Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Golwalkar and BJP

Sir, — This is with reference to the news analysis titled `Golwalkar and the BJP' by Neena Vyas (May 10). It was the CPI (M) leader, Sitaram Yechuri, who, in 1992, dug out Golwalkar's `We or Our Nationhood Defined' and projected it as the most authentic piece on RSS ideology.

Since then it has become a refrain with every Marxist penpusher to quote the `we' out of context simply to malign the RSS and the BJP. These so-called intellectuals have never cared to mention that Golwalkar wrote this book in 1939 when he was a new entrant to the RSS. It was not his original work but only a free English rendering of a book titled `Rashtra meemansa', written by G.D. Savarkar in Marathi. Golwalkar had distanced himself from the views expressed in the book and it has not been published since 1947.

The whole story was penned down by me in the Hindi weekly `Panchajanya' of February 17, 1980, much before the CPI (M) had discovered the `we'. But for Marxists any stick is good enough to beat their adversaries with. Why don't they realise that like Marx and Gandhi, Golwalkar's thinking process was also dynamic and progressive?

Devendra Swarup,

New Delhi

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