India Inc knocks on RSS' door: Premji visits Golwalkar's samadhi, Nadar at RSS HQ

HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar was the RSS’s chief guest at its Vijaya Dashami event, which is the organisation’s foundation day.

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Top industrialists have, in the recent past, made a beeline to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur with the latest being HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar, who was the RSS’s chief guest at this year's Vijaya Dashami event, which is also the organisation’s foundation day. The RSS is the ideological mentor/backbone of the BJP.

Nadar's visit was just one day after Wipro chairman Azim Premji visited RSS founder KB Hedgewar’s memorial and paid tribute. Premji visited the samadhi of second RSS chief MS Golwalkar as well. He also met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and reportedly discussed various issues related to the country, society and economy for about half an hour. He had earlier participated in the 'Rashtriya Sewa Sangam', a conclave of NGOs convened by the RSS in 2015. He later said, however, that attending an event does not mean that he is promoting anyone.

Last month, on September 14, industrialist Rahul Bajaj had paid homage to the statue of Hedgewar. He, however, did not visit the Sangh’s headquarters, which is nearby.

Tata Sons' former Chairman Ratan Tata, too, visited the Sangh headquarters twice within five months. He also met the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat during a visit to Nagpur in April this year. In December 2016 also, he had visited the RSS headquarters and, in 2017, he shared the stage with Bhagwat at another event in Mumbai on the birth anniversary of the deceased Sangh leader Nana Palkar.

IANS quoted an RSS official as saying that it has established a ‘liaison department’, which contacts noted personalities from different regions of the country and invites them to visit RSS.

Nadar, speaking at the RSS function, said that the private sector, citizens and NGOs must resolve challenges together, and that all stakeholders must be involved. “The government alone cannot take the country to the next level; we need equal involvement from all stakeholders,” he reportedly said.

Previously, apart from industrialists, President Pranab Mukherjee spoke at the concluding ceremony of a Sangh event last year. Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi too was present at the Vijayadashami festival last year.

With IANS inputs