Amidst scurrilous claims made by Congress and other opposition parties alleging that a delegation from China’s envoy’s team visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, Maharashtra, the Sangh rubbished the allegations, stating that no such communication about the visit ever reached the Sangh office.
According to an official from the RSS, the group in question did not belong to the envoy’s office. Instead, they were a delegation of Chinese scholars who had come to Wardha’s Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya (Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University) to learn Hindi.
The team expressed an interest in exploring some of the prominent tourist destinations in the city, and their professor guided them to various significant sites. The official mentioned that the group, which included a visit to the Smruti Mandir (memorial of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar), also toured other attractions in Nagpur such as Zero Miles, Bapu Kutir, and more.
The RSS official provided additional clarification, asserting that the visiting team did not interact with Sangh officials, and the RSS office had no prior knowledge of their visit. The spokesperson stressed that the Smruti Mandir, akin to Rajghat, is open to the public, and therefore, there was no necessity for surveillance. They highlighted that Smruti Mandir is a public space and is unrelated to the RSS head office or senior functionaries of the organisation.
According to another senior official, the RSS headquarters regularly receives requests from diplomatic missions and embassies, seeking permission to visit and engage with senior functionaries to gain insights into the organization. However, in this particular case, no such communication was received, the official stated.
Despite RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s characterisation of China as an “expansionist” neighbour, RSS functionaries noted that the organisation remains “open” to individuals genuinely interested in understanding its ideology and perspectives. They drew attention to the fact that the RSS actively encourages foreign delegations seeking to observe and comprehend the functioning and structure of the organisation.
The clarification came hot on the heels of media reports and subsequent allegations by opposition political parties that the Chinese envoy’s team visited RSS headquarters in Nagpur. The Congress party, which has allied with communists that have often expressed admiration for China and its mass-murderer Mao Zedong, attacked RSS with ‘Ab ki baar Xi Jinping’ barb over the fake news of the Chinese envoy’s delegation visiting the Sangh headquarters in Nagpur.