VHP says new campaign to end caste bias, knit Hindu parivar
“Make friends with families of other castes, share happy and sad moments, visit each other’s houses, share meals, and encourage young to take selfies and share them.”
On the day The Indian Express reported that a senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader had blamed the practice of untouchability and caste-based discrimination for the conversion of Hindus to religions like Islam and Christianity, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) said it was asking Hindu families to reach out to all castes, including Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as part of its ‘Hindu Mitra Parivar’ programme.
VHP international working president Pravin Togadia said Saturday that the programme was directed against the practice of untouchability.
Measures would include “making friends with families of other castes, sharing happy and sad moments, visiting each other’s houses, sharing meals, and encouraging the young to take healthy family photos, selfies and sharing them via WhatsApp and Facebook”.
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“The VHP will ensure people from all castes get to drink the same water wherever there is a common water source, that no Hindu is barred from entering any temple, that there is a single crematorium for all Hindus, irrespective of caste,” he said.
Asked whether this campaign was to stop the conversion of Hindus to other religions, Togadia said: “Even if there was no conversion in the country…and if untouchability was still there, we would have still worked to eradicate it.”
“The VHP will exhort Hindu families to make friends with families of other castes, including SCs and STs, and will encourage them to have meals in their homes. We will ask them to attend functions of families of other castes and help their children with education and medicine,” he said.
A day earlier, the RSS’s Awadh Prant Sanghchalak Prabhu Narayan Srivastava, speaking on resolutions passed by the Sangh at its All India Pratinidhi Sabha meeting in Nagpur recently, said Christians and Muslims were not to blame for the conversion of Hindus. He said untouchability and discrimination on caste lines, promoted by Hindu religion and society, was a weakness that made deprived sections convert to other religions.
Source:: Indian Express