“Not necessarily everybody joins RSS only when they are school kids. There are many who join the RSS at a later age,” Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale told PTI in an exclusive interview.
He was asked about leaders like Adhikari, Samrat Choudhary and Himanta Biswa Sarma becoming chief ministers despite having come to the BJP from other parties.
Asked whether this trend bothers the RSS or gives it pleasure that more people are coming into its fold, the top Sangh functionary said, “We are happy. The BJP is growing. And that means it is getting accepted.”
He said the new leaders will also understand the RSS gradually.
Asked whether he would encourage new entrants to the BJP to join RSS also, Hosabale said they are already as good as in RSS because they are in the ideological family of the RSS.
“There is no formal membership in RSS. Even I have not taken a formal membership. RSS is a family setup-like thing. So that is why whoever enters the family becomes part of it.”A daughter-in-law who comes into a family need not fill a form; she naturally becomes one of the family,” he said.
Asked whether West Bengal’s new Chief Minister Adhikari would be more like a son-in-law, Hosabale said, “We are proud of this son.”
Asked about the role the RSS and its swayamsevaks had in the BJP’s victory in West Bengal, he said, “As citizens, they (swayamsevaks) did everything.”
“Our swayamsevaks have been at the receiving end for a long time in West Bengal — earlier during the communist regime and then the TMC regime.
“Just because they were talking about Sanatana Hindu, conducting shakhas, creating patriotic nationalist people, they were being attacked by the government or the government-supported people there,” he said.
Hosabale said it has been a struggle not just by swayamsevaks, but the entire Hindu society. “So, that’s why every Hindu voter became a Hindu worker in Bengal. That is why it was a civilisational question,” he said.
The results are for everyone to see, Hosabale said, noting, “It was a tsunami… because when you are pushed to the wall, you are going to hit back.”
Hosabale said the swayamsevaks have done their part for the security of the people even in the past, including during the post-poll violence five years back.
“I had myself visited 2-3 places… we are not an army. We do it out of our love for society and for the spirit of community service,” he said.
“Our people have also rallied other people who are like-minded, who want to do something. We try to provide safety and security to the suffering people wherever it happens, including some people who may not be our organisation people, who may not even be Hindus. Many a time that also may happen,” he said.
