As a religion-based Census showed growth of Muslims was faster than Hindus, RSS on Friday said it will adopt a policy of persuasion through education to control population and quoted the ‘Quran’ to claim it favours small families for those who can’t afford to raise big ones.
The RSS also said that it is an favour of the current reservation policy but stressed that it should not be based on religion as it will be against the spirit of Constitution. RSS said the issue of population control needs to be made religion-neutral and its affiliates will persuade communities including Muslims to strive for smaller families. “We want persuasion through education. Our members of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch have made studies and found quotations from the Quran, where it has been stated that if you are unable to rear your family, its size should be kept small and should be limited to what you can raise.
“We feel it is a sage advice. It is a correct advice. This is the correct advice for every section of society. There is no other policy other than persuasion and we don’t want to repeat the Emergency days when things were done by force. Persuasion is the right way to do it,” RSS’s Delhi unit joint chief Alok Kumar told reporters. On the issue of reservation, he said, its aim was to lift such communities and sections that were under-privileged.
“We are in favour of the current reservation. But we don’t consider reservation should be religion based and not consider it as per the Constitution,” he said.
He said population policy should be religion-neutral, but steps need to be taken to check the imbalances. “I agree that population policy should remain religion-neutral. But where it has not been accepted, we feel persuasion efforts should be increased there. I want to re-emphasise that we have not raised any questions on the religion-neutral policy,” he said. “We feel there is a need to make all sections, especially the low-earning ones, understand that small family is for their good,” he said, adding that the Sangh will work on this and hoped the government will agree to its demands in taking effective steps to control population and remove imbalances.
On Minorities, he said the views of RSS are very clear as it feels that all citizens of the country enjoy equal fundamental rights. He said during the three-day meet at Ranchi recently, RSS called for control on population and remove the imbalances created due to increase in population of certain sections.
“Sangh is urging the governments to stop infiltration from borders, governments are working and society should be aware,” he said. He felt that infiltrators who cannot be pushed back immediately, their voting rights should be revoked so that they do not become votebanks.