VHP rejects Digvijaya's RSS-Taliban comparison; cites women representation in Union govt

VHP international working president Alok Kumar on Friday disapproved of senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh comparing the RSS to the Taliban. Contesting Singh's claim that the RSS holds a regressive view about working women, he pointed out that the current Narendra Modi-led government has included a number of women in the Union Council of Ministers. With 11 women MPs included in the government as part of the latest reshuffle, this is the highest representation for women in the Union Council of Ministers in the last 17 years.

Moreover, Kumar highlighted that Indian culture recognises the participation of women and also their leadership in all walks of life. He claimed, "Women have to shoulder substantial responsibility towards the family and children owing to their physiology. The Sarsanghachalak had mentioned this once but it does not have the intent that women should not come forward to contribute in the society". 

Digvijaya Singh's controversial remark on RSS

Stirring a controversy a day earlier, Digvijaya Singh equated the RSS to the Taliban citing a purported similarity in their views on working women. The terrorist group's takeover of Afghanistan has raised fears that it will reinforce the laws which prevailed during its erstwhile regime from 1996 to 2001 that include barring women from attending school and working outside the home. To justify his comparison, he quoted RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's speech at a gathering in Indore on January 5, 2013. 

On that occasion, PTI quoted Bhagwat as saying, "A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time, the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her."

After this statement led to an uproar, the then RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav clarified that Bhagwat had described the Indian marriage system as a very sacred institution in which the woman enjoyed a lot of respect. The Congress Rajya Sabha MP compared this mindset to Taliban spokesperson Sayed Zekrullah Hashimi's recent interview with TOLOnews wherein he stated that women should restrict themselves to giving birth. Moreover, Singh demanded clarity on whether the Centre will recognise the new dispensation in Afghanistan considering that it has a number of sanctioned terrorists.