Sangh for betterment of Hindus: Bhagwat

Says aim not to oppose other communities

 In what seemed like a break from the usual militant stance, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said in Kolkata on Saturday that the organisation’s job is to preserve the Hindu way of life and not oppose other communities.

Bhagwat urged his comrades to invest some time and money every day for the betterment of the Hindu society.

“Are Hindus safe in India? Can they worship their deities as they want?”‎said Bhagwat, addressing the organisation’s first-ever rally at the Brigade Parade grounds, barely a kilometre from downtown Kolkata and the central business district.

“It’s not a wonder that Hindus are not in good shape across the world. When they are not living in glory even in their motherland, how can we talk about how they survive elsewhere?” he said.

A unified stand

Invoking RSS founder K B Hedgewar, Bhagwat said, “He asked us through his writings not to blame the Mughals and the British rulers for our problems. We need to be unified and we should work towards the betterment of Hindus so that nobody dares to look down upon us. People respect the powerful.”

“Swami Vivekananda asked us not to be weak because weakness is death,” he added.
Reiterating the need to uplift the cause of Hindus instead of focusing on other communities, Bhagwat said, “The RSS’  mission is to empower Hindus, not to react to others. Even if there were no Muslims or Christians in India and Hindus were still living in the same state as they are now, our goal would have remained the same.”

The RSS chief said that “even the Supreme Court has acknowledged that Hindutva is more than a religion, and that it is a way of life”, and urged his Sangh comrades to “give one-third of a day and one-third of their daily income for the betterment of the Hindu society”.

Referring to the hurdles faced by the RSS in organising the rally, as the Mamata Banerjee-administration had refused to grant permission, Bhagwat said, “It’s an age-old thing for politicians to disrupt the activities of thinkers, but they have never let their mission get affected.”

The rally was organised with permission from the Calcutta High Court, which specified that only 4,000 invitees would be allowed to participate.