‘Discourse in India has undergone a healthy change’

Ram Madhav, member, RSS, National Executive, spoke on a wide range of topics from Hinduism to good governance, during a webcast as part of the Visionary Talk series held by Governance Now, the public policy and governance analysis platform. In a conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, Madhav said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi proudly proclaiming to be a better Hindu, is a welcome step and the opposition’s newfound claim that their Hinduism is superior to the Hinduism of RSS is the new competition in India. He added saying that their efforts paid off with Gandhi proclaiming he is in the race to prove himself a better Hindu. He said opposition claims of being better Hindus is the new competition in India and a welcome step.

“Today Rahul Gandhi is proudly claiming to be a Hindu, a better Hindu and today everyone wants to wear Hinduism on their sleeve. The oppositions claim that their Hinduism is probably better than that of RSS is a new competition in India. We wholeheartedly welcome it. All of us recognize that we belong to a great cultural civilizational tradition for Hinduism”, Madhav said.

He said, “Neo and political Hindus like Arvind Kejriwal are not only going for Ayodhya Darshan but also taking senior citizens along is very good. “.... thanks to the changed atmosphere in the country, but to get political mileage and distinction out of this exercise will be useless".

Talking about Shashi Tharoor, Madhav said that no one would have imagined a decade ago that Tharoor would write a book on Hinduism. “He would have probably written a book on secularism. One should feel proud of their Hindu identity and today you feel this realization all over the country.

Madhav, who earlier served as BJP national general secretary, said that today a large section of society feels proud of their cultural civilizational heritage. Many books are being written today on this theme and Veer Savarkar and Vallabh Bhai Patel are getting a lot of space. “Hindutva as a word came into vogue after Savarkar popularized it.”

“All this shows that discourse in India has undergone a healthy change. Hindu identity has become mainstream in the country today compared to 10 years ago when mainstream political discourse used to be centered around the idea of secularism etc. .. not to say that secularism is bad. The core of Hinduism is much more secular than what secularism stood for in the west in all these decades” he said.

Speaking on Congress party perception of the anti-majority party playing an appeasement card, the RSS leader said for many decades, for the Congress party, secularism meant appeasement of minority communities and rejecting what the country’s culture and civilization stood for. Secularism, he said, should mean equal respect and treatment for all religions and not rejecting Hinduism as fundamentalism to pander to minority sentiment in the hope of political benefit.

Speaking about Yogi Adityanath, Madhav said, to the surprise of many in the country has given excellent governance in the last five years. Lauding the efforts of the UP government under Adityanath's leadership, Madhav added that if he (Yogi Adityanath) returns to power, factors like good governance, strong credentials with respect to law and order and his image as a strong Hindutva leader will play a big role. He added that for the first time, multinationals are coming to Uttar Pradesh for investments including the Indian film industry. He said UP is the most effectively governed state when it comes to law and order and ‘goondaism’ has ended and women are completely safe now.

On being asked about 5 important governance reforms initiated in the last 7 years, Madhav said decentralization of governance mechanisms by introducing technology has brought in transparency. 1600 obsolete laws have been done away with, there is the ease of doing business, foreign policy has been dehyphenated and there is an attack on black money and corruption. Madhav added that for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir, Panchayati Raj reforms have taken place at the grassroots level by delegating funds, functions, and functionaries to village panchayats in Kashmir, unlike other places where even though funds are being given, functions and functionaries remain under the control of DM.

Madhav, however, added that more work needs to be done to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of ‘Minimum Government, and Maximum Governance’ and reducing the role of central and state government by delegating powers to district and village panchayats.