Washington, Apr 25 (PTI) The RSS is on a mission to remove the misconceptions about it in the western world with senior leader Dattatreaya Hosabale reaching out to intellectuals and academics in the US and the UK to convey the aims and objectives of the organisation in its centenary year.
Hosabale, the RSS General Secretary, has been touring different cities across the US, addressing conferences at the Stanford University in San Francisco and Hudson Institute here and meeting a cross-section of the Indian diaspora.
“All these years, the RSS has been working silently with the belief that our work is the message. Now, we thought that it is better to reach out. Our words should also become the message,” Hosabale told PTI in an interview here.
He is accompanied by RSS Joint General Secretary Mukunda C R.
The RSS General Secretary said there have been misconceptions about the organisation, especially in Western countries, which view the Sangh as a Hindu supremacist organisation.
This mispropaganda has continued for decades. They have portrayed RSS as a Hindu supremacist organisation, as anti-minority, anti-women, all such misconceptions have been there, he said, adding that the visit to the US is an effort to remove such misgivings about the RSS.
In its centenary year, a key task before the RSS is to address the misconceptions about India and Hindu culture and set a clear narrative of what it stands for.
“The narrative about India and Hindu culture has been distorted for decades within India and outside. Such narratives have to be corrected.
“Many people who are not from the RSS background are involved in setting the proper narrative of India, of Hindu culture. Those things in the society should be spread. That’s one area where RSS wants to focus more,” he said.
Hosabale arrived in the US last week after a tour of the UK, where he interacted with academic circles, thought leaders, policy experts and a cross-section of the Indian diaspora as part of the outreach efforts.
He said his conversations with a cross-section of Americans focussed on addressing misconceptions about the RSS that he said were a result of propaganda against the 100-year-old organisation for the past several decades.
Hosabale said his message to the Indian diaspora in the US was to be good citizens, win the hearts of locals through hard work and prove that Hindus can contribute to society and provide leadership in different walks of life.
The RSS view is that Indians who have come here to build their career, academic or otherwise, should be loyal to this country, because this is where they are earning their livelihood.
Hosabale described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “best representative” of the RSS who has been spreading the message of the organisation in his own unique way.
He said the RSS has laid down five focus areas for the next 25 years that include working for social harmony and cohesion, creating self-awareness and shedding the colonial mindset, instilling civic sense, strengthening family values and pursuing sustainable development models.
“He (PM Modi) is doing these things in his own unique ways, all of them. He may not express the same words. For example, he said ‘Ek Ped Maa ke Naam’. We have said, ‘plant a tree’,” Hosabale said.
The RSS leader further said that many government programmes reflect the values espoused by the RSS and cited the Atamnirbhar Bharat’ initiative and the Five Resolves (Panch Pran) spelt out by the Prime Minister in his Independence Day address in 2022.
“So, being a Swayamsevak, he has these things naturally,” the RSS leader said. PTI SKU GRS NPK NPK
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