RSS condemns article on Nehru published in its mouthpiece

Opinion piece said Nathuram Godse should have targeted Jawaharlal Nehru instead of Mahatma Gandhi

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday condemned an opinion piece published in its Malayalam mouthpiece that Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, should have instead targeted Jawaharlal Nehru since he was responsible for the Partition.

Apart from the RSS, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also criticised the article by B Gopalakrishnan in the ‘Kesari’ on October 17. Gopalakrishnan was the BJP candidate from Kerala’s Chalakudy Lok Sabha constituency. "RSS strongly condemns the controversial article published in 'Kesari' Malayalam journal in Kerala on October 17, 2014. The views published therein are exclusively that of the writer and the RSS has nothing to do with it," Prachar Pramukh of RSS Manmohan Vaidya said in a statement.

Vaidya said: "We, as a movement, not only dissociate ourselves from such views but also deplore them. RSS has always condemned any kind of violence in thought or action in the strongest possible words." BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav also criticised the article.

The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee had objected to the article after it was published, and demanded legal action. The editor of the weekly, N R Madhu defended the opinion piece. “This is not for the first time we are criticising Nehru’s policies and approaches to vital issues, including the Partition. But nowhere the article has even remotely suggested that Nehru should have been physically targeted,” Madhu told news agency Press Trust of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that his government would mark the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Nehru from November 14. Modi has plans to take the message of cleanliness to school students from Nehru’s birth anniversary on November 14 to that of his daughter Indira Gandhi on November 19.

Last week, the Prime Minister’s Office reconstituted the Nehru birth anniversary celebrations committee. It is now headed by the PM, with senior ministers and Congress’s leaders in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha being its members. No Gandhi family member is associated with the committee.