'Belittled the Independence Day by...': Pinarayi Vijayan slams PM Modi for ‘glorifying’ RSS

Pinarayi Vijayan

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the 100 years of RSS as a “very proud and glorious” journey of the “world’s biggest NGO”, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has decried PM's “name-checking and adulation” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) during the latter’s address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day.

In a strongly worded statement on Saturday, Vijayan said PM Modi had “belittled the Independence Day by attempting to gift the legacy of the freedom movement to the RSS, which was outlawed in the aftermath of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.”

“The attempt to portray the RSS, which was banned following Gandhi’s assassination and V D Savarkar, who stood trial in the murder conspiracy, as major contributors of Indian independence is a blatant distortion of history. Choosing Independence Day to glorify those who served the British amounts to insulting our freedom struggle,” said the chief minister.

Pinarayi Vijayan said no such shameful act can whitewash the RSS, which he described as a communal organisation with a divisive past. He called the Prime Minister’s act of praising the RSS on a day that symbolises national unity “show of contempt for the very day”.

Calling the RSS an organisation burdened with hatred, violence, and communalism, Pinarayi Vijayan said its ideology has no moral claim over the legacy of India’s freedom struggle. “The memory of Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, and other martyrs cannot be equated with such people,” he said.

Terming the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of his party, as possibly the “world’s biggest NGO,” PM Modi lauded the organisation for its work in civil society, naming it a golden chapter in India’s history as it hits its centenary this year.

“Today I want to mention one thing with great pride that 100 years ago an organisation was born — the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Its 100 years of national service has been a very proud and glorious page,” he said, for the first time, referring to the RSS in his Independence Day address.

The message is being seen as significant not just because it is the 100th anniversary of the RSS and that PM Modi has been a full-time pracharak in the past, but also the 14-month wait for the ideological parent RSS and its offspring, the BJP, to decide on a national president for the party.