Not responsible for Dadri lynching, growing intolerance: RSS

Ranchi: Under pressure from public intellectuals to clear the air over its role in growing intolerance in the country, the Rashtriya Swayamswevak Sangh or RSS said on Sunday it was being needlessly blamed for the mob-lynching of a man in Uttar Pradesh's Dadri and similar incidents of violence.

"We are in social life for 90 years. No one has raised such questions on intolerance. Whatever has happened we condemn that. Such incidents are not good for the society. But we need go deeper into such incidents. The truth must come out," RSS General Secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said.

"When the Sangh was linked to several such incidents, and we investigated deeper, they have proven to be false. There has been no truth to the allegations. It is a conspiracy to unnecessarily blame the Sangh for such incidents," Joshi said.

52-year-old Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched on September 28 in Dadri following rumours that he and his family had eaten beef and slaughtered a calf, triggering a wave of protest from the civil society.

People related to a local BJP leader were allegedly involved in the Dadri lynching incident, leading to attacks on the RSS.

In Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, two persons were similarly beaten to death after being accused of cow slaughter by mobs comprising suspected Hindu militants.

Scores of writers, filmmakers, and scientists have returned their awards to register their protest against the growing intolerance and violence in the country.

Moreover, in a bid to express their anguish and protest about the "highly vitiated atmosphere" prevailing in India, 53 historians on Thursday issued a joint statement lashing out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his stoic silence over growing intolerance in the country.

Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib were among the eminent historians who, in the joint statement, decried the climate in which "differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence. Arguments are met not with counter-arguments but with bullets."

They also warned the Bhartiya Janata Party government against distorting history.

"What the regime seems to want is a kind of legislated history, a manufactured image of the past, glorifying certain aspects of it and denigrating others, without any regard for chronology, sources or methods of enquiry that are the building blocks of the edifice of history," the historians wrote.

"It is easy to trample them down, but it is important to remember that it will take too long and will be beyond the capacity of those who are currently at the helm of affairs, to rebuild it once it is destroyed."