The Hindu : National : Response from RSS chief

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Friday, Apr 01, 2005

National

National

Response from RSS chief

K.S. Sudarshan, Sarsangchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, writes:

" The 25th March issue of The Hindu carries a news item entitled `RSS chief's statement anti-women,' issued by Ms. Brinda Karat, vice-president of the All India Democratic Women's Association. This is misleading.

"The facts are as follows:

" The occasion was the release of a full-length film, entitled `Tej Tapaswini' based on the life and work of Shrimati Lakshmibai Kelkar, fondly called as Vandaneeya Mousi, the founder of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti. The Samiti is a parallel organisation that aims at inculcating the qualities of patriotism, dedication, discipline and service to the society, specially women of the poorer sections. In 1934, to a question from Shrimati Lakshmibai `Why not girls also join the boys in the shakha?', Dr. Hedgewar replied that such activities should be started and managed by women themselves. He assured her of all help from the RSS. And so Vandaneeya Mousi, herself a mother of six sons and two foster daughters, founded the Samiti in 1936 and set a glorious example of women in public life without in any way compromising the rearing of the children with good character. Far from asking women to remain confined to their hearths and homes, she galvanised hundreds of women to work for the Samiti's character-building activities as also social uplifting work.

"In our country, free mixing of teenaged boys and girls is not encouraged and rightly so, because at the tender age they cannot understand the complications and social problems that may occur if they go astray. I specially referred to Western countries where the family system has broken down because of such permissiveness and problems of unwed mothers, abandoned children, single parent children, and so on are plaguing their society. The whole burden of such children falls on the governments and they have to spend a lot on social security. Those problems are least in our country because of our intact family system. This justifies the need for parallel organisations of men and women. This is specially so when our media, both print and electronic, as also the movies, are propagating permissiveness with pictures or scenes of barest clad women and men in indecent poses."

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