Former President and Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday spoke of plurality and diversity in India at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Tritiya Varsh Training programme at the Sangh headquarters in Nagpur. He spoke of the idea of India, on nation, nationalism, patriotism, and how mesmerised he was by this plurality. He spoke of how India had assimilated the various cultures over the years. Mukherjee quoted Tagore, Nehru, and appealed for harmony amidst increasing violence and mistrust and said everyone should be able to participate in the democratic process, especially the marginalised. He highlighted the importance of the Constitution.
Earlier, Mukherjee mentioned RSS founder K.B. Hegdewar as a “great son of India”.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat too spoke about how the democratic mind in India meant to unite all, though he spoke of the concept of India more in terms of a territorial area that welcomed diversity.
The Congress had gone into a tizzy prior to the RSS event, and apparently requests made by the party could not dissuade Mukherjee from attending the event. While Bhagwat said that controversy over this invitation was useless, the RSS gained huge mileage from the telecast of the show live on every news channel, people glued to their television sets listening intently to Mukherjee and Bhagwat’s speech. If there was anyone to gain from Mukherjee attending the RSS event, it was the RSS of course – as their Tritiya Varsh Training programme was being seen as a major event in the country today.
The Congress breathed easy after Mukherjee’s speech, with Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala saying at a press conference that the former President had reminded the Modi government about the responsibility of placing the people ahead of the ruler.
This change in the Congress’ position was evident especially because prior to the event the Congress had gone jittery when they realised Mukherjee was not going to give it a miss. Apparently, some senior Congress leaders who had appealed to Mukherjee to skip the event were under the impression that he may have had a rethink.
But when he landed in Nagpur, there were a series of tweets from the Congress.
The official twitter handle of the party posted a video titled, “RSS for Dummies”, which mentioned among other things how RSS founder K.B. Hegdewar had ordered the Sangh not to participate in Satyagraha.
The Congress also tweeted, “It is imperative for all Indians to know what the RSS has historically stood for and to understand what it thinks today. People of India should never forget how antithetical their ideologies are to the idea of India.” And another tweet: “In Short & Shorts, the RSS is anti-development & fought against freedom when we fought for it.”
Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel had tweeted: “I did not expect this from Pranab da!”
Even Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha tweeted last night, “Even RSS wouldn’t believe that u r going 2 endorse its views in ur speech.” She added that the speech would be forgotten, visuals will remain and circulated with fake statements.
