Chief of women’s wing of RSS provides crash course in bigotry

At an event to mark the birth anniversary of Laxmibai Kelkar, founder of the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (the women’s wing of the RSS), Asha Sharma, Akhil Bhartiya Sahkaryavahika of the Samiti, delivered a seminar on the topic of “Religious Terrorism: A Global Threat”. Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan was also present at the event as the guest of honour. A talk by a right wing organisation about religious terrorism in the world; what could possibly go wrong?

Right from the start, the guests were treated to some eye-opening statements from Sharma, including “Jahan Islam jaata hai, wahan par vidhwans saath le kar ke gaya hai. Yeh itihas hai, isko hum inkar nahin kar sakte”. [Wherever Islam goes, destruction follows. We cannot deny history]. The way Sharma manages to reduce the entire 1,400 year-old history of Islam into one offensive statement must have been truly breath-taking for the guests to witness.

But if the guests thought it was going to end with that, they were thoroughly mistaken because Sharma was just warming up. She followed up by saying “Jahan shiksha hai, wahan Islam nahi hai” [wherever there is education, there is no Islam], this time mixing up some ignorance with the regular bigotry. Not one to be partial, Sharma then trained her guns on bad, old Christianity for taking gullible, poverty stricken Hindus into their fold. “Gareebi door hogi to Christianity ka prabhav dheere dheere kam hota jaata hai” [If poverty is removed, the influence of Christianity gets reduced gradually],Sharma said, probably hoping that the “vikas” [development] promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will eradicate the curse of Christianity from India. Until “achhe din” arrive, though, such enlightening talks must suffice to protect the interest of the Hindus.