DESPITE its fulminations against the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leadership did not hesitate to enlist help from both the governments to celebrate its 75th ann iversary in style. By conservative estimates, the Rashtriya Suraksha Shivir cost about Rs.3 crores and a sizable chunk of the expenditure was met by government departments and agencies. The Uttar Pradesh government, led by the self-professed RSS activist Ram Prakash Gupta, was the major facilitator.
According to the RSS leadership, the shivir marked the largest gathering of pracharaks in recent times. More than 50,000 RSS volunteers from 25 districts of the Braj region were reported to have participated. Sangh Parivar activists say in confidence that the shivir was also the most opulent RSS meet ever.
Spread across an area of 180 hecatres outside a town called Shastripuram, the newly created township presented a contrast to Agra, where people live in congested bylanes and unclean mohallahs, with scant civic facilities. The new township had much better amenities, including 24-hour water and power supply, medical care and food outlets. There were 40 tent cities, each housing around 1,200 pracharaks. Separate enclosures with special facilities were provided for senior leaders. A 100-bed ho spital and a 10-bed dispensary outside each tent city, met medical needs.
Other attractions included pictorial exhibitions portraying the history of the RSS as also of India from the RSS perspective.
The township was built in a record time of four months. Its creation would "give a fillip to the government and the district administration to take better care of the area," according to Ashok Jain, treasurer of the BJP's Braj region and one of the chief organisers of the shivir.
The "transformation" of Shastripuram involved laying water pipelines from Agra city, among other steps. All this, however, did not go down well with a large number of residents of Agra city. Struggling to cope with erratic water supply, pot-holed roads a nd accumulating garbage, some of them complained that while the administration went out of the way to facilitate the holding of the shivir, their own basic needs remained unmet.
District and civic administration officials, however, denied this. Kishen Kant, the Delhi Pranth Prachar Pramukh of the RSS, also denied that the local administration had gone out of the way to help the conduct of the meet. " When an event of this scale is staged, with such mass participation, it is natural for the administration to help," he said.
Those who attended the shivir included the Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Social Research R.R. Mashelkar, Zee TV chief Subhash Chandra Goyal, television personalities Nitish Bhardwaj (who played Krishna in the serial Mahabharata ) and Dr. Chandra Prakash, who made the TV serial Chanakya, besides Ministers such as Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajnath Singh. VHP leaders Ashok Singhal and Acharya Giriraja Kishore were there too.
Major Dhan Singh Thapa, who was awarded the Param Veer Chakra for his services in the India-China War of 1962 and Mashelkar were honoured. Thapa for his contributions to national security and Mashelkar "for masterminding India's victory in the patent dis pute on turmeric in the international court".
Subhash Goyal said he had been close to Sangh branches since childhood and even today believed himself to be a swayamsevak. "I have seen the welfare activities of the Sangh for the poor, peasants and illiterate people, and rate it very highly," he added.
The local organisers of the shivir had claimed that A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Sonia Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lt Gen. (retd) J.S. Aurora would attend the session, but none of them came.
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