 Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 1: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has extended helping hand to the people of Jammu and Kashmir during 2014 devastating floods.
Teams of RSS workers were deployed in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir during that crucial time to minimize miseries of the people.
Authorities, who were carrying out relief operations in the flood-affected areas of Jammu and Kashmir at that time got a helping hand from the RSS. Workers from the RSS thronged state, carried out relief operations in all the three regions of the then State — Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The RSS’s Sewa Bharti, an organisation run by swayamsevaks, too had extended its help in the flood-hit regions. Hundreds of karyakartas worked day and night to rescue thousands of people trapped, arranging the last rites of the dead, building temporary shelter for the homeless, distributing blankets & warm clothes, medical aid etc.
Thousands’ of workers arranged relief camps. Those from the outside the tried to reach there as soon as possible and as closer to affected people as they can.
The road connectivity between Jammu and the Valley was snapped off but RSS workers took alternate routes to reach the affected areas.
Makarand R Paranjape, Director, IIAS, Shimla, in his write-up title “RSS & relief work: Building Hindu society through service”, highlighted role of RSS in social service.
“….The RSS offers an answer. It is neither a purely religious nor purely secular organisation. It straddles this divide by effectively combining both in a cultural-social practice that is devoted to nation-building. I would, unlike Bhattacharjee and other scholars, consider it among the last of the great Hindu movements which began in the late 18th century and continued right into the 20th century. Far from being revivalist, it is actually a Hindu social and cultural reform institution, with a comprehensive agenda. This is what explains its unique contribution and hold on Indian society”, he wrote in his article. |
