New Delhi: The Communist Party of China (CPC) is curious to know how the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functions, and queries related to it came up during a CPC delegation’s visit to the Sangh headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday.
It came a day after the CPC delegation visited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in the national capital.
According to Sangh sources, the Chinese delegation met RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale at Keshav Kunj. Termed as a courtesy visit by RSS sources, a senior Sangh functionary said the hour-long meeting was held at the request of the CPC.
“It was a courtesy call. (RSS chief Mohan) Bhagwat ji was not present as he was travelling. The delegation met Dattatreya Hosabale. There was no specific agenda to the meeting,” the functionary said.
In August last year, the RSS which invited representatives from a number of countries, had avoided extending an invitation to Chinese diplomats. This was for the lecture series by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as part of its centenary year celebrations, in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor. Delegations from Pakistan and Turkiye were also not invited.
The meeting of the members of China’s ruling party with the BJP took place after six years.
The International Liaison Department of the CPC serves as its primary department for organising international party-to-party interactions, and the BJP has been involved in such reciprocal meetings since the early 2000s.
In January 2011, during the tenure of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari as the BJP president, a party delegation travelled to China. Another party delegation led by Arun Singh had visited in 2019.
“A delegation of Communist Party of China under the leadership of H.E. Ms. Sun Haiyan visited the BJP head office today. A BJP delegation headed by party general secretary Arun Singh discussed at length the means to advance inter party communications between BJP and CPC. Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong also joined,” Vijay Chauthaiwale, head of the BJP’s foreign affairs cell, posted Monday evening about the meeting on ‘X’.
As for the Sangh, a similar meeting had taken place in 2009, when a delegation of BJP and RSS leaders visited Beijing. RSS leader Pradeep Joshi, in 2014, had welcomed the CPC’s stand to amend textbooks in Chinese history and morality to restore Chinese greatness.
Monday’s meeting with the BJP is the first since the Galwan conflict that took place in 2020. The strings of meetings come as a part of India and China’s larger repositioning of its ties following the agreement reached on 21 October, 2024 to disengage at the friction points across the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Ties between India and China remained frozen for over four years following the clashes at Galwan. Following the 2024 agreement, both sides agreed to introduce a number of confidence building measures. The move is also being viewed in the backdrop of the Indian government taking several steps to normalise its relationship with China.
(Edited by Tony Rai)