Give it a Bharat Sanskriti-Approved Term: Tharoor, Owaisi Target Mohan Bhagwat Over Lynching Remark

New Delhi: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement on Tuesday describing lynching as a foreign phenomenon has evoked a strong reaction from opposition leaders.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor came down heavily on the Sarsanghchalak and said ‘a crime is a crime’ whether you call it with any ‘bharat culture-approved term’ or not.

Speaking to reporters in Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor’s parliamentary constituency, the Congress leader said, “The word ‘lynching’ happens to come from West which means action of a mob attacking an individual without trials. You can call it with any bharath sanskriti-approved term, it is still a horrible crime, a crime is a crime.”

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi also hit out at Bhagwat and alleged he was not trying to stop lynching incidents.

“The victims were Indians. Who garlanded convicts? Who draped them in (tricolour)? We’ve a Godse loving BJP MP. There can’t be a bigger defamation of India than ideology that killed Gandhi/Tabrez. Bhagwat isn’t saying stop lynching, he’s saying ‘don’t call it that’,”Owaisi tweeted.

Earlier in the day, the Sarsanghchalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Mohan Bhagwat, had said lynching does not have its origin in India and sought to dissociate Indian tradition and history from the “foreign” phenomenon found in other religious texts of the country.

Speaking at the Vijayadashami speech at RSS headquarters in Nagpur, Bhagwat said, “There is an attempt by some people to defame the country, to use its diversity to spark rows. The term being used these days is ‘lynching’ – it never happened in Bharat. What is the origin of this term, there is old story regarding it is found in other religions.”

Bhagwat emphasised that by branding such incidents as lynching and denoting traditions that were alien to ‘Bharat’, efforts were underway to defame the country and entire Hindu society. “They are trying to create fear among the so-called minority communities. We have to understand that such a conspiracy is also being hatched,” he said.