'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's highest decision-making body Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) will meet in Bengaluru on March 19 and 20 to review the functioning of the Sangh, discuss expanding its work in the country and to elect its Sarkaryavah (general secretary).
'Bhagwat, aware of the advantages of keeping the BJP in power, is wary about the RSS taking steps that would undermine the popular standing of either the PM or the party.'
"There is no place for Hindus in the world except India," sources said quoting Bhagawat.
In the last 9 years, the BJP govt has marked some anniversaries and events with more zeal than Congress-led governments.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Bhagwat told an event in Delhi on Sunday that there should be conversation in harmonious atmosphere between those in favour of reservation and those against it.
Indications that Gandhi could be invited came on a day the RSS criticised him for drawing parallels between the Sangh and Islamic radical outfit Muslim Brotherhood.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on Mohan Bhagwat's views.
'What does Bhagwat think his militia will do once it is at the border?' 'What does Bhagwat imagine his Sangh followers will do that will protect Mother India?' asks Aakar Patel.
In shocking revelations, Swami Aseemanand claims though RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was not directly involved with the terror strikes, he was aware that such attacks were being planned. Vicky Nanjappa finds out more
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has asserted that efforts to create a rift between people from different religions should be treated as a "national crime", and welcomed the government's outreach to Pasmanda Muslims.
Anybody living in India is a Hindu, Bhagwat said.
A photograph of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat sitting with Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has set tongues wagging in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, with the Congress taunting that the S in SP means the Sangh.
Since 2014, many of Mohan Bhagwat's speeches have acted as cues for government policy.
Bhardwaj has also written the script of the documentary.
He was reacting to the statements of senior local RSS leaders Ratnakar Lele, Datta Bhikaji Naik and others who called his decision to form a 'Goa Prant' of RSS, separate from the Konkan Prant, as 'unfortunate'.
20 times increase in people joining RSS on rss.org, Marginal increase in number of branches. Archis Mohan reports
'For the last 10 years the Congress made the RSS an idea of intolerance, anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim, and an idea of fascism.' 'That has been demolished now by Pranab Mukherjee.'
The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's Muslim wing, has backed the burqa-clad student who was heckled by youth shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans at a Karnataka college, saying 'purdah' is a part of Indian culture.
Many important RSS people believe the 2014 result was the consequence of Hindutva and not just Modi's outstanding oratory, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh perceives the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections to be a fight for its own existence and all that it stands for. Archis Mohan reports
Sukerkar was among the leaders who had resigned from their posts after the RSS axed Velignkar as state unit chief, after his BBSM.
"Across the world Indian society is known as Hindu. All Bharatiya (Indians) are Hindus and we all are one entity," he said.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend...
The New York-based Sikhs For Justice has sought a court order directing US Secretary of State John Kerry to designate the RSS a 'Foreign Terrorist Organisation,' which Preet Bharara says the US government intends to move to dismiss.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
Public intellectuals who frame the ideological antipathy between the RSS & Co and Jawaharlal Nehru in the light of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and Hindu Raj alone, miss the point by a yard, argues Shaan Kashyap.
Terming as wrong perception that Sangh is ideological founthead of BJP, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said the essence of its activities is to build a strong India with Hindutva at its core.
Even Subramanian Swamy, who says he is an ardent supporter of the prime minister, has been taking proxy pot shots at him.' 'At the ground level too, there is resentment from workers and local leaders who have perhaps not got whatever they may have wanted,' notes T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Putting Yogi Adityanath in the CM's seat two years before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is something to be read carefully.' 'Opposition parties would be dishonest themselves and unfair to secular people if they failed to unite and work as a single force to defeat the BJP.'
The real brilliance of this RSS campaign, therefore, lies in building a dominant power base with, and for, a mostly non-RSS leadership. That is why the rise of the BJP in Assam is their stand-out victory, says Shekhar Gupta.
The educated, respectable and established Muslims voices, that were on the modernising side on the Shah Bano issue, are fighting on the opposite side now, mostly because they worry about Narendra Modi, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Tthe Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind said it opposes the UCC as it is "totally against the religious freedom and fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizens in Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution."
'We want Muslims to go about their work and business unhindered.' 'They should not get victimised and that will only come through the process of reconciliation.'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'While they claim to cherish Bapu's ideals, they cherish Godse as fervently.'
Former RSS chief Kuppalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan was a Hindutva hardliner who never shied away from a controversy or two even if it meant crossing swords with the BJP.
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