Hailing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar as a “great son of Mother India”, former president Pranab Mukherjee told the cadres of the controversial outfit to preserve the country’s pluralism and stressed that any attempt at defining nationhood in terms of dogmas and identities of religion, region, hatred and intolerance will only lead to dilution of Indian identity.

Wading through a barrage of criticism from the Congress leaders, including his own daughter Sharmishtha, Mukherjee attended the concluding ceremony of RSS’ Tritiya Varsh Training programme in Nagpur finding himself in the eye of a political thunderstorm. His widely televised evening at the RSS headquarter, first ever by a Congressman, began with a visit to Hedgewar museum where the former president’s entry into the logbook described the founding Sarsanghachalak (the first head) as the great son of Mother India — an unimaginable compliment for a leader of the saffron institution by someone who spent a lifetime on the other end of ideological pool.

Speaking before Mukherjee, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat emphasised that the RSS believes in unity in diversity. “Mukherjee will remain what he is and the Sangh will remain the Sangh even after the event. There should be, and could be a lot of differences in opinions and ways. There are times when we have differences. But we are all sons of the same soil. We are all the same even in this diversity,” he said on the controversy over Mukherjee attending the RSS function as chief guest. “Everybody has the right to have a political opinion but there is a limit to have opposing opinin. We should realise that we are working for the betterment of the same country. No matter what our language, ideology, religion, RSS believes in welfare of the society,” said the RSS chief.

The former president, who said that he was at the RSS headquarter to share his understanding of Bharat, evoked Rabindra Nath Tagore’s poem Bharat Teertha saying “…no one known at whose beckoning call how many streams, of humanity came in indomitable waves from all over the world, over the millennia and mingled like rivers, into the vast ocean and created an individual soul, that is called Bharat”.

Mukherjee quoted various Congress leaders from Surendra Nath Banerjee to Bal Gangadhar Tilak to stress the plurality in which the soul of India  resides. “This plurality of our society has come through assimilation of ideas over centuries. Secularism and inclusion are a matter of faith for us. It is our composite culture which makes us into one nation,” he said. “India’s nationhood is not one language, one religion, one enemy. It is the ‘Perenial Universalim’ of 1.3 billion people who use more than 122 languages and 1,600 dialects in their everyday lives, practice 7 major religions, belong to 3 major ethnic groups – Aryans, Mongoloids, and Dravidians live under one system, one flag and one identity of being ‘Bharatiya’ and have ‘No Enemies’. That is what makes Bharat a diverse and united nation.”

He said that while the country has progressed, it remains low on happinex index standing at 133 in a list of 156 countries.  Quoting a shloka from Kautaliya’s Arthshastra, inscribed  near lift no. 6 in the Parliament house, Mukherjee said: “In the happiness of the people lies the happiness of the king, their welfare is his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever causes happiness to all people.” The former president explained that Kautilya points out that the State is for the people. People are at the centre of all activities of the state and nothing should be done to divide the people and create animosity among them.