Tens of thousands of Hindu hardliners, dressed in khaki shorts, white shirts and black hats, gathered for an elaborate rally in western India yesterday in a massive show of strength.
It was set to be one of the largest ever gatherings of the controversial Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a group seen as the ideological parent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
More than 150,000 activists, almost all men, had registered for the rally at which RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was due to deliver a speech from a stage designed to resemble a fort.
Photo: AFP
A marching band composed of 2,000 RSS volunteers was also scheduled to play. A giant saffron flag, the color most associated with Hinduism, was to be hoisted on a post over 20m high at the 182 hectare rally site in Pune, Maharashtra state.
Analysts said the RSS influence has never been greater following the election in May 2014 of Modi, a former RSS foot-soldier. Attendees, who arrived in their hordes throughout the morning, were in a bullish mood.
“People in the RSS look up to Modi as an example of what we can become. He gives our organization a great image,” Vinayak Deshpande, 32, said.
Another volunteer, who asked not to be named, said the RSS had witnessed a 20 percent increase in activists since Modi became prime minister.
“With Modi as prime minister the RSS is on the right track,” he said.
The RSS, formed in 1925, is India’s largest grassroots religious organization and is believed to have about 5 million activists, known as “Swayamsevaks.”
It styles itself as a cultural organization devoted to protecting India’s Hindu culture, but critics accuse it of being an anti-Muslim pseudo-fascist organization with a history of fueling religious tensions.
The RSS is notoriously secretive — volunteers do not formally register as members and communications are often done verbally. Yesterday’s event was rare for its size and for its open invitation to the media.
Pravin Dabadghav, a senior RSS official in Maharashtra who helped organize the gathering, said it was set to be the largest ever meeting of RSS volunteers in western and southern India. The previous high was in 2010 when 90,000 attended a gathering in Kerala.
The RSS has been banned three times in post-independence India, including after a former member assassinated former Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 and following the 1992 demolition of a mosque in Ayodhya which led to deadly nationwide riots.
It favors a uniform civil code for India rather than personal laws for different religions, the protection of cows — which are sacred to Hindus — and the construction of a temple on the disputed Ayodhya site.
Modi helped the group out as a boy and became a full-time volunteer as a young adult, taking the requisite vow of celibacy, for more than 15 years before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including