RSS has a very rigid idea of India: Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) ideological concept about the nation is very rigid.

"I think the ruling dispensation, and particularly the RSS, in their mind has a very clear idea of what the world should look like. They have a vision of India which everybody is entitled to have. In my opinion, it is a very rigid opinion of India," Gandhi said during an interaction with Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies students here.

"This country requires flexibility; it requires openness and a movement of ideas to succeed," he added.

Responding to a question whether India is heading on the road of thought control, Gandhi pointed out that there lies a connection between being intolerant and imposing vision on someone for country's economic progress.

Launching a veiled attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his initiative of Start-Up India programme, Gandhi said, "There is a huge contradiction in saying that I want to have start-ups to happen and I will be intolerant. They are connected. Start-ups require free movement of ideas; intolerance curbs the movement of ideas."

He added, "That you can't build the economy on one hand and be intolerant on the other, you will fail on the economy side, if you are intolerant. People who run start ups are very creative people by nature."

Gandhi further criticized the RSS saying that there is a strong difference between Congress philosophy and BJP-RSS philosophy.

"We feel that everybody should have an opinion. But for the BJP -RSS, they categorise and there is a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh for them; for me, there is only Indians, nobody else," he added.