Kerala CM slams PM for glorifying RSS, Savarkar in Independence Day speech

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for glorifying RSS and Savarkar in his Independence Day address. He remarked that it was an attempt to gift the legacy of the freedom movement to the RSS.

In a statement on Saturday, Pinarayi Vijayan said Modi had belittled Independence Day by attempting to gift the legacy of the freedom movement to the RSS, which was outlawed in the aftermath of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.

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He said that choosing Independence Day itself to glorify those who once served the British amounted to insulting the freedom struggle, and added that no such shameful act can whitewash the RSS, which is a “communal organisation with a divisive past”.

“The attempt to portray the RSS, which was banned following Gandhi’s assassination, and V D Savarkar, who stood trial in the murder conspiracy, as major contributors to Indian independence is a blatant distortion of history. Choosing Independence Day to glorify those who served the British amounts to insulting our freedom struggle. These ridiculous measures cannot whitewash a communal organisation like the RSS, which has a poisonous history of divisive politics. The Prime Minister’s use of the Independence Day speech to glorify the RSS is tantamount to insulting the day itself,” Pinarayi Vijayan said.

The veteran CPI-M leader accused the RSS of always opposing the core principles of the freedom movement, saying it openly opposed the movement’s basic ideological concepts.

“Indians, regardless of caste, religion, dress, or language, joined together in the national freedom struggle. At that time, the RSS played the role of traitors. The RSS openly opposed the basic ideological concepts of the freedom movement. Instead of Indian nationalism, which upholds unity in diversity, they upheld Hindutva nationalism, which is based on majority communalism, the CM said.

Criticising the Hindu Mahasabha and Savarkar for choosing to boycott the first Independence Day in 1947, he said: “The Hindu Mahasabha, headed by V D Savarkar, who had prostrated before the colonial government and apologised, decided to boycott the Independence Day celebrations on August 15, 1947. It is the same Savarkar whom the Sangh Parivar is presenting as the leader of the freedom struggle instead of Mahatma Gandhi.”

Citing the Union Ministry of Petroleum’s Independence Day greeting card that placed Savarkar’s image above Mahatma Gandhi’s, CM Vijayan said: “When read together with the fact that V D Savarkar is placed above Mahatma Gandhi on the Union Petroleum Ministry’s Independence Day greeting card, it becomes clear that this is all part of a vast conspiracy. It is a manifestation of the obsession of those who are afraid of the history of the freedom struggle.”

Pointing to the editorial published in the RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ on November 26, 1949 — the day the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution — he said it rejected the Constitution and called for the Manusmriti to be upheld instead.

“When the Constituent Assembly gave its final approval to the Constitution of India on November 26, 1949, the RSS mouthpiece, the Organiser, wrote an editorial that Manusmriti should be upheld instead of the Constitution,” Chief Minister Vijayan said.