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Sangh’s pat of convenience for Singh

-The Telegraph

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has unequivocally endorsed and welcomed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s stand against anti-Kudankulam protesters and described it as “unusually forthright and strong”.

An editorial in the latest issue of the Organiser, the Sangh’s official mouthpiece, claimed it was the first publication to spotlight the “devious” role played by the Church in spearheading the protests against the stalled Tamil Nadu nuclear power plant.

The reference was to two earlier articles published late last year.

“They are afraid that a major project would not only change the face of the area but also improve the socio-economic condition of the people in and around the region in a ripple effect, depriving them of their soul-harvest,” the editorial said.

RSS sources denied that the government had got in touch with them when the earlier articles were published in October and December.

The latest (March 3) issue carried Singh’s picture on the cover and splashed his reaction with the caption “Kudankulam Conspiracy: Foreign-funded NGOs play havoc with India’s growth”.

Singh had recently said India’s atomic energy programme had hit roadblocks because NGOs, “mostly from the US”, did not appreciate the country’s need for energy.

Last week, a German activist was deported for allegedly raising funds to fuel the protests against the Russian-designed plant.

The edit was not the Sangh’s only expression of solidarity with the Prime Minister.

The issue ran two other pieces in the Centre’s support. One by Adithya Srinivasan applauded Singh for “displaying the willingness and the political courage to take on anti-national elements” for the “first” time in eight years.

Shooting a range of questions — premised on the assumption that the Church had an ulterior motive in “engineering” the agitation — Srinivasan asked why the protests were staged just months after the reactor was commissioned and whether they were meant to “embarrass” Russian nuclear technology.

He went on to ask if the Church leadership had allowed itself to be “used as a front by foreign players”.

Alleging a “national trend”, Srinivasan said local Christian groups had blocked efforts at enriching uranium in Meghalaya and Jharkhand and wondered why nuclear energy benefits from the US nuclear deal had still not been transferred to India. “Would it be fair to say that the nuclear deal was just a decoy to end India’s nuclear tests?” he asked.

An RSS source tried to put the Sangh’s backing for the Prime Minister in perspective. “It’s time to take a hard look at the NGOs because they consistently blocked people-oriented projects on mining and dams. The Narmada dam was operationalised only because of the apex court’s intervention and the will shown by the Prime Minister and (Gujarat chief minister) Narendra Modi,” the source explained.

For the Sangh, attacking Christian missionaries on the charge that they indulge in “large-scale, forcible” proselytisation among tribals has been a pet bogey.

This time, however, it has packaged its objections in the idiom of growth. “The Sangh has nothing against nuclear energy. If it is a valuable input in the Indian growth story, it must be promoted in a big way,” a source said.

The Sangh’s stand on the nuclear deal has veered from rejection to qualified acceptance.

In December 2006, former chief K.S. Sudarshan publicly alleged that the pact compromised India’s strategic interests. Less than a year later, the Organiser, in an editorial in its October 21 issue, criticised the Left and the UPA allies for compelling the Centre to put it on the backburner.

The editorial’s contention was if the deal did not fructify at that point, the non-proliferation lobby, “strong” among the Democrats, would start acting up in an election year and force the Republicans to impose “more stringent and debilitating clauses” against India.