RANCHI: With the Sangh Parivar increasingly coming under attack for its aggressive advocacy of nationalism, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday sought to make a course correction, acknowledging that the term is internationally understood as a synonym for “Nazism and Fascism”. Addressing an RSS event in Ranchi, he advised members not to use ‘nationalism’ so as to counter negative perceptions against the organisation.
He said he realised the nuance of the word during a UK visit. “A karyakrata advised me not to use the word nationalism as English is not our language and it has a different connotation globally. It’s okay to say nation, national and nationality but not nationalism because it alludes to Hitler, Nazism and Fascism,” he said.
While Bhagwat spoke about it for the first time on Thursday, other leaders like RSS joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya have been articulating that position for quite some time now. Speaking at the Nagpur Literary Festival, Vaidya had said, “Nationalism isn’t a Bharatiya concept. It was born in the Western concept of nation-state and comes with ideologies like Fascism and personalities like Hitler.”