Dear Mr. Gandhi,
Greetings from a common citizen of this country. I heard your inspiring speech at the NSUI event on May 28 in Delhi. The speech, perhaps meant to enthuse the young men and women who had come to hear you, however left me a bit confused about what you really wanted to say. Were you asking these young impressionable students to spread disorder? Or were you accepting your inability to understand your own party? Or perhaps it was an attempt to explain the Congress party and its string of failures over the past six decades.
If I recall correctly, you urged the NSUI to spread disorder in the face of the “order” of the RSS and its shakhas. You said, “Wherever they try to establish their order, show them our (Congress) disorder.” I’m sure you didn’t mean it the way it sounded. For NSUI’s “disorder” seems to have angered your grandmother, Indira Gandhi considerably in 1984 in Nagpur. I’m sure you weren’t referring to the disorder created by the NSUI delegates who threw the food prepared for 30,000 delegates on to the ground in anger after waiting four hours. The student delegates were waiting for your father, Rajiv Gandhi to come to the venue, in case you didn’t know. The food and plates was used as torpedoes to attack each other. When you, in your speech, went on to say that the RSS uses discipline as an excuse to kill individuality, I’m sure you weren’t referring to the abject lack of discipline in the NSUI, and Congress workers, which forced your grandmother to lambast the ruckus created by NSUI’s disorder at the 1984 Nagpur Meet. She spoke at length on the virtues of discipline and order, saying the absence of either makes it impossible to make sacrifices for the country.
NSUI, or the student wing of the Congress Party was established in 1971 with a objective and resolved to draw its strength from the character, values and conduct of its members. The behavioural norms have been classified as Mandatory and Desirable. But it raises a cause of concern, when the crown prince of the party is preaching ‘disorder’ to the student wing outfit which will be feeding Congress Party with many youth leaders.
NSUI, since inception was allegedly involved in many cases of disorder. Being it the Gujarat technological university case where NSUI volunteers destroyed the campus property and went on to attack and injured the vice chancellor. Or the Kashmir university case, where your proud workers politicised and polluted the atmosphere of the university, they even locked down the cafeteria once. Mr. Gandhi, your volunteers from NSUI have tried once to destroy the order of RSS by pelting stones on Sangh office in Indore, but you did not get anything out of it except the outrage common people.
However, your comment that it took you ten years to understand your party, and the way it functions rang true. I can understand the pain you must have felt in making this admission. Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that if in ten years you’ve understood the way Congress functions, perhaps in another few decades you will understand the country as well. For understanding RSS, you have no option but to attend a shakha.
You also spoke about how disorder was in the very “DNA” of the Congress. Perhaps that explains why you preferred to go to another country, for “introspection”, instead of attending the Parliament at a time when the country was going through an agricultural crisis. That was more pertinent, after one of the worst defeats of the Congress that left you with only 44 seats. Those 56 days certainly seem to have worked wonders for you. Not only have you returned rejuvenated, you have come back with a better understanding of the Congress and its DNA of disorder. The DNA of disorder is certainly easy to recognise – from the rampant killing of 2,800 Sikhs in 1984 by Congress supporters in retaliation for the assassination of your grandmother, Indira Gandhi, to the rampant loot of the country through various scams like Bofors, 2G, Coal etc over the last 60 years.
Was it this DNA of disorder that prompted Indira Gandhi to impose Emergency on the country? Was it the Congress’ dislike of order that made her take away the Fundamental Rights of the citizens of this country? The DNA of disorder was underlined by your father, Rajiv Gandhi, once again when your grandmother died and your party men went on a killing spree of Sikhs. That may explain his comment, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.” The death of Mrs Gandhi could only be avenged with death of thousands of Sikhs, it seems.
Your speech threw up another gem. You said that PM Modi took a pathshala from your PM, Manmohan Singh on economics. I’m sure Mr Modi is not that proud that he wouldn’t mind a lesson on economics from a renowned economist like Mr Singh. My only question is, if Mr Singh is such an efficient economist, then why has the economy of the country gone downhill in the past ten years?
Perhaps my questions seem too many. Let me teach you something about the RSS instead. You spoke about not understanding the hand salutation of the RSS, comparing it to the German salute. Actually, the hand salutation is very simple – even you will understand it.
RSS treats the saffron flag or the Bhagwa dhwaj, as its Guru. The flag as the eternal Guru denotes the sacrifice, knowledge, fire and of course symbol of victory in our cultural tradition. Putting the hand on the chest means the hand of help is being extended to those who are downtrodden and needy while at the same time, it expresses respect to the dhwaj as well as elders by bowing heads. Shakhas teach the swayamsevak to be selfless and value discipline and order, as without either, you can’t serve your nation. Yes, exactly like your grandmother said.
It’s this order in the DNA of the RSS that your great grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, depended on during the Indo-Sino War of 1962. Nehru was forced to call on Guru Golwalkar to send his RSS volunteers to manage Delhi’s traffic during the war. He honoured them by asking the RSS contingent to participate in the Republic Day Parade of 1963. It was this DNA of order that made the RSS play a crucial role in the war of 1947,62,65,71 or the liberation of Goa.
Rahulji, before you encourage the youth of the country, and especially your student wing as well as your party workers, to indulge in disorder, you should take a moment to hear what you are saying. The youth is the future of this country. They are like soft clay which can be moulded in any shape. Instead of teaching them a lesson of indiscipline and disorder, ask them to work for the country. That requires discipline and order. Students should be motivated to think and analyse for the betterment of the society, they should be enriched with the discipline and values, not the disorder character. Swami Vivekananda once said “We are what our thoughts have made us;
so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.” Yours,
Priyang Pandey
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