The exceptional work of RSS in the Sino-India War was recognised and appreciated by even Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who included an RSS contingent in the Republic Day Parade. RSS has the reputation of doing selfless service to the society and is quoted for its discipline.
Shri Dina Nath Batra, national convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, served a legal notice to Orient Black Swan Pvt Ltd, the publisher of From Plassey to Partition-a history of Modern India, and also to its author Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Professor of Asian History at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand for spreading canard against the RSS. The notice was served on April 15.
The notice was served through advocate Monika Arora, sought withdrawal of the objectionable passages from the BA 3rd year History Book failing which an agitation against the book by all democratic means including public awareness at the national level would be initiated. Further, the proceedings in the Court of Law, which include both Civil and Criminal proceedings at “your cost, risk and consequences” will also be started.
The notice said canard against RSS is being propagated through the said book. Some of the passages in the book are not only objectionable, insulting, defamatory and derogatory in nature but also are false, frivolous and amount to hate propaganda against the RSS propagated among the students.
Some of the passages are: “…The Arya Samaj started a militant suddhi campaign in Punjab and UP and the Hindu Mahasabha launched its drive towards Hindu Sangathan (organization) in 1924: the Rastriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, an overtly aggressive Hindu organization, was also born in the same year. The inevitable result of such mobilization along community lines was the outbreak of a series of riots between the Hindus and Muslims in the 1920s, affecting practically all parts of India.” (Page 335)
“… If the Muslim minorities organized themselves around the rallying symbol of Pakistan and were raising disciplined paramilitary volunteer organizations as the Muslim National Guard, the Hindus did not fall behind in organizing and simultaneously stigmatizing their “threatening Others”. This can be gauged from the growing popularity of the overtly Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which focused primarily on the social and psychological construction of the Hindu nation. The number of its volunteers (swayamsevaks) rose from forty thousand in 1938 to seventy-six thousand in 1943 to six hundred thousand by the beginning of 1948. More interesting is the regional distribution of this disciplined and well-drilled volunteer corp. The RSS was most strong in Bihar, the Bombay region, the Central Provinces, Greater Punjab (including Delhi and Himachal Pradesh) and U.P. Here the RSS appealed to the students and youth, who were attracted to paramilitary training, were distrustful of Gandhian methods, and nurtured deep anti-Muslim feelings. And the organization was generously patronized by the Hindu Mahasabha leaders, the Arya Samajis and the maharajas of certain princely states where Muslim minorities had of late become articulate and militant.” (Page 452). There are many more objectionable and insulting references about RSS on page nos 422, 428, 452-53, 460 and 463.
“The said objectionable passages defame the biggest socio-cultural organisation of the world by calling it an overtly aggressive Hindu organisation whose activities led to riots. The RSS aims at nation building through character building and hence instills patriotism, nationalism, sense of pride for the motherland and instills the belief of the Nation first. The RSS aims at serving the people of the country irrespective of their religion as has been evident in the event of various national calamities and disasters including earthquakes, floods, Tsunami, at the sight of railway accidents, the disaster in Uttarakhand last year, etc. The exceptional work of RSS in the Indo-China war was recognised and appreciated by even Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who included an RSS contingent in the Republic Day Parade.
RSS has the reputation of selfless service to the society and is quoted for its discipline. As a worker of RSS for the last more than 70 years, since the inception of the RSS in 1925, my client Shri Dina Nath Batra feels hurt by this false, defamatory and malicious campaign aimed at defaming this nationalist and patriotic organisation,” the notice said.
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