As we have noted before, polarization is not good for the country and never good for the Aam Aadmi.
The zealots who presumably suffer from Islam-envy seem all too ready to commit us to a Taliban asylum.
….. For
the last three months, Ravi Tewari, a 22-year-old engineering student,
has been waking up at 5am, putting on his white shirt and khaki shorts
and rushing to a nearby park for the morning shakha of Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
.
His family is surprised. No one in the Tewari
clan has ever been with RSS. So, the family can’t quite figure what is
driving Ravi to adopt this punishing morning drill.
.
“I believe
in Hindutva,” says Ravi. “The country needs reforms. Who other than
Narendra Modi can make it happen? The youth needs something to look
forward to. They also need to take up more responsibilities to change
things and the shakha is the best place to learn how to do it.”
Ravi speaks with a sense of purpose that only a new convert can have.
He had never dabbled in politics before he joined ABVP, BJP’s student
wing, a few months ago. And there are thousands like him, he says,
neo-converts who have breathed new life into RSS after Modi was named
the BJP’s PM candidate on September 13 last year.
Suddenly, the
organization which was becoming moribund and seen to be out of tune
with the times, is growing. In less than three months, more than 2,000
shakhas have sprouted across the country. By the end of 2013, there were
44,982 shakhas in India, of which 8,417 were in UP alone.
The
numbers had peaked in 2004, when there were around 51,000 functioning
shakhas. They shrunk during the UPA tenure, hitting a low of 39,283
shakhas in 2010. But as scams broke out, and UPA 2 went from one low to
another, there was again a renewed, interest in shakhas, with a sudden
burst in post-Modi months.
……
regards