involved “encouraged minorityism” and “undermined the Indian ethos” by harping on identity politics.
For the second straight year, Modi did not attend the “Iftar” hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. But senior BJP ministers — Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley — turned up.