THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has defended senior RSS functionary Dattatreya Hosabale's remarks advocating a dialogue window with Pakistan, saying he was talking about the people of the neighbouring country.
Responding to a question about RSS's view on remarks made by Hosabale in an interview in May, Bhagwat said the organisation would follow Union government's policy regarding the state of Pakistan.
"But there are a lot of people in Pakistan who believe the partition of Bharat was wrong and many journalists there praise RSS and its work. There is a distinct undercurrent there of people being anti-Pakistan and against the two-nation theory and they say living together was better," he said at an interactive session held here as part of the organisation's centenary celebration Saturday.
Bhagwat said if, in the future, India was to defeat Pakistan beyond repair, the people there would have to be brought into the fold of India or should be able to live peacefully in their own country. "For that, the doors of dialogue need to be kept open," the RSS chief said.
"We are not like Hitler. That is not our nature or our way. So we need to keep some doors open. We should vanquish injustice and tyranny, but we should also preserve what is good," he added. Bhagwat stressed that RSS had no independent foreign policy regarding any nation.
In the interview with PTI Videos, Hosabale, asked how India should deal with Pakistan and its continued sponsorship of terrorism, had said, "The security and self-respect of a country have to be protected and government of the day should take care of it. But at the same time, we need not close the doors. We should always be ready to engage them in a dialogue." He was asked how India should deal with Pakistan and its continued sponsorship of terrorism.
