Proud of my past as ABVP member: Javadekar

Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday said he was proud of his past as a member of ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS), but that will not stop him from treating all others equally in matters pertaining to his ministry.

"I am proud of being a member of the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), but it will not be fair if I don't listen to others and don't meet them. Doing that is my 'rajdharm'," the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister said at the launch here of a special edition of "Rashtriya Chhatrashakti" magazine -- the mouthpiece of the student outfit.

He said that many, including the media, referred to the ABVP as Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) student wing, but they were wrong.

"It was formed even before the BJP, when it was called 'Jansangh'," he said, adding that it was not an offshoot of the political party but a separate "source of a nationalist ideology".

Sarcastically commenting on the pro-Afzal Guru slogans, allegedly raised inside Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on February 9 last year, Javadekar said such slogans used by an organisation revealed its true nature.

"We raised slogans like 'Rashtrashakti, Chhatrashakti', while they shouted 'Kitne Afzal maaroge, har ghar se Afzal niklega' ... That is the difference between a nationalist organisation and others," he said.

"The special edition of the magazine, which started in 1978, contains all cultural, creative and the stories of the entire students' struggle of the ABVP since 1949," Ajeet Singh, Assistant Editor of the magazine, told IANS.

--IANS

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