'...Sixty-eight years on, the ease with which the RSS has gone about sanitising its past must put India to shame. The Right Wing organisation now denies any complicity in the killing of Gandhi. Its grudging admission that Godse had been a longstanding member of the RSS is accompanied by the dubious claim that he quit the organisation long before he pulled the trigger on Gandhi. As "evidence" of its innocence, it cites the findings of an independent commission of inquiry instituted in 1966 to investigate the circumstances of Gandhi's assassination.
'It is hard to say what left a bigger scar on the Dalit residents of Rajendra Nagar locality in Sonepat recently: a violent attack on them by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh men that injured over a dozen people, or the compromise they were driven to sign promising not to seek any legal remedy against their assailants. Though the episode occurred not far from Delhi’s border with Haryana, it has failed to attract national media attention.
'A US panel tracking international religious freedom has, in its latest report on India, noted that religious minorities in the country were exposed to "derogatory" comments by leaders of the ruling BJP as well as "violent attacks and forced conversions by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)" since the Narendra Modi government took over last year.
'With the Narendra Modi-led BJP government completeing a year at the Centre, one organisation which has benefitted the most in this period is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). As the BJP recently became the world's largest political organisation with 10 crore membership, the Sangh's base has also swelled at 10-15% rate over the past four years. The saffron institution has opened 6,000 more shakhas (branches) from April 2014 to March 2015. It now has 51,330 shakhas operating in 33,222 places across the country, states the annual report of the saffron organisation for 2014-15.
"A night before May 22, 1987, when 42 young Muslim men from Hashimpura, a mohalla less than two kilometres away from Meerut city, were murdered in cold blood by men in uniform, another death was registered in the nearby Civil Lines police station. The death was due to a bullet injury, the shots allegedly fired by someone from Hashimpura. Prabhat Kaushik, 23, an RSS worker, died around 9.30 pm standing on the roof of the house of his aunt Shakuntala Kaushik, a feisty BJP leader of her time.
"At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen on avoiding any controversy on religious issues, six advocates with RSS leanings moved the Agra city civil court on Wednesday seeking a declaration that the Taj Mahal is actually a Shiva temple! The plaintiffs, Hari Shankar Jain and five others, named Lord Agreshwar Mahadev as the main plaintiff to claim ownership of the property, now under the control and maintenance of the Archaeological Survey of India.
"The din over the ‘ghar wapsi’ reconversion campaign in the north and west may have dropped many decibels after Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined “the undeniable right” of an individual’s choice of religion. But in the east, the RSS and its affiliates are experimenting with another conversion programme — where, instead of hounding a Hindu-Muslim couple, they are actively facilitating their union. The only condition: the bride, in this case, is a Muslim who becomes a Hindu after a “suddhikaran” (purification) programme.
'As the government sets the ball rolling to create a New National Education Policy (NEP) after almost three decades, the right wing hindu organisations have started the consultation process for formulating their own suggestions for the HRD ministry. A national language university for professional courses like medical and engineering, introducing history of mathematics in mathematics, giving more weightage to studying India history and doing away with English as a compulsory language at school.
"The Centre cut short by seven months veteran Malayalam writer A Sethumadhavan's term as National Book Trust chairman and appointed a former editor of RSS' mouthpiece in his place. A senior official of NBT said Baldev Sharma, the former editor of Panchajanya, has been appointed as the new chairman. Sethumadhavan, popularly known as Sethu, was to retire in September but his tenure was cut short after the writer was called by the Union HRD ministry last month and asked to step down, sources said. "My tenure was supposed to end on September 12. I would say it is a hint...
'BJP-ruled Gujarat may follow Chhattisgarh in al lowing government employees to join the RSS. A senior official of the state general administration department (GAD) told TOI that the state government is considering delisting the RSS from its "negative list of organisations" which government employees cannot join. Senior cabinet minister Nitin Patel did not deny the move but said the matter has not yet been discussed formally as the state assembly session is in session. "We will decide after examining the Chhattisgarh government's order," Patel said...'
