Mahatma Gandhi also acknowledged the positive values of RSS: VP Naidu

Newdelhi:2/06/18;Even Mahatma Gandhi had acknowledged the “positive values” propagated by the RSS, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said today against the backdrop of a controversy over former president Pranab Mukherjee accepting an invite of the Sangh to address its cadre.He also said that secularism is “safe and secure” in India not because of any individual or political party, but because it is in the “DNA of all Indians”.Delivering the Nanaji Memorial lecture here, Naidu said the world’s largest “voluntary missionary organisation” has attracted all those who put the country above everything else, such as Nanaji Deshmukh and Deen Dayal Upadhyay.”Even Mahatma Gandhiji had acknowledged the positive values propounded by RSS,” Naidu said while referring to Gandhi’s visit to a RSS camp in the 1930s.

He quoted Gandhi as saying in 1934: “When I visited the RSS camp, I was very much surprised by your discipline and absence of untouchability.” Naidu said Gandhi found that volunteers were living and eating together in the camp without bothering about each other’s caste.

The vice president said he felt proud of his association with the RSS and credited his rise in life to the training he had in the Sangh. He said the RSS means ‘Ready for Selfless Service’.A controversy had erupted after former president Mukherjee had accepted an invite from the RSS to be chief guest at its function on June 7.Several Congress leaders have urged him to reconsider his decision

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