Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (TPDK) vice-president S. Doraisamy has filed an impleading petition in the Madras High Court objecting to a plea by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office-bearer to delete a sentence from the Class X social science textbook wherein it was stated that the Hindu Mahasabha as well as RSS had taken a “pronounced anti-Muslim stance” during the days that led to a partition of the country on religious lines.
Filing a detailed affidavit in support of his impleading petition, Mr. Doraisamy, 76, also an advocate, said deleting the sentence from the textbook would amount to not allowing schoolchildren to know a historical fact. “I state that the sentence in the above textbook is not false. It is a true historical fact. The younger generation should know the past history of the land,” the affidavit read. P. Chandrasekaran, secretary of Chennai chapter of RSS, had filed a writ petition early this month seeking deletion of the sentence on the ground that RSS had only opposed the partition of the country on religious lines and that it had been “falsely misinterpreted” to mean as if the organisation had taken an anti-Muslim stance.
“If such wrong messages are included in the textbook meant for school students, it will lower the image of the organisation,” he said.
Taking exception to the stand taken by the writ petitioner, the TPDK leader accused the RSS of having played a dubious role throughout the freedom struggle. “I state that the RSS did not participate in the freedom struggle. Their aim was to establish Manusmiriti Raj and no other person other than those who follows Hindu religion should live in India. All evidence points towards disruptive activities and the fact that the organisation was never a part of the freedom struggle.
“The RSS by declaring that Hindus are a separate nation has, in fact, been supplementing the two-nation theory as practised by the Muslim League. Both hold the same views about distinct characters and exclusiveness of Hindus and Muslims ... Savarkar, the great philosopher and guide of RSS not only propagated the two-nation theory but also entered into alliances with the Muslim League in order to break the Quit India Movement,” the impleading petitioner alleged.
