NEW DELHI: Unhappy over Congress chief Rahul Gandhi comparing it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood , the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) plans to invite him, along with other prominent politicians, to a three-day lecture series it is hosting next month.

The RSS has attributed the remark to Rahul’s lack of understanding of India . RSS national media chief Arun Kumar said Rahul had himself admitted he was trying to understand India.

“Someone still trying to understand India can’t understand RSS. Rahul Gandhi should first learn what Muslim Brotherhood has been doing in different countries. Had he known what Muslim Brotherhood is doing, he would not have compared the RSS with it,” Kumar said.

He added that all parties would be invited to attend the lecture series so that they could get an insight into what RSS stood for. Sources said CPM’s Sitaram Yechury would be among those invited.

Bid to fight hate-mongering charge

The lecture series, ‘Future of Bharat: An RSS Perspective’, will be held in Vigyan Bhavan on September 17-19.

At an engagement in London recently, the Congress chief had said the RSS was similar to the Muslim Brotherhood. “I would compare it. And the idea is that one ideology should run through every single institution; one idea should crush all other ideas,” he had said.

RSS leaders believe Rahul’s comments were completely unwarranted given that India has had two PMs — Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi — who came from Sangh backgrounds, while the Muslim Brotherhood was banned in Egypt and seen as an extremist organisation in several Arab nations. “Two leaders from the RSS background have become PMs. Equating RSS with a terror organisation is not only appalling for us but an insult to all Indians and all those who voted for Vajpayee and Modi,” said a senior RSS functionary.

RSS believes such an interaction will help address the charge of spreading hatred Rahul has levelled against the Sangh and PM Narendra Modi.

The event and invitations to non-BJP leaders is taking place after the recent visits of former President Pranab Mukherjee and Ratan Tata to the Sangh headquarters in Nagpur. Coincidentally, September 17 is Modi’s birthday.

Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat will speak about the RSS and its ideology on the first two days, followed by an interactive session on the concluding day.

“RSS has seen a growing eagerness in large sections of society, including intellectuals and youth, to know the Sangh’s perspective on various issues of national importance,” a functionary said, adding that there was a wide-ranging debate about RSS in the public domain. “We want that people understand the organisation in a better way.” The Sangh has maintained that several people from Congress have participated in the organisation’s events in the past.

“In 1934, Mahatma Gandhi had attended a Sangh camp in Wardha and held discussions with the first Sarsanghchalak K B Hedgewar on the future of Bharat. Gandhi had informed Sangh volunteers about his visit while addressing them in Delhi on September 16, 1947, and had hailed the RSS for its discipline and austerity,” an RSS functionary said.

He said on the invitation of the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru, over 3,000 Sangh volunteers had participated in the Republic Day parade in 1963.

