RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said if India wished to carve its own identity vis-a-vis China, it should not forget the scars of the 1962 war.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today said if India wished to carve its own identity vis-a-vis China, it should not forget the scars of the 1962 war even though the present situation was different.
RSS has been critical of India's stand against China during the past few months which has witnessed increase in incursions by the neighbouring country in Arunachal Pradesh and which had also raised objections to prime minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the state.
"We (India) are in competition with them (China) ... scars should not always be forgotten," Bhagwat said.
Giving an analogy in which a driver insists on driving after meeting with an accident as he feels if he did not do so he would be afraid of driving in future, Bhagwat said, "Though the 1962 days were different, what has to be forgotten should be but what has to be remembered (scars) should not be forgotten ... There is a clash between India and China."
He said India should realise that after 1962 China had gained a lot in the international fora through good relations. India too should master the Chinese "Art of War" and gain power without going to war, he suggested.
Bhagwat said India should strive to carve a separate identity for itself instead of emulating China or US. "India should say it wants to become India," he said.
Bhagwat invoked Swami Vivekanand's thoughts to say that India was a power which could not keep itself aloof from international politics and should play a vital role in it.
However, he said honest debate and "merciless introspection" was very important for the country to progress.
He lamented that in India people debated for the sake of debating. The exercise should lead to some solution, he added.
Bhagwat said he was not opposed to democracy or debates.
"While India had known social untouchability, an ideological untouchability was now creeping in," he lamented.
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