Al Haqeeqa
By Muslim Mirror Staff
New Delhi: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu right-wing organisation known for spreading hatred against Indian minorities particularly Muslims, has seemingly started efforts to change its anti-Muslim image.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, speaking at a book launch event on Sunday, expressed his support for unity between Hindus and Muslims. “When people speak about the need for Hindu-Muslim unity, we say we are already one, we are not separate.”
‘Anyone who says Muslims should not live in India is not Hindu,’ he added.
He further denounced growing violence against Muslims and called for action against perpetrators. ”Cow is a holy animal but the people who are lynching others are going against Hindutva. Law should take its own course against them without any partiality,” he said.
During his speech, Bhagwat said he was attending the event neither for any image makeover nor for vote bank politics.
Mr. Bhagwat asserted that the DNA of all Indians is the same and they cannot be differentiated on the basis of worship. He said that the concept of Hindu-Muslim unity is misleading because there is nothing to unite as differences don’t exist in the first place.
“There can never be any dominance of either Hindus or Muslims; there can only be the dominance of Indians,” the RSS chief said.
He decried incidents of lynching of minorities and stated that those who are indulging such violence were “against Hindutva”.
He added, however, that sometimes false cases of lynching have also been registered against people. “If a Hindu says that no Muslim should live here (in India), then that person is not a Hindu. Cow is a holy animal but the people who are lynching are going against Hindutva. Law should take its own course against them without any partiality,” he said.
He urged members of the Muslim community in India to get over any fear that Islam was in danger in India. “Don’t get trapped in the cycle of fear that Islam is in danger in India,” he said.
“It has been proven that we’re the descendants of the same ancestors from the last 40,000 years. People of India have the same DNA,” he said, adding that politics cannot unite people. “There are some things that politics cannot do, it cannot unite people. Politics cannot become a tool for uniting people, but can become a weapon to distort unity,” he said. “The basis of unity should be nationalism, glory of ancestors,” he added.
At the beginning of his speech, Mr. Bhagwat made it clear that this was not a novel outreach for him or any attempts at cultivating a vote bank. He mentioned that he had also earlier met with clerics from Dar-ul-uloom Deoband, one of the leading Sunni Islamic seminaries in the normal course of his meetings with people from different walks of life. He added that neither he nor the RSS was in politics to bother about image issues.
The event was organised by Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the Muslim wing of the RSS.
