RSS view of Hindi 50 years ago

New Delhi: BJP's ideological fount the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has campaigned for long for the promotion of Indian languages but has been careful to avoid being seen as a campaigner to make Hindi a unifying language or according it the status of a national language.

In December 1957, the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS MS Golwalkar in an interview to the Organiser spelt out his stand on the question of a national language.

"I consider all our languages as national languages. They are equally our national heritage. Hindi is one among them which, by virtue of its countrywide usage, has been adopted as the State Language.

It will be wrong to describe Hindi alone as the national language and others as provincial languages.

That would not be seeing things in the right perspective," Golwalkar said.

As it sets about increasing its own presence on the ground, the Sangh has been conscious of cultivating its own image as that of a pan Indian identity and not a Hindi-speaking outfit.

The design to propagate Indian languages and dialects helps the Sangh creates more space for its ideology and shatter the impression that BJP is a Hindi-heartland phenomenon with no takers beyond the Vindhyas.