RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat hails Pranab Mukherjee

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. File Photo
| Photo Credit: PTI

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday said that in his first meeting with the late former President of India Pranab Mukherjee, the latter had asked him how the world could teach India about unity in diversity when India’s own Constitution was secular.

Mr. Bhagwat said that he had prepared fully to meet Mukherjee in 2018 when the issue of ‘ghar wapsi’ was being played up, and he had been sure the President would ask him about it.

“He not just said that our Constitution is secular but also added that those who made the Constitution were also secular in nature. He went on to add that not just that generation of India was secular, but our 5,000-year-old culture is secular in itself,” Mr. Bhagwat recalled, quoting Mukherjee.

Mukherjee, who was President of India from 2012 to 2017, had drawn criticism for addressing RSS cadre at an event in Nagpur on June 7, 2018. He died in 2020.

Mr. Bhagwat was speaking at the launch of a book, Prithvi Sookta: An Ode to Mother Earth, written by veteran RSS functionary Ranga Hari.