The Hindu : RSS statement draws flak

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 20, 2002

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National

RSS statement draws flak

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 19. The Bangalore resolution of the RSS stating that ``the safety of Muslims lies in the goodwill of the majority'' has evoked widespread criticism and a demand that the Government condemn it to rein in the Sangh leadership.

In a statement issued here today, the secretary- general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), Percival Fernandez, said: ``In an already charged atmosphere of recent communal violence in the country, particularly in Gujarat, the RSS call to the Muslim community to realise that their safety lays in earning the goodwill of the majority, goes against the pluralistic traditions of India and must be condemned by all''.

Also, according to the CBCI, the Prime Minister and the NDA allies must ``condemn these statements'' and rein in the RSS. Of the view that even in normal times such a statement would be ``diametrically opposed to the secular ethos enshrined in the Constitution'', the Archbishop of Delhi, Vincent M. Concessao, asserted that ``being born in this country, I can claim with conviction that majority of the Hindus do no subscribe to this stand of the RSS''.

Describing the RSS statement as ``grossly provocative

and anti-national'', the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Rajindar Sachar, said: ``India belongs as much to Muslims as to Hindus... The RSS' action in provoking communal hatred is condemnable. The Government should take legal action against RSS and its leaders. Parliament should pass a resolution condemning this statement of RSS.''

In the opinion of the All-India Christian Council, the RSS resolution must be cause for ``grave concern not only among Muslims and other minorities in India, but to civil society and democratic and constitutional institutions including the President, Parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Government headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee''.

Echoing Mr. Justice Sachar's view that the resolution ought to be condemned, the Christian Council has noted that ``brute majoritarianism has never been the standard of India or the ethos of its people''.

The ``warning'' to Muslims, in the opinion of the Christian Council, would ``open up standards of political behaviour and action which will cut at the roots of the unity of India by injuring the basic principles of its democratic polity, and will perpetuate a regime of hate and violence which has already cost so much in human lives lost in communal violence''.

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