Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta: Converting Hindus to Hindutva - Interview with D.R. Goyal (1929-2013) writer and historian

By Dilip -
Des Raj Goyal was born in 1929 in Moga; Panjab; and joined the RSS in 1942, when he was a school student. He was disillusioned with the organisation and left it in 1947. He continued with his interest at an analytical level and published a book on it in 1979, which is considered authentic by academics.

D.R. GOYAL is known to have written the most authentic account of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in 1978. As a school student, he joined the RSS, which projected itself as one of the organisations fighting for India’s independence, but it did not take him long to realise that the organisation’s professions were not necessarily true. Since then, he has been a chronicler of various developments in this “cultural” organisation. In 1962, when he was a Delhi University lecturer, he set up a unit of the Communist Party of India at the university. He later joined Subhadra Joshi (then Member of Parliament from Jabalpur, who also holds the distinction of having defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee) to form the Sampradayikta Virodhi Manch..

An interview to Frontline in 2009 on the links between the RSS and BJP: 
How do you understand the present crisis in the BJP? What is the role of the RSS in influencing the BJP’s recent decisions such as the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, the sidelining of Yashwant Sinha, or the issuing of a show-cause notice to Arun Shourie?
First of all, I would say that the present situation in the BJP is like the Mahabharat. Kauravas and Pandavas fighting each other. Instead of Krishna coming and trying to solve [the conflict], the RSS jumps in. Though it has always been influencing it, for the first time the RSS chief has come and issued a public statement before the Chintan Baithak of the BJP. He made a statement on TV that older people should retire and the leadership should be given over to people in their 50s and 60s. This kind of thing has never happened earlier.
Another feature of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to Delhi was that he did not even show the courtesy of visiting the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a major leader of the political formation founded by the RSS in 1951. Vajpayee was at that time attached to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and until the other day he led the party and the BJP government for six years. So, an ordinary human courtesy required that the head of an institution that founded the BJP should visit him. Not necessarily for any consultation, but even Vajpayee’s advice, if he could speak, would have been useful because he knew people more. Advani, in fact, came into the political scene much later, only in the 1960s. Before that he was only an RSS pracharak. Now it seems that Mohan Bhagwat has displayed a preference for Advani over Vajpayee, which means that he has rejected all those people who were with Vajpayee.

In other words, for Bhagwat, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and all these people are personae non gratae. He didn’t talk to any of them whereas he talked to everyone who was either with Rajnath Singh or with Advani. For him, the BJP means only those who are with Rajnath or Advani. The result of this was that in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP, no one could discuss the reasons for its defeat, which was the purpose of the meeting. If it had happened, discussions on ideology would have come in. The RSS did not want that. All these days, there have been discussions only about the real role of Hindutva. Although Advani tried to undermine it, he is known to be a person who is attached to Hindutva. In 2002, Vajpayee was in favour of dismissing [Narendra] Modi, but Advani defended him. So in the RSS’ view, Advani is the real RSS man, a defender of the RSS’ ideology, not Vajpayee. Therefore anybody who is attached to Vajpayee has to be discarded... 
read more: https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2619/stories/20090925261912000.htm

Download: D. R. Goyal's book Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (2000 Edition)
see also
A whiff of evil
Madhu Limaye describes What RSS is
Hindutva's foreign tie-up in the 1930's
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)
Poornima Joshi - Sangh Sing Song
More threats and lies from the RSS

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