NEW DELHI: BJP on Wednesday lauded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as the “world’s biggest school of patriotism” as it slammed Rahul Gandhi for likening the Hindutva fountainhead to radical Islamist outfits in Pakistan.
Information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar told a press conference that it would take the Congress leader a long time to understand the RSS, the ideological wellspring of BJP and allied organisations. “The RSS’s role is to effect good changes in people and inspire patriotism in them,” he told reporters when asked about Rahul’s comments.
Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said accepting that the Emergency was a mistake was another theatrical exercise by Rahul to fool the nation. “Such insincere and tactical regrets cannot wash away the memories of the dark chapter when fundamental rights were infringed, press was gagged, institutions were held hostage,” he said. “The country has not forgotten how the government of the day had the gumption to tell the Supreme Court that the right to life had been suspended,” he added.
Javadekar said Rahul’s comment did not reflect remorse, it was actually part of a pattern where Congress, after being rejected by people, expresses regret for the Emergency only to deploy the same authoritarian DNA after it succeeds in hoodwinking people.
In a conversation with Kaushik Basu, professor at Cornell University a former chief economic advisor, Rahul had said on Tuesday that the RSS used schools run by it to push a particular worldview like the radical Islamists in Pakistan did in madrassas.
The Congress leader also termed the Emergency imposed by former PM Indira Gandhi a “mistake”. Hitting back at Rahul, Javadekar said his statement was “laughable” as his party had then ended the independence of institutions, denied media freedom and jailed dissenting voices.