New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has strongly opposed the BJP’s plan to include Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) history in Delhi schools, warning that students must be taught the complete picture instead of a glorified narrative. At a press conference, AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj said education must reflect facts about the RSS’s role in Indian history.
Bharadwaj stated that while the social activities of the RSS could be included, the organisation’s political record should not be ignored. He pointed out that the RSS and its ideological parent, the Hindu Mahasabha, had no role in India’s freedom struggle. Instead, he said, both opposed the Quit India Movement in 1942 and encouraged Hindus to join the British Army during World War II.
He also highlighted the Hindu Mahasabha’s political alliances with the Muslim League in Bengal, Sindh, and the North-West Frontier Province during the 1940s, while leaders of the Congress were jailed. Bharadwaj noted that Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, was associated with both the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha.
Accusing the RSS of refusing to celebrate independence in 1947, he said the organisation did not hoist the national flag at its headquarters for more than five decades. He also criticized the RSS’s continuing influence on the BJP while it claims to be a cultural body.
On the inclusion of RSS in textbooks, Bharadwaj said, “If students learn the full history of leaders like Gandhi, Akbar, Ashoka, and even Hitler, then the complete history of RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, and Jan Sangh must also be taught. Selective teaching is misleading.”
AAP warned that one-sided teaching of RSS history would distort India’s struggle for independence and misguide future generations.
