BENGALURU: RSS reckons Manipur will take a long time to heal from the ravages of the ethnic conflict, but remains confident that its influence and outreach can help bring the warring communities to the negotiating table, the saffron fountainhead’s joint general secretary C R Mukunda said on Friday.
“We have gone through decisions of the central govt, some of which are political and some administrative, and these have raised hope for a resolution of the crisis. But it is a very complex problem,” Mukunda said at the inaugural session of RSS’s Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha in Bengaluru. He said RSS was “wielding whatever influence or moral authority we have” to break the deadlock.
On talk of a north-south divide nationally, the RSS veteran dismissed it as a politically driven narrative. “There are multiple aspects to the divide, and we believe most of them are politically motivated. One of our concerns is the forces attempting to challenge national unity by emphasising the north-south divide. Whether it is delimitation or language-related issues, our volunteers from different organisations are striving to promote harmony in the southern states,” he said.
“Be it changing the rupee symbol to the local script (in the Tamil Nadu state budget) or opposing the language policy, RSS believes these are politically motivated,” Mukunda said.
His remark came on the eve of a meeting of non-BJP state govts in Chennai, where contentious topics like population-based delimitation, the Union govt’s three-language policy and devolution of funds will likely dominate discussions.
Mukunda said that barring the option of education in the native tongue, the Union govt hadn’t imposed any aspect of the three-language policy. “Every individual should learn multiple languages – one’s mother tongue, a regional or commonly spoken language, and a career-oriented language such as English,” he said.
“Also, mother tongue should not be limited to education; RSS believes that daily activities should also be conducted in one’s native language. RSS has not passed a resolution on the two-language or three-language system, but we have adopted a resolution advocating use of the respective native tongue in every state.”
On delimitation, he said the concerns of southern states about losing parliamentary seats were unfounded, citing home minister Amit Shah’s recent statement in Coimbatore. “While it is not RSS’s place to speak on the Centre’s decisions, we believe our Union home minister has already clarified that the ratio of MP seats will be maintained.”
(With agency inputs)