PART ONE : Pavan K Varma, is a distinguished writer and former diplomat, is currently adviser to the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
PKV published his views in an editorial, that helped to know many lesser known facts and myths about our Iron Man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and his thoughts about Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (it was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who as a medical student in Kolkata had been a part of the revolutionary activities of the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar striving to free India from British rule).
PKV : "Narendra Modi is a good orator, and his first public speech at Rewari in Haryana on September 15, after being elected the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, provided ample evidence of this. I was intrigued, though, by his fulsome tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Modi announced that he is building in Gujarat a statue of Patel, made from iron pieces contributed by every village in India, which would be the tallest in the world, twice the height of the Statue of Liberty".
PKV : "I was intrigued because Sardar Patel was the man who banned the RSS, the institution which Modi joined at the tender age of 15, and which, on his own admission, has played an exceptionally valuable role in moulding his life and thought process. Patel was India's home minister when, on February 2, 1948, the government banned the RSS, in pursuance of its "determination to root out the forces of hate and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the nation and darken her fair name".
PKV : In a September 11, 1948 letter to Guru Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the then RSS sarsanghchalak, the Sardar was forthright in his denunciation of RSS leaders: "All their speeches were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhi."
Significantly, the Sardar was never in doubt about the role of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha in the murder of the Mahatma. In a letter dated February 27, 1948, to Pandit Nehru, he states this clearly: "It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that hatched the conspiracy and saw it through...Of course, his assassination was welcomed by those of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha who were strongly opposed to his way of thinking and to his policy."
He reiterates this position in another letter (July 18, 1948) to Shyama Prasad Mookherjee: "As regards the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha...Our reports do confirm that, as a result of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible."
INDIA HONEST adds few more facts for the benefits of the readers,: Hedgewar was primarily associated with the Hindustan Republican Association, and he adopted the full constitution of erstwhile HRA and implemented it . After the formation of the RSS, Hedgewar kept the organisation away from having any direct affiliation to any of the political organisations then fighting British rule. But Hedgewar and his team of volunteers, took part in the Indian National Congress, led movements against the British rule. Hedgewar was arrested in the Jungle Satyagraha agitation in 1931 and served a second term in prison.
Its leadership, just like the leadership of the Muslim League refrained from participating in any political activities directly. The RSS leadership did allow its cadre to join the movements in their individual capacity, but it never backed hugely and directly in any movement in its capacity as a 'nationalist' organisation.
INDIA HONEST adds :The Partition of India effected jointly by the Congress and Muslim League and it affected millions of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims attempting to escape the violence and carnage that followed. RSS contribution to the victims of the partition was praised by the noted Gandhian and recipient of the highest civilian award in India, Bharat Ratna, Shri Bhagwan Das, s he commended the role of the "high-spirited and self-sacrificing boys" of the RSS in protecting the newly formed Republic of India, from a planned coup to topple the Jawaharlal Nehru Administration in Delhi.
INDIA HONEST adds : Following Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948 by Nathuram Godse, many prominent leaders of the RSS were arrested and RSS as an organisation was banned on 4 February 1948. A Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to murder of Gandhi was set and its report was published by India's Ministry of Home Affairs in the year 1970. Accordingly Justice Kapur Commission noted the following: RSS as such were not responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, meaning thereby that one could not name the organisation as such as being responsible for that most diabolical crime, the murder of the apostle of peace. It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members of the RSS...—Kapur Commission Report.
RSS Leaders were acquitted of the conspiracy charge by the Supreme Court of India and following an intervention by the Court, the Indian Government agreed to lift the ban with condition that the RSS adopt a formal constitution. The second Sarsanghachalak, Golwalkar drafted the constitution for the RSS which he sent to the government in March 1949. In July of the same year, after many negotiations over the constitution and its acceptance, the ban on RSS was lifted.
INDIA HONEST adds : On 15 January 2000, a daily, The Statesman, carried a story about the RSS by one A G Noorani, which depicted the RSS as the killer of Gandhi. Subsequently the Delhi unit of the RSS filed a criminal case of defamation against author of the article A G Noorani along with the cartoonist and the Managing Director of the publishing house. When two of the accused did not respond to the Court summons, non-bailable warrants were issued in their name by the Court. On 25 February 2002, Noorani wrote an unconditional apology to the court in which he regretted writing the defamatory article against the RSS. On 3 March 2002, 'The Statesman' also published an apology regretting the publication of the said article.
INDIA HONEST now hopes PKV must go through with many other relevant facts now (easily available on search media) which he may have missed to incorporate in his study. Moreover many of the erstwhile misconception were resolved by India's highest court Supreme Court much after the death of the Iron Man Sardar Patel, else he must have far different views on RSS. Yes you have the opportunity and option to correct it and compliment Modi for his noble efforts to remember the proud Iron Man of India, if you feel so ?