RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said that a Hindu who believes there should be no Muslims in Bharat “ceases to be a Hindu”, stressing that Hindutva recognises the dignity of every human being and accepts that different paths can lead to the same goal.
Addressing the ‘One World, One Humanity’ faith leaders’ conference in New York, Bhagwat said, “In 2018 during my lecture series in Delhi, several Muslim brothers present there asked me, ‘You are a Hindu organisation. You speak of Hindu Rashtra. What about us Muslims? Will you drive us out?’ I told them, ‘No, that is not Hindutva. If any Hindu thinks that there should be no Muslim in Bharat, he ceases to be a Hindu.'”
“If you want to call yourself Hindu, you must believe that all paths are leading to the same goal and that every human has dignity. There is no difference between human beings,” Bhagwat said.
He stressed that while people may follow different religions, humanity remains one. “We live in a society where religions may be different, but humanity is one,” he said, adding that India’s tradition had been to provide shelter to people irrespective of their religious identity.
He also cited the RSS’s service activities to underline his claim that the organisation does not discriminate based on religion. According to him, around 1.3 lakh service projects are being run by RSS volunteers with the help of society.
Recalling an incident in Dadri, Haryana, where two aircraft from Muslim-majority countries collided, Bhagwat said RSS volunteers were among the first to reach the site. As all passengers had died, the volunteers helped arrange funerals and assisted relatives in identifying the victims. “We don’t have the thought that they are Muslims,” he said.
He said the organisation’s approach was rooted in the belief that “we” and “ours” should replace the narrow focus on “me” and “mine”. “Where there is ‘me’ and ‘mine,’ there is no solution. ‘We’ and ‘ours’ is the solution,” he said.
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