Thiruvananthapuram RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday defended the remarks of senior RSS official Dattatreya Hosabale in favor of keeping the window of dialogue open with Pakistan, saying he was speaking for the people of the neighboring country.
Asked about the RSS’s view on the statements made by Hosabale in an interview with PTI Videos in May, Bhagwat said the organization would follow the Union government’s policy regarding the state of Pakistan.
“But there are many people in Pakistan who believe that the partition of Bharat was wrong and many journalists there are praising the RSS and its work. There is a clear undercurrent of people who are anti-Pakistan and against the two-nation theory and say living together was better,” he said during an interactive session held here as part of the RSS’s centenary celebration.
Bhagwat said that if India in the future manages to defeat Pakistan irreparably, the people there will have to be brought into the Bharat fold or they will have to be able to live in peace in that country itself “and for this the doors of dialogue must remain open”.
He added: “We are not like Hitler. This is not our nature or our way. So we need to keep some doors open. We must defeat injustice and tyranny, but we must also preserve what is good.”
Bhagwat stressed that the RSS does not have an independent foreign policy with respect to any country and that it follows the position of the central government.
In an interview with PTI Videos, Hosabale said: “The security and self-respect of the state must be protected and the present government must take care of this. But at the same time, we do not need to close doors. We must always be ready to engage them in dialogue.”
He was asked how India should deal with Pakistan and its continued sponsorship of terrorism.
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