India has always been a Hindu nation, RSS not creating one: Dattatreya Hosabale

New Delhi: The RSS is not creating a Hindu nation because India has always been a Hindu nation, its top functionary Dattatreya Hosabale has said while asserting that non-Hindus are no different as all have the same ancestry and DNA.

"There was British Raj here, right? It was British Raj... Then also, this was a Hindu nation. It was not British nation," the RSS general secretary told PTI in an exclusive interview.

He said there are multiple religious groups in the country, who are often described as minorities, and none of them are second-class citizens.

"Even within the RSS, there are a number of people who are from these religious groups and who are Sangh Swayamsevaks. They are not showpieces for us," he said.

He was asked how he would assure the minorities that they are safe in India when the RSS talks about Hindutva or the Hindu nation.

Hosabale said these questions have been asked umpteen times since the founding of the RSS 100 years ago.

"When people say there is a fear, I ask what has happened? Has the Muslim number come down? "Whether they had to flee? Whether they are treated as second-class citizens," he said.

He mentioned BJP-ruled states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to buttress his point.

Hosabale asked whether the government schemes were not reaching people of other religions.

Muslim and opposition leaders, however, say the minorities are increasingly feeling deceived since the RSS-backed BJP came to power in 2014, citing cases of mob lynching over alleged beef trading and religious conversion, accusations of 'love jihad' and day-to-day discriminations.

Hosabale said fear is being unnecessarily created among the minority communities by repeatedly raising these questions.

He said, "When the nationality is one and our ancestors are one, we don't consider them as different. How can the people who think that the world is one family differentiate from another religion? Not at all. That too, just because somebody is practising another religion."

"...the persons following that religion should not come in the way of other people who are following a different faith," he added.

Hosabale further said the RSS engages in continuous dialogue with the leaders of the minority communities.

"In the RSS, we say this very concept of religious minority in India does not have a sound basis. When we say we are all one, same people, same ancestry, same DNA, the question of minority doesn't arise.

"Just because you have changed the mode of worship, the change of religion has not changed your nationality. That's what we believe," he said.

The RSS leader said the concept of nation-state should be comprehensively debated and understood amongst the academics and the intellectual world of India.