Around 1,300 people from all walks of life, including politicians, judges, diplomats and social workers, are likely to attend the RSS’s three-day lecture series beginning Tuesday in Delhi, where Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat will articulate his views on the organisation’s 100-year journey and the road ahead.
Sources said the event was an attempt by the RSS to reach out to “eminent personalities” of the country and familiarise them with the Sangh. In the run-up to the event, the RSS had categorised invitees into 17 categories and 138 sub-categories, ranging from social and religious to economy and security.
“We are inviting people from all sections of the society, communities and ideologies apart from various sectors of the economy and from all political parties. Many have agreed to come and we hope that through this interaction, a lot of clarity on the Sangh, its ideas and work will reach society,” RSS publicity in-charge Sunil Ambekar said.
A similar conference was organised in 2018 where Bhagwat had spelt out the RSS’s thoughts.
Ministers, ex-judges and former army chiefs on guest list
According to RSS insiders, Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia and MoS (Petroleum and Natural Gas) Suresh Gopi are also likely to attend the event.
Among the other invitees are retired judges, including former Chief Justices of India Ranjan Gogoi and J S Khehar and several former ambassadors such as Kanwal Sibal and Navtej Sarna apart from former bureaucrats. Former army chiefs M M Narawane, Deepak Kapoor and J J Singh also feature on the Sangh’s guest list.
From the field of Arts, notable names like Dhrupad artists Dagar Brothers, actor Manoj Joshi and sculptor Ram Sutar may attend the event while eminent sportspersons like Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and cricketer Kapil Dev have also been invited.
Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Dr Naresh Trehan and environmentalist Sunita Narain are some other eminent personalities who are expected to attend the event.
Social workers and diplomats of USA, China also invited
The Sangh has also invited ambassadors of various countries, including the neighbourhood. According to Ambekar, diplomats from the USA, China, Kuwait, Kazhakhstan, Nepal, Bhutan, Argentina and Australia among others are expected to attend the event.
“Social workers from all communities have been invited. A separate programme will be held for religious leaders. The first two days of the event will see lectures by the Sarsanghchalak (Bhagwat) while he will give answers to written questions submitted by the invitees on the third day,” Ambekar said.
Commemorating 100 Years
While the 2018 conference was organised in Delhi alone, this time similar conferences will be organised in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Mumbai till February. The initiative is part of Sangh’s larger outreach program to commemorate its centenary year.
Addressing a press conference earlier, Ambekar had said more than 1,000 seminars and discussions, involving senior RSS functionaries, would be held across the country over the course of a year to commemorate 100 years of the RSS.
There will also be discussions on RSS’s views on the “five transformations” (panch parivartan) and the expected participation of society in these efforts.
“The focus would be on how India, progressing rapidly on the path of development, can fulfill its rising hopes and aspirations, with contributions from RSS volunteers. It will be emphasised that if India is to move toward new horizons, it must do so based on its own values and inner strength. There will be a critical look at colonial standards of development that originated during the period of subjugation, and discussions on how to bring forth the vast untapped potential of Indian society,” Ambekar said.
Topics of national and societal importance in the present context, as well as India’s global role, would also be addressed.
The 2018 lecture series
In 2018, Bhagwat’s lecture series, titled, ‘Bharat of Future’, had clarified the RSS’s stand on a range of issues including homosexuality, cow vigilantes, reservations, inter-caste marriages and population policy among other issues.
The lectures were part of an outreach to clarify the Sangh’s positions, counter criticism, and emphasise that RSS’s vision of Hindutva is “all-encompassing” and not anti-minority or sectarian.
Bhagwat ended by calling all communities to understand the RSS through dialogue, not prejudice while urging society to work together for the nation’s future. The lectures had then been noted for their conciliatory tone on contentious issues and apparent willingness to promote social unity and reformative debates within both RSS and Indian society.